• China Miéville celebrates 25 years since his breakthrough novel "Perdido Street Station"
  • He criticizes tech billionaires who misread science fiction as blueprints rather than reflections of present anxieties
  • Miéville has a major new novel coming in 2025 that he's been working on for over 20 years

As "Perdido Street Station" marks its 25th anniversary with a sold-out collector's edition from The Folio Society, China Miéville reflects on the novel that launched his career and introduced readers to the fantastical city of New Crobuzon, populated with insect-headed khepri and dream-devouring slake moths.

The groundbreaking work helped spark the "new weird" movement, blending science fiction, fantasy and horror in ways that challenged genre conventions.

"I always loved the fantastic, but I did not much like a lot of the commercially massive fantasies," Miéville explains. "I was never much of a [J.R.R.] Tolkien fan."

Since "Perdido," Miéville has continued genre-bending with novels like "The City and The City" and last year's bestseller "The Book of Elsewhere," co-written with actor Keanu Reeves.

He's also working on a major new novel he's been crafting for over 20 years, scheduled for release next year.

Discussing sci-fi's growing mainstream acceptance, Miéville acknowledges both benefits and drawbacks.

"The more high profile it is, the more you're going to get sort of sub-par stuff coming in, among the other really good stuff," he notes. "It's going to become commodified."

Miéville is particularly critical of tech billionaires who treat science fiction as a blueprint rather than what he sees as reflections of contemporary anxieties.

He argues that it's always about now. It's always a reflection. It's a kind of fever dream, and it's always about its own sociological context.

The author expresses concern about Silicon Valley leaders who seem "more interested in settling Mars than sorting out the world," calling it "societal and personal derangement."

However, he refuses to blame science fiction itself for this phenomenon: "It's not science fiction that's causing this kind of sociopathy. Sorry to be hack, but it's capitalism."

While Miéville values radical storytelling, he rejects the notion that better science fiction alone can fix these misreadings;

"I don't think there is a story we can tell which someone who — because of the structural position they're in — I don't think there's a story we can tell that they are not going to be able to say, 'Yes, what this tells me is, I should make loads of money and be fantastically powerful, whatever it takes.'"

Miéville bluntly assesses social media, saying it is making us sick and that it is destroying our brains.

Edited by Annette George