A mythmaker of the highest order, China Mieville has emblazoned the fantasy novel with fresh language, startling images, and stunning originality. Set in the same sprawling world of Mieville's Arthur C. Clarke Award-winning novel, Perdido Street Station, this latest epic introduces a whole new cast of intriguing characters and dazzling creations. Aboard a vast seafaring vessel, a band of prisoners and slaves, their bodies remade into grotesque biological oddities, is being transported to the fledgling colony of New Crobuzon. But the journey is not theirs alone. They are joined by a handful of travelers, each with a reason for fleeing the city. Among them is Bellis Coldwine, a renowned linguist whose services as an interpreter grant her passage--and escape from horrific punishment. For she is linked to Isaac Dan der Grimnebulin, the brilliant renegade scientist who has unwittingly unleashed a nightmare upon New Crobuzon.For Bellis, the plan is clear: live …
A mythmaker of the highest order, China Mieville has emblazoned the fantasy novel with fresh language, startling images, and stunning originality. Set in the same sprawling world of Mieville's Arthur C. Clarke Award-winning novel, Perdido Street Station, this latest epic introduces a whole new cast of intriguing characters and dazzling creations. Aboard a vast seafaring vessel, a band of prisoners and slaves, their bodies remade into grotesque biological oddities, is being transported to the fledgling colony of New Crobuzon. But the journey is not theirs alone. They are joined by a handful of travelers, each with a reason for fleeing the city. Among them is Bellis Coldwine, a renowned linguist whose services as an interpreter grant her passage--and escape from horrific punishment. For she is linked to Isaac Dan der Grimnebulin, the brilliant renegade scientist who has unwittingly unleashed a nightmare upon New Crobuzon.For Bellis, the plan is clear: live among the new frontiersmen of the colony until it is safe to return home. But when the ship is besieged by pirates on the Swollen Ocean, the senior officers are summarily executed. The surviving passengers are brought to Armada, a city constructed from the hulls of pirated ships, a floating, landless mass ruled by the bizarre duality called the Lovers. On Armada, everyone is given work, and even Remades live as equals to humans, Cactae, and Cray. Yet no one may ever leave.Lonely and embittered in her captivity, Bellis knows that to show dissent is a death sentence. Instead, she must furtively seek information about Armada's agenda. The answer lies in the dark, amorphous shapes that float undetected miles below the waters--terrifying entities with a singular, chilling mission. . . .China Mieville is a writer for a new era--and The Scar is a luminous, brilliantly imagined novel that is nothing short of spectacular.From the Trade Paperback edition.
Another banger of a story. This novel stands mostly alone from Perdito Street Station, but there is no reason not to read them in order. I found the pacing perfect, not revealing too much but not boring you waiting for the good parts.
Books like The Scar are examples of why people have to read over sitting passively in front of a TV or movie screen. There's no way that this kind of book could be turned into moving pictures without reducing it to cheap tricks that attempt to make the imagery that Mieville brings forth acceptable to a wider audience.
Thankfully, this is not the kind of book that a "wider audience" would enjoy. Mieville is very much a pro at world-building. One of the hallmarks of this high-style of "urban fantasy" is to make sure the reader recognizes the environment both as geography AND as a character in the story. The book isn't overdone with flowery description in the Anne Rice vein, thankfully. It's both the description that we DO have, combined with the cadence of the writing, that sets each scene. These descriptions and the writing style felt very much …
Books like The Scar are examples of why people have to read over sitting passively in front of a TV or movie screen. There's no way that this kind of book could be turned into moving pictures without reducing it to cheap tricks that attempt to make the imagery that Mieville brings forth acceptable to a wider audience.
Thankfully, this is not the kind of book that a "wider audience" would enjoy. Mieville is very much a pro at world-building. One of the hallmarks of this high-style of "urban fantasy" is to make sure the reader recognizes the environment both as geography AND as a character in the story. The book isn't overdone with flowery description in the Anne Rice vein, thankfully. It's both the description that we DO have, combined with the cadence of the writing, that sets each scene. These descriptions and the writing style felt very much like the SCORE of the book.