Iron Council

Turmoil is growing in the city-state of New Crobuzon. The people are being exploited by industrialists and suppressed by the government. One man sets out across the continent to find the illusive Iron Council. Another man, not content to simply distribute leaflets, joins a gang which has a bigger plan.

This is China Mieville's third novel set in Bas-Lag, a sort of fantasy-cum-steampunk world. While the first novel, Perdido Street Station, spent a lot of time exploring the city of New Crobuzon, this one assumes you are already familiar with the surrounds, so it doesn't spend much time building atmosphere. It doesn't even have the feel of Armada from The Scar. My suggestion would be to read Perdido Street Station first; and, if you find it merely mediocre, don't bother reading the other books, because each novel in the series gets progressively worse.

In a couple of ways, Mieville has improved as a writer. Firstly, his politics are now part of the story rather than blatant lectures in the narrative. Secondly, he no longer needs to rely on such a large group of characters to keep his story going, which gives him more time to spend on the ones he does use. Unfortunately, most of the characters in this story are either boring or else extremely boring. That means we get to spend a great deal of time with a bunch of dull, passive, whiny people. There is one that isn't too annoying, and he does have a prominent part, but Mieville sort of forgets about him towards the end. While I originally listed this as an improvement in his writing ability, it seems to have backfired on him. He should probably stick the the multi-character writing.

Another source of annoyance is the narrative. Mieville loves his thesaurus, no doubt about that. He also loves to over-write. While I hate to use the term, "purple prose" seems an apt description of Mieville's style. "Clumsy" and "awkward" are also good words to use as well. And I've successfully read several Philip Roth novels, so I don't use those terms flippantly. Here's an example of what Mieville feels passes for good writing:

Only the opalescence in the air was left. It began to thicken, moving and congealing like eggwhite in hot water, into a stinking solidity. It inspissated, fell in clots, mucal rain, and the sky and air was empty.
　　A silence gathered, then ebbed, and Cutter heard the shoot-sounds of the war again.

As to the story itself, Mieville does have a nice way of making us think we know what's going on and where the story is going, then completely swerving in another direction with a massive WTF! moment. I'll give him that much credit, for he truly deserves praise there. However, WTF! moment aside, this is really a lackluster story. The whole Iron Council bit is superfluous, although he seems to think it's a key element to the ending and the overall purpose of the novel by devoting so much time to it. He has a passion for trains. I get it. However, this story would have been better without including his childhood fixation. Not only that, but there is an even more useless flashback (a full 24.1% of the novel, to be exact) regarding the creation of Iron Council. Then, to make matters worse, he resolves two plot elements with completely irrelevant, incidental magic--just to make the situations go away. It's probably his way of saying that plot isn't important, but it's a cheap cop-out nonetheless. Not even the worst episodes of Star Trek were that poorly handled.

Enough with the bashing. This novel is really only a one-star read. I'm being extremely generous by giving it two. If I dwell on it much longer, I'm sure I'll demote it. If you're reading this and it's down to one star, you know I've spent even more time thinking about it.

The sad part is, Mieville is a good essay writer. Compared to his novels, and aside from his ability to create wonderful atmosphere, I think essays are where his skill really lies. I will continue to read his essays for the articulate way in which he expresses his ideas--even if I don't always agree with what he is saying. As for reading any of his other novels, I may give his multi-award-winning novel The City and the City a try. Maybe.

EDIT: Also, the story is so plodding that, as the ending draws closer, Mieville has to have one of the characters ask all kinds of questions and raise all kinds doubts in a failed attempt to build suspense. A good writer would structure it so that the reader is picking up on clues and asking these questions themselves. That a character has to do it with obvious statements is poor form. He did something similar in The Scar.