In addition to their striking appearance, the Ariekei make use of a grotesque “biorigged” technology to build their cities. chimeras of our own baggage.” Breaking this down, they have hooves, fan-like wings, a carapace and eyes that float about on what look like stalks of coral. Ariekei is home to a type of creature (the Ariekei, also known as “Hosts”) described by the human colonists as “insect-horse-coral-fan things. The place is Embassytown, a city on the planet Ariekei. Hat is our introduction to a science fiction fable about language. Richards and the theorists Paul Ricoeur and Tran Duc Thao, a pair of nearly incomprehensible philosophers of language who were briefly popular among French post-structuralist academics back in the days when such things were trendy. Here Miéville names three dead writers he feels “particularly grateful to.” These are not, however, stars of the SF pantheon, but rather the literary critic I. Known as someone who likes to think outside the genre box, his new novel, Embassytown, announces one such new direction in its preliminary Acknowledgments.

British author China Miéville is arguably the hottest property in science fiction today, having written a number of bestselling, critically acclaimed novels that have swept all of the major SF awards.

Embassytown by china miéville