Miéville has indicated that he hopes to write a novel in every genre, and to this end has constructed an oeuvre that is indebted to genre styles ranging from classic American Western (in
Iron Council) to sea-quest (in
The Scar) to detective noir (in
The City & the City). Yet Miéville's various works all describe worlds or scenarios that are fantastical or supernatural and thus his work is generally categorized as fantasy: Miéville has listed M. John Harrison, Michael de Larrabeiti, Michael Moorcock, Thomas Disch, Charles Williams, Tim Powers, and J.G. Ballard as literary "heroes"; he has also frequently discussed as influences H. P. Lovecraft, Mervyn Peake, and Gene Wolfe. He has said that he would like his novels "to read for [his imagined city] New Crobuzon as Iain Sinclair does for London." Miéville played a great deal of
Dungeons & Dragons and similar roleplaying games in his youth, and includes a specific nod to characters interested "only in gold and experience" in
Perdido Street Station as well as a general tendency to systematization of magic and technology which he traces to this influence. In fact, in the February 2007 issue of
Dragon Magazine, the world presented in his books was interpreted into
Dungeons & Dragons rules and on February 19, 2008 it was announced that Adamant Entertainment will be developing an RPG based on the Bas-Lag universe. In 2010, Miéville made his first foray into writing for RPGs with a contribution to the
Pathfinder Roleplaying Game supplement
Guide to the River Kingdoms.
Miéville has explicitly attempted to move fantasy away from J. R. R. Tolkien's influence, which he has criticized as stultifying and reactionary (he once described Tolkien as "the wen on the arse of fantasy literature"). This project is perhaps indebted to Michael de Larrabeiti's
Borrible Trilogy, which Miéville has cited as one of his biggest influences and for which Miéville wrote an introduction for the trilogy's 2002 reissue. The introduction was eventually left out of the book, but is now available on de Larrabeiti's website. Miéville's position on the genre is also indebted to Moorcock, whose essay "Epic Pooh" Miéville has cited as the source upon which he is "riffing" or even simply "cheerleading" in his critique of Tolkien-imitative fantasy.
Miéville's left-wing politics are evident in his writing (particularly in
Iron Council, his third Bas-Lag novel) as well as his theoretical ideas about literature; several panel discussions at convention about the relationship of politics and writing which set him against right-wingers ended up in heated arguments. He has, however, stated that: