It’s been a fortnight since I went to hear China Miéville – the Boss – on ‘Visions of London’. I should have waited for the transcript*, but I know what I heard and it had an awkward question mark on it. I couldn’t wait to decide whether I was there under false pretences. China Miéville is my Boss, don’t get me wrong, it wasn’t the ultimate blasphemy of turning up among the faithful and being totally faithless.
What bothered me was the question about people jumping on a bandwagon. I know there are bookshelves called simply “London” where urban fantasy sits alongside history, guidebooks, social satire, litfic, everything about the amorphous mass of London-ness. I know because I’ve just seen a picture of one on Twitter. At some point, though, the idea came up that has had me thinking hard for a fortnight.
It was about urban fantasy cashing in on the new bookshelf and setting the new book in London, although your writer’s fifth stomach resides in Dorking because, hey, it’s going to be a while before there’s a bookshelf in major bookstores labelled
Dorking
Since I’ve got hold of a copy of China Miéville’s completely fictionless, political polemic London’s Overthrow I’ve been even more worried about my London urban fantasy.
Is it true dat? China Miéville’s most “London” fiction he said, is Kraken, and although I’ve still got some digging to do, I was struck by how “London” the characters were. I recognized them not only by a resemblance to relatives who were Londoners, but the grin on the violence, the humorous take on the impossible, beautiful and appalling though it can be. And in Kraken it mostly is. The London of London’s Overthrow is there in Kraken which means although Miéville was kind about the authors jumping on the urban London fantasy bandwagon, he’s a true believer.
I don’t need the credentials of background, length of time living in London, but I do have to have reasons for setting an urban fantasy in London greater than a bookshelf.
If it wasn’t the Worst Crime, next time I might take the advice of someone in the queue for book signing a fortnight ago and ask China Miéville when I reach him to, please, read my book. Is it a London-based urban fantasy for a really, really good reason?
* If any of this turns out to be me making things up when the transcript arrives, it’ll change.
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