Before They Were Giants (16 page)

“Who is there?” He yelled.

“Nyaar, kill . . . !” a hoarse voice screamed, and quatrey vulv’vreens leapt into sight. Their tails swished and thrumped the ground, menacingly. “Mmeeeeaaatt!” said yoon. “Gruun . . . Hungggerrful!” screamed the same yoon. They all holded clubbers in their forepands. They advanced.

With a yell, yoon attacked Alzabeph. She dodged, and full of savaery, sheathed her zord in the beestee, then gasped with horror. The blood stained her zord. The vulv’vreen choked as the starg venn’m took effect. The others were not so lukful. The last thing Alzabeph vidded before the clubber hit the back of her kneck, was Fredrig and Peetra falling. Then the sleep of nonconshusfiillness hit her.

~ * ~

The premier thing that Peetra vidded as he woke, was the kindly looking old mascule beinding over him concemfully.

“Ah. Awake. Yes.” The mascule nodded his head wisenessfully. “No. Don’t move. Too tired. Tough fight. Yes.”

“Who... ?”

“Philipson. James B. At... erm... your service, Sir!” The masculer tongue was novi, with novi verbs, and strange pauses. But it was understandable. “Ah. One moment. Yes. Friends. Your Friends wake.” And he approached the other dorr, lying some distance away. Peetra saw he was in a plus large casser. But their host was speaking:

“Now. Yes. Hello. I am James Philipson. I am your friend. Or amico. As you say. You, I suppose, are wondering how you are ... here. Yes?” They murmered assent.

“Yes. I also, erm, have. A gun, yes. I have one. And the were wolves are ... dead. Yes. But now. Important. Who are ... you?” he asked. He looked at Alzabeph, who shook her head helplessly.

“She no voice has. Radioness clogs her tongue,” explained Peetra.

“Ah. Yes. Of course, a mutant.” His voice softened. “Poor girl.”

“We are of the warrer tribe, the Harwar-sixchyun. . .”

“That will do. Tell me, is there a road in your village?”

“R-road?”

“I mean, via?”

“Yes. A nigrer yoon, with a blanch line dividing it.”

“Ah ... I see. Do you know where the name Harwar-sixchyun comes from?”

“No.”

“Ah. Well. Many years ago, the world was full of people. Powerful people. With fantastic engines, music, and a magical life source, called Elektrersiti. With this power, they could do almost anything. But. They made another power. Called Nyookliah power. Stronger than Elektrersiti. But more deadly. With an evil effect, and side-power, called Radioactervisness, which warped, and killed people. They made big bombs, which are like huge bullets, which burst over big places. These bombs were full of Radioactervisness. ‘Defence.’ Now. At that time, the world was split up. Into big countries. Where we are, was called Ham’riga. We were ruled by an Evil sorcerer, called Ronaltarraycun. He had one big enemy called ‘The Red Warriors of the Sorfiet Unified.’ They were led by Shrerninkhof. Ronaltarraycun had a bad woman as an allie from across the water, from the isles of Britaly. She was known as the ‘woman of iron.’ But her true name was Murgisfatshur. One day the two evil sorcerers ganged against the valiant red warriors. They thew big bombs. So the red warriors threw them back. They ruined the Earth.

“That was a thousand years ago. We have lost civilization. But I cling to it. My name you see. From a true civilized name. Oh, and of names . . . the ‘Harwar-Sixchyun’ comes from this. In those days, they had magic riding things, of iron and steel, called ‘automobiles.’ These ran on big vias called roads. The bigger road were called ‘ Highways’ and these were numbered. You, Peter. Count to ten ... sorry, dizz.”

“Yoon, dorr, trey, quatry, sank, siz, set, och, non, dizz.”

“You see. The tongue has been perverted. Anyway. Back then, they said ‘Sizzy-yoon,’ as ‘Sixty-one,’ and used it as foundations for the village. And you, my dear Alzabeph. Ah,” his voice was soft. “Yes. You see, today, still, there are bomb remnants, occasionally, radioactervisness finds its way to a mother’s womb, and does its evil deed. You are a victim. But do not fear. I think. . . you will prevail.” He turned to address them all.

“But now, I have something serious to say. I have searched for such followers. You shall do great work!”

All could sense that he was excited about something. He leaned forward eagerful.

“You. . .” A sigiter whistled through an open freetrer. “Hhnaaa. . .’’He made an Evil sound as the styel tipped cap’t penetred his Luvorgan, ceasing the nev-erstop pumping.

Fredrig and Peetra grabbed their zords. Alzabeph hesited. Since the vulv’vreen died at her rakers, she had been sick at the thought. More Mort, she stand could not. . .

But it vidded as though she would be spared. Instead of ripping and secreting for meat, the vulv’vreens rushed away. . . Gleenessfully.

“Appears it not, amicae, he was the target of their evil? Aaah, but life is sweet, it takes mort to realize how plus so,” stated Fredrig, mournessly.

“But we should get on,” said Peetra, “Sleep-cycle approaches.”

They stepped onto the road.

As they approached the setting sol, the last lines of her unfinished poem ran through Alzabeph’s mind:

~ * ~

“Sol-cycle has gone.

Sleep-cycle has come.

What will new day hold for me?

Whateverso beit,

Bon or non,

I will accept it, Joyfully…”

~ * ~

China Miéville

ritish author China Miéville made a splashy entrance in 1998 with his first novel,
King Rat,
which was nominated for Bram Stoker and International Horror Guild awards, and quickly followed up with
Perdido Street Station,
which won the Arthur C. Clarke and British Fantasy awards and introduced readers to his popular world of Bas-Lag. Since then he has gone on to win both awards again, as well as a Locus Award, and been nominated for a host of others with each new novel he publishes.

Both on the page and off it, China Miéville isn’t afraid to rattle a few cages in striving for change and progress. Describing his own work as “weird fiction,” Miéville is viewed by many as a spokesman for the New Weird literary movement, attempting to broaden modern fantasy and help steer the genre away from the Tolkien pastiches that sometimes characterize it. His novels often contain strong political threads—unsurprisingly, seeing as Miéville holds a Ph.D. in international law. Outspoken and politically active himself, Miéville has stood for the House of Commons for the Socialist Alliance, and even published a book-length version of his doctoral thesis,
Between Equal Rights: A Marxist Theory of International Law,
though he is careful to stress that he does not expect anyone to actually read it.

When this anthology was originally compiled, Miéville was asked if he would allow the inclusion of “Looking for Jake,” the story that all online and print sources at the time named as his first published work. Instead, he responded with “Highway 61 Revisited,” a childhood tale so obscure that only he still remembered it, and which had never been collected since its original publication in 1986. It is precisely this sort of discovery—and the generous authorial commentary that accompanies it—which was the original inspiration for
Before They Were Giants.

Looking back, what do you think still works well in this story? Why?

It’s a little difficult to say whether anything in particular “works well,” because when you’re dealing with stories written by child writers, I think the rules genuinely are different. Funnily enough, I was just in Warwick University (where I teach creative writing), doing a lesson on Jane Gaskell’s book
Strange Evil,
and we were talking about exactly this, because she wrote it when she was 14. We were also discussing Daisy Ashford’s book
The Young Visiters (sic),
from when she was nine. The thing is that what those pieces of writing have, I think, at their best, is a sort of reasonably unmediated relationship with their own obsessions.

What I like about this story, still, is that it is a bit pell-mell, completely in itself. There’s very little “face” in children’s writing. I also still like the invented language, and the animals that desperately try to talk to the characters. And I like the politics, with some reservations (I was never the kind of Stalinophile that story would suggest—I was just trying to answer
Rambo-e
sque propaganda by making the usual baddies the goodies). But I like the fact that there’s a kind of wide-eyed but heartfelt politics to it. And RonaltaRaycun, or however I spelled it—the odd spellings, punnings, etc. still work for me.

If you were writing this today, what would you do differently? What are the story’s weaknesses, and how would you change them?

Nothing. I think the story is a perfect jewel in which nothing needs changing . . . right?

Speaking as an adult writer, there are 10,000 things wrong with this story. Its plot is, um, cursory. Its characterization is, uh, broad-brush. Its theme is, well, not the
most
original. Its embedded politics are, say, a tad naive. Its attitudes to women are, shall we say, somewhat sickly sacralizing. Etc.

I was twelve. I. Was.
Twelve.

That doesn’t mean I’m ashamed of it. I’m not, at all. I have vast affection for this story. I love the language, I love the gusto, I love that I gave a shit about it, I love that it has a sense of the sort of weird that I always loved, I love the first sentence, I love that it includes a non-Roman pictographic alphabet. But yeah, it has a flaw or two. I doubt Hollywood will come doorknocking.

What inspired this story? How did it take shape? Where was it initially published?

This story is a combination of two influences that I hadn’t actually had directly. Someone had described to me the book
Riddley Walker
by Russel Hoban, which is post-apocalyptic but written in a new language, and I hadn’t read it yet (I did, but not for many years) but thought it was a great idea, so tried to do my own version. And the title, “Highway 61 Revisited,” was obviously the Bob Dylan song, but it was set by a teacher—I hadn’t heard the song, and didn’t for many years. So that story is a naive and sincere triangulation between two important cultural touchstones that I had never actually encountered.

So we got set the assignment by an English teacher, who gave us the title, and as I say, I riffed off the idea of this book that I’d heard about—I was reading
loads
of post-apocalypse fiction, loved the shit out of it—and thought about this highway in the middle of a post-apoc tribe. When my teacher got it and really liked it, he entered it for this competition, which was run in conjunction by the publisher Macmillan and the stationers chain in the UK, WH Smith, called the Young Writers of the Year, which was kind of a big competition for children writers during the ‘80s. And it ended up after a long time being one of the prize winners, and the prize was a check and publication in this anthology that they put out every year of all the winners. So I guess technically it doesn’t count as a
sale,
but a prize. Am I still eligible for this anthology? Can I stay?

Where were you in your life when you published this piece, and what kind of impact did it have?

That’s an interesting question. It’s difficult to know, exactly, because it was such a long time ago. But I think—I
think,
I hope I’m not post-facto reconstructing—that it was the kind of validation that probably made me think I could actually do this a bit.

Having said which ... I don’t recall it having an
explicit
impact like that in my head. I don’t remember sitting down and thinking, “this is it, I can/ must/will be a writer, this proves it.” I’m not saying I didn’t say that to myself, but I don’t remember it. But I think I kind of metabolized it as something really great, that changed the way I thought about what I was doing. And also because a lot of the reviews of the book singled the story out, which was lovely—although in truth, I think that was partly because many of the reviewers were not SF readers, so the story probably looked more original to them than maybe it was. Fuck it, they can’t take it back now. Tough.