2007 Reading List - The Scar
Book Fourteen
The Scar by China Miéville
Imagine a floating city, built of stolen and scavenged boats from around the world. A city whose very existence is simply rumor and legend. That city is Armada and it's inhabited by the strangest collection of beings in Bas-Lag - insect-headed kephri women, talking cacti, scarred lovers, Remade people, vampires, nightwalkers and mermen. They take ships and press-gang anyone who is aboard. Once a citizen of Armada, always a citizen of Armada. And its rulers have a plan.
Imagine a great sea-beast. Bigger. No, bigger than that. Imagine an animal so big that it could get blue whales stuck in its teeth. A creature with a harness a quarter-mile long. A denizen of alien seas that has to be caught through a hole in between worlds. The rulers of Armada plan to catch such a beast, the avanc, and tether their city to it.
And that's just Step One in the plan.
As with Perdido Street Station, which this book follows, but is not a sequel to, this is an entrancing read, and Miéville shines again as a writer. I said before that reading him made me wish that I had spent my life practicing fantasy art, and that is no less true now. With a few deft words, he can put an image in your mind that stays there, no matter how improbable that image may be. And once again, the breadth of his imagination astounds me. Not just for the strange creatures that he uses to populate his world, but for the characters that he creates.
I'll be taking a break, just because I don't like to stick with one author for too long, but I will be back to Miéville.
The Scar by China Miéville
Imagine a floating city, built of stolen and scavenged boats from around the world. A city whose very existence is simply rumor and legend. That city is Armada and it's inhabited by the strangest collection of beings in Bas-Lag - insect-headed kephri women, talking cacti, scarred lovers, Remade people, vampires, nightwalkers and mermen. They take ships and press-gang anyone who is aboard. Once a citizen of Armada, always a citizen of Armada. And its rulers have a plan.
Imagine a great sea-beast. Bigger. No, bigger than that. Imagine an animal so big that it could get blue whales stuck in its teeth. A creature with a harness a quarter-mile long. A denizen of alien seas that has to be caught through a hole in between worlds. The rulers of Armada plan to catch such a beast, the avanc, and tether their city to it.
And that's just Step One in the plan.
As with Perdido Street Station, which this book follows, but is not a sequel to, this is an entrancing read, and Miéville shines again as a writer. I said before that reading him made me wish that I had spent my life practicing fantasy art, and that is no less true now. With a few deft words, he can put an image in your mind that stays there, no matter how improbable that image may be. And once again, the breadth of his imagination astounds me. Not just for the strange creatures that he uses to populate his world, but for the characters that he creates.
I'll be taking a break, just because I don't like to stick with one author for too long, but I will be back to Miéville.