There’s potentially a lot to like about this book – 28 ‘stories’, relatively unconnected and many of which have never appeared outside this collection. Some of the stories here are little more than a page, whilst others are about twenty pages or so.
What I can say is that Three Moments displays an impressive range and a vivid imagination at work, as befitting one of the genre’s enfant terribles.
Conversely, Three Moments of an Explosion is also frustrating and annoying by turns, for some tales tend to be little more than fragments, mood pieces with no real beginning or ending of merit – written in that post-modern, knowing way that will both impress and annoy.
I must admit that I preferred the more traditional format myself – those stories with a beginning, a middle and a logical end, surprise, surprise. I liked most In the Slopes, a tale of archaeology and preservation, and Sacken, a supernatural Hammer-Horror style story set in Europe that is not really unexpected but pleasingly well done. Covehithe reads like a mash-up between Lovecraft’s Innsmouth and Quatermass II, and none the worse for it. So too Keep (no The), a wonderfully strange story of strange covert goings-on beneath a house, in a Laundry Files kind of way that would perhaps make a good movie.
There were a few that reminded me of other authors. The 9th Technique is all very new Weird in a contemporary Lovecraft-ian kind of way, and was appreciated for that. The Dusty Hat is rather mindful of Neil Gaiman. The Junket, with its contemporary Hollywood references, made me think of Kim Newman’s work.
As you might expect from China, not all of the material presented here is of a traditional format, and some of the shorter prose items can be regarded as more ‘experimental’. The title story is just three paragraphs with no discernible plot, which, as the first tale read in the collection, begins the book as a determinedly bold statement of intent but which left me strangely impressed and yet cold.
Some of those tales, frankly, I just didn’t get, and just made me go “Huh?” at the end. Polynia is a story about giant icebergs appearing in London that starts really well, but then seems to stop without explanation. The same can be said about The Dowager of Bees, a story about gambling that just doesn’t seem to go anywhere, and Watching God which has some wonderfully vivid imagery but defies logic.
Some of the parts (Three Moments of an Explosion, Rules, A Second Slice Manifesto) seemed to be fragments of something that should be bigger – notes that are left, unformed, but could lead to something else. There are some that are in the form of movie trailers (The Crawl, Escapee), which didn’t really do much for me. I suspect that my disappointment may be more a sign of my own personal limits rather than a fault on the part of the author. However, just in case, you have been warned.
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One of the very first reviews I did for SFFWorld was a review of China’s last collection, Looking for Jake, back in 2005. I enjoyed it a lot.
If nothing else, Three Moments shows us how far an author can stretch and grow in a decade – the range of weirdness here is bigger, the skill of writing more apparent, the techniques more confident, the cumulative effect perhaps even greater.
China is still supremely good at creating a situation, a place which seems wonderfully normal – until it isn’t. It is to China’s credit that there’s a lot here, varied in style, and tone. Generally these are more straightforward than his novel work, but also paradoxically more enigmatic.
And yet I’m not sure I enjoyed it quite as much as Looking for Jake. There’s clearly a lot of literary noodling going on here, some of which shows China’s skill in setting a mood and reflecting his vivid imagination, whilst others could be admired for their parts rather than as a whole. It reads like the author is trying lots of things before settling on any one thing in particular.
This collection shows us how far things have moved on in the genre in the last decade. Whereas China was a fairly unusual voice in 2005, from the perspective of 2015 my feeling is that what we have here is good, but now less of a singular voice and now one of many new voices clamouring to be heard. It’s good, at times great, but often less memorable than it used to be.
In summary, Three Moments will be greeted by some with enthusiasm, whilst others will equally find as much to prove their dislike. As a collection of stories it is interesting, engaging, beguiling, irritating and bewitching, sometimes all at once. And that is not something to be sniffed at or discouraged, in a world where the genres often veer towards the formulaic.
A curate’s egg, then (if not a Buzzard’s Egg, to copy one of the titles here): but definitely worth a perusal.
Three Moments of An Explosion: Stories by China Mieville
Published by Pan Macmillan, July 2015
432 pages
ISBN: 978 0 230 77017 1
Review by Mark Yon
