The City & the City

Paperback, 336 pages

English language

Published April 26, 2010 by Del Rey.

ISBN:
978-0-345-49752-9
Copied ISBN!
OCLC Number:
436030058

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4 stars (147 reviews)

When a murdered woman is found in the city of Beszel, somewhere at the edge of Europe, it looks to be a routine case for Inspector Tyador Borlú of the Extreme Crime Squad. To investigate, Borlú must travel from the decaying Beszel to its equal, rival, and intimate neighbor, the vibrant city of Ul Qoma.

But this is a border crossing like no other, a journey as psychic as it is physical, a seeing of the unseen. With Ul Qoman detective Qussim Dhatt, Borlú is enmeshed in a sordid underworld of nationalists intent on destroying their neighboring city, and unificationists who dream of dissolving the two into one.

As the detectives uncover the dead woman’s secrets, they begin to suspect a truth that could cost them more than their lives. What stands against them are murderous powers in Beszel and in Ul Qoma: and, most terrifying of all, that which …

8 editions

Review of 'The City & the City' on 'Goodreads'

5 stars

Is it a fantasy novel, a science fiction novel, or a crime novel? Sure. Why not?

It's nigh impossible to discuss this modern classic in any detail without spoiling some vital piece of the narrative. The premise is simple to explain, although fairly difficult to imagine: what if two cities, for reasons lost to history, both reside in the same geographic area, sharing some streets and even some parks and buildings, but being legally and technically different countries? And, what if they had taken that to the extreme of making it illegal to even recognize the buildings, people, and infrastructure, the sounds and even the smells, of the "foreign" city? People may live physically next door to each other, yet for cultural reasons be forced to "unsee" each other as they pass in the street.

And then someone gets murdered, and it's unclear who has jurisdiction, or if anyone does. …

Review of 'The City & The City' on 'Storygraph'

4 stars

THE CITY & THE CITY is a detective story in a strange but non-magical setting which manages to feel as off-kilter and wondrous as some fantasy worlds, but without the level of vivid detail that would usually imply. 

I love the immersive world-building in THE CITY & THE CITY. This was my second time reading it, and I caught the little hints that I didn't know how to place or didn't understand the importance of the first time I read it. The interplay between the city and the city is too interesting of a thing to spoil here, suffice it to say that there is a definite sense of place in the book. I appreciated the finicky bureaucracy and red tape bound up in this premise. It has a singular focus on the MC and his understanding of events as he tries to solve a woman's murder in his city. …

Review of 'The City & the City' on 'Goodreads'

5 stars

This book was nothing like I was expecting, as a winner of an Arthur C. Clarke Award I was expecting a cracking good Sci-Fi story, I was really disappointed. The Sci-Fi aspect is dull and repetitive, how many times can you mention that somebody has to unsee something that exists in another city? Plenty loads according to this book.

The last line of the blurb mentions Philip K. Dick and Raymond Chandler and that is spot on. There is the futuristic feeling from Dick, the poor, the punks, sinister policing and the rich controlling everything. Heavy influences from Chandler are there too in the fantastic detectives Tyador Borlú and Qussim Dhatt, some real gritty guys. You witness them slowly unravel a very complex case, up against tough odds. Just to prove how good a detective story this is, Borlú's boss kept shouting at him to get the job done in …

Review of 'The City & The City' on 'Storygraph'

3 stars

The City and the City is a fantastic thought experiment. The world building is exquisite. Unfortunately, the characters feel underdeveloped. This book takes its queues from hard-boiled detective fiction so for most of the book, I was willing to give this a pass and focus on the extraordinary idea of two overlapping cities and the spaces between them.

However, one crucial turn of events depended on a character’s motivations. Because the character was little more than a plot device, I found these motivations unconvincing. This, in turn, made for an unfulfilling narrative.

Nevertheless, I would recommend this book. It has a lot to say about borders, language and identity, and it raises fascinating questions about how these affect the way we perceive the world.

I will be thinking about the questions raised by The City and the City for a long time, but the characters are unlikely to stay with …

Review of 'The City & the City' on 'Goodreads'

5 stars

Wow, this book was utterly original, I can't imagine how the author even came up with the idea for his setting. It appears to be set in modern day earth, or perhaps slightly in the future - Coca Cola and Tom Hanks movies are mentioned - but in an alternate version in which the neighboring countries (city-states?) of Beszel and Ul Qoma exist. I didn't catch whether it's ever specifically stated where in the world these exist, but the names sound somewhat slavic to my completely ignorant ear so if I had to guess I'd guess eastern Europe/former USSR state type area. Anyway, these two countries both claim the same area of land ... and rather than fight over it or divide it in half, they BOTH live there. Yes, both countries physically occupy the exact same space.

When I initially read the book blurb I had somehow got the …

Review of 'The City & The City' on 'Goodreads'

5 stars

This is my first China Miéville, and I was instantly captured by the great premise of the book. It was even better because I didn't already know it when I started it: it gradually dawned on me as I read on.

I signed up for a crime novel with possibly some fantasy element appearing half way through, and I was met with a crime novel masterfully woven with its unique premise from the start.

If you don't know what I'm talking about, just read it. It's worth it.

My only gripe with the book is that it started becoming somewhat incomprehensible to me near the end, not around the premise, but in dialogue and description. Perhaps it was me, or the author trying to communicate a frantic atmosphere. It wasn't enough to bring it under a five, though.

Review of 'The city & the city' on Goodreads

3 stars

Set in Eastern Europe, circa 2009, in the fictional twin city-states of Besźel and Ul Qoma, a young woman's body is discovered in a park. What starts as a routine murder investigation soon takes on larger ramifications which threaten the history, political system, and even the unique border separating these two estranged cities.

Having read and had mixed feelings about Miéville's Bas-Lag trilogy, I was curious to try something else by him that may showcase the depth and skill of his writing. I chose this one because it was his most-awarded novel, having won the holy trinity of the Arthur C. Clarke Award, World Fantasy Award, and the Hugo Award. The surprising thing for me was the lack of hardcore Science-Fiction or Fantasy elements. While the Bas-Lag novels were loaded with all manner of weirdness, this one is firmly grounded in our real world, with our technology. In fact, the …

Review of 'The city & the city' on Goodreads

4 stars

1) "'Is the mattress being tested for trace?'
'Should be, sir.'
'Check. If the techs are on it we're fine, but Briamiv and his buddy could fuck up a full stop at the end of a sentence.'"

2) "It was, not surprisingly that day perhaps, hard to observe borders, to see and unsee only what I should, on my way home. I was hemmed in by people not in my city, walking slowly through areas crowded but not crowded in Besźel. I focused on the stones really around me---cathedrals, bars, the brick flourishes of what had been a school---that I had grown up with. I ignored the rest or tried."

3) "That beginning was a shadow in history, an unknown---records effaced and vanished for a century either side. Anything could have happened. From that historically brief quite opaque moment came the chaos of our material history, an anarchy of chronology, …

Review of 'The City & The City' on 'GoodReads'

5 stars

I've read The City & the City twice now, and find that I come back to its imagery over and over again in my mind and in conversation. In fact, I originally gave it four stars and returned just now to bump it up to five. This book is one of the few that can be called science-fiction but that also transcend – or maybe just completely fulfill? – the genre. I really can't recommend it highly enough.

Review of 'The city & the city' on 'Goodreads'

4 stars

I didn't know anything about the author and might have put the book down as a run-of-the-mill murder mystery, but it was my only book over a holiday trip and I kept coming back. Slowly it seeped in - this is lovingly crafted detective noir novel with one strange, nearly impossible premise. The more I read the better I liked it, all the way to the end.

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