Ask China Miéville anything you want about "The City & The City"

Hi China -

A few questions: First, I’m wondering if you took any inspiration from Ernest Mandel's book on the detective novel, Delightful Murder? Mandel talks about the question of "fairness" for the reader—not withholding evidence from them so they have an equal chance at solving the crime. One of the things I liked quite a bit about the way you brought us along with Borlu was that we weren't always privy to everything he was thinking, but you still "played fair" with us. Just wondering if you can comment on that a bit, and your approach to what readers should be able to see of Borlu’s thought processes?

Second: One of the things I really enjoy about your books is that the politics are there, but feel always organic to the story trajectory and form, never tacked on or wooden (I love, in particular, the descriptions of the strikes in Perdido and Kraken.) No one in The City and the City ever has to make a lengthy exposition on "combined and uneven development" or "alienation"—but people familiar with those concepts might certainly have them in mind on reading. As an active socialist, how do you approach the question of politics in your writing? Are you particularly conscious of trying to share your politics with your readers when you write? Or does that not factor in?

Lastly, in the IO9 open thread discussion of the book, one of the things that kept coming up was the idea of fantasy vs. fact. It seemed like there was a crop of readers who were somewhat disappointed by the reveal about the rather non-fantastical nature of Breach, the reveal of the non-discovery of Orciny, etc. Some folks seemed very disappointed that there was no straight-up magic. I felt, however, like it was actually a pretty interesting comment about the nature of ideology in the construction of national and personal identity. (Especially with the question of the nationalists and unificationists, both of whom seemed to bolster the existing order in some ways...acting as "safety valves" of the system at various points of tension?) As one of the few ardent left-wing defenders of fantasy as a genre, how much did you go into this thinking of it as a potential fantasy novel? Did that concept change as you wrote?