Un Lun Dun by China Miéville
reviewed by Jayme Lynn Blaschke
A second, unseen world exists in parallel with our own. Cities in our
reality are mirrored in skewed fashion across the trans-dimensional barrier known as the Odd, sporting names such as
Parisn't and Sans Fransico. These ab-cities are populated by all manner of strange beings, from tailors with
pin-cushion heads to kung fu-fighting garbage cans to sentient schools of fish that navigate on land by donning
deep-sea diving suits.
Un Lun Dun by China Miéville
reviewed by Paul Kincaid
We start in contemporary London, where teenage schoolgirl Zanna and her best friend Deeba seem to be the focus of a series of
strange events. Eventually these lead them through a crack between the worlds into a parallel city, UnLondon, where they
discover that Zanna is the Shwazzy, the Chosen One, destined to lead them to victory against the evil Smog. UnLondon is a
magnificent creation, as vivid, as full of spectacular invention, as New Crobuzon.
Iron Council by China Miéville
reviewed by Alma A. Hromic
This is a fevered dream of a book. It feels more like it should have come out of some hot, humid and voodoo-saturated
bayou. Creatures casually step through veils of space and time -- Remade men and women sporting bodies
of horses or lizards or steam-driven machinery, an assortment
of mages and thaumaturges, flying bird-men and bird-monkeys and heaven alone knows what other flying things, vodyanoi water
people, cactus-people, scarab-headed khepri insect-women, all from the city the world knows as New Crobuzon.
And then, before you've had a chance to properly catch your breath after inhaling the first searing bit of New Crobuzon's pungent
air, you're yanked out of it -- and things get weirder, fast.
The Scar by China Miéville
reviewed by Donna McMahon
Bellis Coldwine is taking passage on a ship, fleeing persecution in her home city of New Crobuzon for an uncertain
future in distant Nova Esperium. An urban intellectual, Bellis loathes the prospect of years of exile in the colonies, but when her
ship is captured by pirates, she realizes she may never see her home again.
The pirates live on Armada, a secret floating city haphazardly lashed together from ships and debris.
The Tain by China Miéville
reviewed by Lisa DuMond
Sholl is a refugee in a war-torn London. This ongoing devastation is not the easily
understood Blitz of World War II, though. The enemy here is like nothing the humans have ever faced, yet is as familiar
as, say, the lines in one's palm. And if there is a way to fight back against the invaders, no one has found it yet. The good
and bad people of Old Blighty are on their way to extinction.
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Broken Angels by Richard Morgan,
The Separation by Christopher Priest and
The Tain by China Miéville
reviewed by David Soyka
While Tony Blair lines up behind the Bush administration in positing war with Iraq as a clear-cut case of good versus evil, some of his
countrymen provide persuasive commentary that such a dichotomy is never the case. War is only black and white in movies from the 40s; in
reality, it runs blood red, and its tributaries are not always so easily or clearly defined. Which isn't necessarily to say that war is
never unjustified or unavoidable; only that the "make-believe" needs to be sifted from the actuality in hopes of making reliance on it less likely.
Ironically, it is the purveyors of "make-believe" who articulate doubt upon this simplistic precept invoked by both sides in any
conflict. Although British writers Christopher Priest, Richard Morgan, and China Miéville may all be shelved together in the SF and
Fantasy aisle, each works in decidedly different sub-genres to provide compelling commentary on the considerable shades of gray between
the seeming dark and light.
The Scar by China Miéville
reviewed by William Thompson
In many ways, this novel bids to carry on the existential delving into the hidden
and wounded nature of human experience, reinforced by a return to the wonders and horrors of Perdido Street Station's New Crobuzon.
Here, however, the author chooses to build his city anew, in the form of a floating Armada, a
pelagic architecture constructed of decaying and rusted ships roped together by rigging, catwalks and suspended bridges of cordage
and plank that drifts upon the currents of the sea. Unknown to the authorities of the city-state of New Crobuzon,
Armada is a loose confederation harboring many of their former misfits and criminals, a refuge for escaped Remades, divided into
semi-autonomous ridings that support themselves by their own industry, thaumaturgy and piracy. Strange and exotic
gardens grow and overhang decks and crowded, tottering tenements built upon the raised and gutted hulks of ironclad
steamers and rotted wooden frigates that continuously bob and shift upon the water, weathering calms and storms far
from any shore, dwarfed in the vast expanse of the Swollen Ocean.
Perdido Street Station by China Miéville
reviewed by David Soyka
If you're one of those people who avoid fantasy novels for fear of even the slightest whiff of wizards or
elves, here's a well worthy quest: make haste to where your bookstore stuffs the countless Tolkien spawn and rescue
a copy of of this book from the mediocre horde. This is a novel that has more in common with
the work of that similarly named fellow, Melville, than any mere commercial conjuring of fairyland.
Perdido Street Station by China Miéville
reviewed by Hank Luttrell
The first few pages are from the viewpoint of a bitter and alien character, and written in a dark
and obscure style. This voice seems appropriate and accurate, even accessible, after you get to know the character.
Next up, the protagonist Isaac and his insect-girl friend are introduced. He is big and blustery, an eccentric,
obsessive, maverick scientist. She is a bohemian artist, outcast from her exotic race of hominid bugs. Their
relationship is incredibly romantic and also forbidden and dangerous.
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