Embassytown

by China Miéville

Hardcover, 345 pages

English language

Published April 16, 2011 by Ballantine Books.

ISBN:: 978-0-345-52449-2
OCLC Number:: 659766009
ASIN:: 0345524497

In the far future, humans have colonized a distant planet, home to the enigmatic Ariekei, sentient beings famed for a language unique in the universe, one that only a few altered human ambassadors can speak.

Avice Benner Cho, a human colonist, has returned to Embassytown after years of deep-space adventure. She cannot speak the Ariekei tongue, but she is an indelible part of it, having long ago been made a figure of speech, a living simile in their language.

When distant political machinations deliver a new ambassador to Arieka, the fragile equilibrium between humans and aliens is violently upset. Catastrophe looms, and Avice is torn between competing loyalties—to a husband she no longer loves, to a system she no longer trusts, and to her place in a language she cannot speak yet speaks through her.

3 editions

Leaf reviewed Embassytown by China Miéville

Review of 'Embassytown' on 'Storygraph'

4 stars

It takes a while to sink into this, to stop being vaguely confused and no longer need to reread sentences to see if you missed some context that would make sense of the whole thing. Similar to Gene Wolfe's SF, Miéville just throws the reader into the middle of this world and leaves them to muddle things out. Which on the one hand, sort of makes sense... Though on the other hand, not, because it leaves me to wonder who the narrator's intended audience is. Other Embassytowners? Off-worlders? Is it a private journal?

Otherwise, this is a brilliant book, exploring the role of language and figure of speech in psychology, and speculating on the role it might play in the lives and interactions of extraterrestrial sentient species.
The characters, even the only briefy-mentioned or wholly alien, are extremely well-fleshed, interesting, relateable. I got teary during a certain speech at the …

Shawn Towner reviewed Embassytown by China Miéville

Review of 'Embassytown' on 'Storygraph'

3 stars

Initially reminiscent of Neal Stephenson's [b:Anathem|2845024|Anathem|Neal Stephenson|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1224107150s/2845024.jpg|6163095], Embassytown starts off as a fantastically interesting sci-fi story of a world where language is everything. As the book progresses, however, it becomes more and more conventional, to the point where the last 20% of the book is a marauding alien army that can only be stopped by an unexpected hero injecting a sudden change into the system of the world. It's like Independence Day, but without the Macs.