“Three Moments of an Explosion” by China Mieville – A Celebration of the Enigmatic

I'm certain that at this point, no matter what your system of belief and morality is, you've come to the great conclusion that this world is a strange one, and it feels as if there will never be an end to the bizarre phenomenons we are incapable of explaining.

Most of us choose to press onwards and not pay too much attention to that, taking it one day at a time and trying to keep things as normal as possible, both inside and outside ourselves.

However, there are other people out there who prefer to take a completely different approach to that, instead embracing all the weirdness they can find, and even take it further, to as far an extreme as possible. China Mieville is an author who definitely fits that description, even being a founder of the “New Weird” literature group/wave/movement, whichever expression you prefer.

Recently, Mieville decided to publish a collection of short stories as a sort of celebration of the enigmatic weirdness surrounding us, titled Three Moments of an Explosion. There is a total of 28 stories, and none of them had been published before, so fans of the author can certainly rejoice in so much new and juicy material.

So what sorts of stories can you expect to find in there? For starter, they're all spread out across various genres, including science-fiction, horror, surrealism, and general fantasy. Though all the stories have weird and bizarre elements to them (sometimes defying all explanation), Mieville knows where to stop things from spinning out of control into the utterly ridiculous.

He doesn't make things strange and revolting for the mere sake of doing it; rather, his goal is to captivate the reader and keep him on his toes with some strange elements. Some of them are funny, others a bit more thrilling and suspenseful, but no matter what they never really feel heavy in any way, whether through their events or subject matter.

In my opinion this book really only has one weak point, and it's the fact that some of the stories here clearly weren't meant for public consumption, but were rather writing exercises for the author alone.

Some of the two or three-page stories feel more like scripts, drafts or sometimes hardly comprehensible lists... briefly-explained, they are experiments, and not all of them are successful.

On the flip side of the coin, these stories really do last only a couple of pages, so you can easily get through them or not have to worry about missing out on anything after having skipped them.

All things taken into consideration, Three Moments of an Explosion is a superb collection of short stories that stray off the beaten path, even if just a little bit, and strike the perfect balance between depth, readability and entertainment.

Regardless of what type of literature you are into, you'll definitely find at least a few stories to love, a few stories that will sink their hooks into you and make you dying to know just what's really happening.

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China Mieville Personal site China Mieville is an English writer from the United Kingdom who specializes in fantasy fiction, comic and academic writings. He belongs to a loose group of writers referred to as “New Weird”. He wrote numerous works of both fiction, such as King Rat , Embassytown, and non-fiction such as Between Equal Rights and Pathfinder Chronicles.