books befiore I diary: China Mieville
China Mieville - The Scar
Having created the magnificent city of New Crobuzon in his previous novel, this starts with a ship leaving there - and eventually getting taken to the equally extraordinary new pirate city of Armada, a huge flotilla of ships tied together into a city. The rest of this 800-page novel is, it turns out, one big plot, with key roles for two captured on that ship: a translator (and translation, deceit, manipulation and secrets are key themes here, almost all passing through her) who regards Armada as a prison, and a Remade (mutilated as punishment: he has two tentacles grafted into his chest) convict freed by this capture. The plot is huge: the city takes scientists and a mobile drilling rig (tapping Rockmilk, a kind of oil that fuels magic) and visiting the deadly moquito people for info, all to summon and capture an avanc, a mile-long other-dimensional creature to tow the city, and they then head for The Scar, a 100-mile wide crack in the ocean, where quantum effects are extremely strange and powerful. Along the way we get perhaps the most spectacular set-piece combat in fiction: the pirates and the world's greatest martial artist, with his quantum Possible Sword, against a large gang of vampires and their mystical sea monster allies. A brilliant novel, unbelievably imaginative, clever and exciting, full of memorable characters and moments.
Having created the magnificent city of New Crobuzon in his previous novel, this starts with a ship leaving there - and eventually getting taken to the equally extraordinary new pirate city of Armada, a huge flotilla of ships tied together into a city. The rest of this 800-page novel is, it turns out, one big plot, with key roles for two captured on that ship: a translator (and translation, deceit, manipulation and secrets are key themes here, almost all passing through her) who regards Armada as a prison, and a Remade (mutilated as punishment: he has two tentacles grafted into his chest) convict freed by this capture. The plot is huge: the city takes scientists and a mobile drilling rig (tapping Rockmilk, a kind of oil that fuels magic) and visiting the deadly moquito people for info, all to summon and capture an avanc, a mile-long other-dimensional creature to tow the city, and they then head for The Scar, a 100-mile wide crack in the ocean, where quantum effects are extremely strange and powerful. Along the way we get perhaps the most spectacular set-piece combat in fiction: the pirates and the world's greatest martial artist, with his quantum Possible Sword, against a large gang of vampires and their mystical sea monster allies. A brilliant novel, unbelievably imaginative, clever and exciting, full of memorable characters and moments.