"I’m writing [...] because I passionately love monsters..."

The online literary magazine, Believer, has an (older) interview with one of my current favorite authors, China Miéville. For those of you unfamiliar with his work, think dark, weird fantasy. Really dark. Really weird. The interviewer describes it as "...Middle Earth meets Dickensian London on really good acid." I can't personally speak to the wonders of the lysergic spectrum, good or otherwise, but that characterization probably isn't too far off. From the interview:

I’m a science fiction and fantasy geek. I love this stuff. And when I write my novels, I’m not writing them to make political points. I’m writing them because I passionately love monsters and the weird and horror stories and strange situations and surrealism, and what I want to do is communicate that. But, because I come at this with a political perspective, the world that I’m creating is embedded with many of the concerns that I have. But I never let them get in the way of the monsters.

From an earlier piece Miéville authored for The Guardian:

I'm in this business for the monsters. My single favourite monsters are the beastmen in The Island of Doctor Moreau. I love the octopoid creatures and the giant swine spirit in William Hope Hodgson. I have a lot of time for pig monsters. I've always liked being terrified of monsters from underwater coming up, like the Creature from the Black Lagoon. There's a picture of Beatrix Potter's Jeremy Fisher with the trout about to bite his foot and he hasn't seen it yet. Completely terrifying.

Wikipedia page on Miéville here. Worthless corporate publisher's page here. Full text of Guardian piece here.