Three Moments of an Explosion

Multiaward-winning fantasy and sf writer Miéville (Perdido Street Station) offers a set of fantastical stories all wrapped in a veil of normalcy. In this collection the ordinary—vacations, psychotherapy—and the extraordinary—revolutionary internecine fighting—are given a twist away from average expectations. For instance, in the title story building demolitions are used as a new form of advertising in conjunction with a fresh type of sport. The nagging plausibility that invades these stories are found even in the most imaginative of them, such as "The Dowager of Bees," in which playing cards feature hidden suits that reconfigure the game and exact a toll on the player. Adding to the volume's normal-but-not-normal feel, the author places his readers in the middle of his tales with no backstory to explain the jargon and setup—take "Syllabus," for example, an actual outline for a class in which echo figures are forbidden and students debate the success of privatizing sickness. Finally, these stories don't feature hard science but rather a possibility, an idea, a retake on the actual to be replaced by the what if.