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Nov 26, 2010

Brad rated it:

Overtly political, teasingly intricate, and deeply intertextual, China Miéville's Iron Council is everything I expect to love in great speculative fiction, and nearly everything I know I love in Miéville's work.

Yet, since its publication, I have only read it once, and I still find myself ranking it third of Miéville's Bas-Lag books. I've been baffled by my restraint with Iron Council. My admiration of Miéville's other books is boundless, bordering on madness, and I haven't understood h More...

9 comments like (30 people liked it)

Sep 21, 2011

Ben rated it:

Recall in my review of The Scar how I was whining about my opinion of China Miéville and his novels remaining relatively constant? How I wanted to read something different, something I could say didn't rank equally with the other three novels by him that I have read?

This is the story of why I should have been more careful with my wishing.

I knew something was wrong—perhaps I should say off—almost from the beginning of this book. The opening was grandiose in Miéville's usua More...

0 comments like (3 people liked it)

Mar 14, 2011

Spoonbridge rated it:

After reading this, the last of Mieville's trio of Bas Lag novels, I have to say I was a bit disappointed. Iron Council is definitely my least favorite of the three, despite (or perhaps because of) being the most overtly political. Perhaps because of the focus on revolution, I felt the characters of this novel were much less interesting then the previous two. Unlike Isaac or Bellis, I never really connected with or identified with Cutter, Ori, Ann Hari or any other person or felt drawn into thei More...

1 comment like (3 people liked it)

Dec 17, 2009

Adam rated it:

Enough imagination for eighty books..my favorite of Mieville's anti-trilogy for some reason...seems like you walked into a Bosch painting for most of the book.The most dismissed of Mieville’s books maybe because the first hundred pages are a little confusing and the structure strains a little bit more than usual. While all his books have flaws his enormous imagination and stunning vocabulary (rivaling Wolfe and McCarthy) pave over any hesitations I have. This one focuses on a tragic and costly c More...

0 comments like (4 people liked it)

Jan 30, 2012

sologdin rated it:

A profoundly beautiful novel, perhaps the best speculative fiction that I've read, but likewise certainly enriched by reference to its close companion text, The Scar, which parallels it in important ways, as well as to Perdido Street Station, which introduces its setting.

As in The Scar, the narrative here involves a group of outcasts who travel on a more or less traditional quest to find something in particular. Both books involve a renegade, mobile city that interacts weirdly with a More...

2 comments like (1 person liked it)

Sep 08, 2009

Michael rated it:

So, here we are in Bas Lag again. According to interviews, Mieville sounds like he has every intention of returning to the world of Bas Lag in the future, so I won't refer to this as "the last Bas Lag novel." But, as of 2009, it's the most recent.

I found the experience of reading Iron Council markedly different from the first two books set in this world. For one, in this book the story isn't as localised. We have met the city of New Crobuzon in Perdido Street Station an More...

3 comments like (7 people liked it)

Jan 29, 2012

Nicolas rated it:

Bon, les bouquins de China Miéville sont générallement épais, incryablement inventifs, et fabuleusement géniaux. Il se trouve que cette fois-ci, ça n'est pas tout à fait le cas.
Laissez-moi d'abord vous expliquer. Mais attention, parce que comme l'histoire est racontée dans un ordre assez curieux, je ne pourrais pas vous l'expliquer sans faire quelques spoilers.
Dans une Nouvelle-Crobuzon s'engageant d'un pas fier et conquérant dans le chemin de la révolution industrielle, les grèves e More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Jun 12, 2011

Rich rated it:

I want to preface this by saying how much of a Mieville fan I am - Kraken did that for me - and that Perdido Street Station and The Scar brought the world of New Crobuzon and its denizens to life in ways that I haven't experienced in a novel in decades.

This third entry in the New Crobuzon/Bas Lag novels was more of an endurance test for me, a long, often difficult slog through Mieville's beautifully dark and complex wordplay. Why use 10 words when you can use 200 pages? The central s More...

5 comments like (1 person liked it)

Dec 15, 2010

Jacob rated it:

Gods and Jabber, I don't know why I love this one the most. It's not necessarily better than the other Bas-Lag Books (don't you dare call them a trilogy, don't you dare. Old China says he'll always come back to this; there's more to come), and it's nowhere near the worst. There's just something about this that feels so radically different, so alien, so apart from the others. Perdido Street Station was new and fresh and amazing, yeah, but it felt familiar enough--while still being strange and More...

0 comments like (6 people liked it)

Jul 12, 2008

Ariel rated it:

Wow, what a rich novel! China Mieville does with fantasy what I love about radical science fiction: sets a revolution in an imagined world to create an engaging, complex, deep story and character and speak to the real world, the present. I highly recommend the Iron Council to folks who like feminist/leftist science fiction that want to read a fantasy novel that doesn't celebrate the aristocracy. Iron Council is a novel about class struggle and the people in it, and it happens to be fantasy.
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2 comments like (3 people liked it)

Dec 16, 2009

Tom rated it:

[after second reading]
Yeah, I'm sticking with the two stars. Is it about preserving history? Is it about the inaccuracy of monuments? Is it about the sources of inspiration being stronger for what they inspire than for their truth? I'm not sure, and I don't care.

As other reviewers have said, the reason Iron Council is less satisfying that Perdido Street Station or The Scar is because it's mostly endless description of conflicts and fights and there's very little character devel More...

0 comments like (2 people liked it)

Dec 17, 2009

Tessa rated it:

I absolutely raced through Mieville's previous efforts, but this one was a slog. There were too many battles for my taste, and the characters had no depth whatsoever. Instead of trying to create depth, Mieville just repeats the same information over and over. Cutter loves Judah. Oh he loves him so much. Judah is unable to love, or is just priest-like. Why should I care? I never managed to care through the whole almost-600 pages. He also commits the literary crime of describing other fantasy More...

2 comments like (1 person liked it)

Jul 15, 2008

Navera rated it:

I had already become a huge fan of Mieville's after reading Perdido Street Station and now I am an even bigger fan and will end up reading everything he has ever written including his doctoral dissertation! Toro's story was fascinating and I'm probably one of the few people who really enjoyed the political and revolutionary strife. From the moment The Weaver appears and it looks like the strike will extend beyond expectation of late pay to Judah's heartbreaking reunion with his "sister More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Feb 11, 2011

Klytia rated it:

Dopo le avventure negli oceani del Bas Lag, la fertile e straordinaria immaginazione di China Miéville ci riporta nei vicoli della città di New Crobuzon questo suo ultimo romanzo. Ancora una volta la forza di Miéville risiede nella potenza visiva della sua scrittura: la gigantesca tartaruga sul cui dorso è scolpita un’intera città; la pietra che diventa fumo e poi si risolidifica intrappolando cose ed esseri viventi nella sua nebbia; la regione del “cacotopic stain” dove tutto ciò che entra ne e More...

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Jan 18, 2011

figura4 rated it:

Era da parecchio che non apprezzavo così tanto un romanzo. Dove per "apprezzare" intendo il ritrovarmi a centellinare le pagine, l'obbligarmi a non leggere più di un capitolo al giorno perchè non voglio che il libro finisca.
Il romanzo più politico di Mièville. C'è tutto: lotta sociale, giornali clandestini (il mitico Runagate Rampant), lavoratori di una ferrovia in rivolta che finiscono per appropriarsi del treno per cui stanno costruendo i binari. Binari che continueranno a costruire, More...

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Jan 14, 2012

Angela rated it:

I'm having a hard time picking between 4 and 5 stars. Mieville is simply one of the best writers out there right now that I've been reading lately. (See review of Perdido Street Station for details.)

I've been having a difficult time deciding if I like Iron Council better than Perdido Street Station. I feel like until Mieville, the only alternate universes with lot of depth were modelled off of Middle Ages-type society/technology/geography, with a bit of fantasy mixed in. Sci fi books u More...

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Sep 27, 2011

Danny rated it:

Have you ever had a friend you would follow to the ends of the earth? Well in the book "Iron Council" a man named Cutter and a group of renagades he has rustled up journey across the wold in search of his friend Judah and the Iron Council. The iron council is a group of people who have escaped the grip of the New Crobuzon (the largest city in the world of Bas-Lag) and its militia. During this time, a man in New Crobuzon, and greatly opposed to its government joins a group of More...

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Nov 29, 2010

Brad rated it:

We live in a culture that desires fragmented stories; stories that are told quickly and compellingly, so we can move on to the next tale. It is why we love visual forms so much. It is why YA fiction is increasingly popular with older crowds. It is why graphic novels are on the rise as a literary form. But where are the novellas? Where are books like One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich, The Old Man and the Sea, Heart of Darkness, The Awakening, A Clockwork Orange?

I have been lookin More...

12 comments like (13 people liked it)

Sep 10, 2010

Freedom Road added it

fantasy/science fiction novels with a social conscience. The mainstream tradition in fantasy novels, going back at least to J. R. R. Tolkien, ignores (or hides) the fact that people oppressed by feudal lords or kings rose up for their liberty time and again; why wouldn't people in a world of wizards and dragons do the same thing? And why shouldn't the wizards form a union too? Author China Miéville -- himself an outspoken socialist and member of the British Socialist Workers Party -- shows us a More...

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Jul 01, 2010

Fence rated it:

This is the third of Mieville’;s books to be set in the wonderful world of New Crobuzon, and so far my favourite of this ‘verse. I enjoyed Perdido Street Station, admired more than liked The Scar, but Iron Council surpasses both of them. I was a little doubtful at first, not really getting the character of Cutter. But once the story began it sucked me in.

The ‘verse Mieville has created is simply fantastic, in both sense of the word. A variety of characters, races, and peoples all battl More...

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Apr 10, 2010

Alex rated it:

I know a lot of people (even trufans of Mieville) really hate this book. If you understand where he's coming from, though, I think the book will make more sense. The biggest gripe is that the book is overtly political, focuses too much on revolution. Mieville is a Marxist! I've seen him speak in London at Communist Party events, and his PhD is on reworking the discourse of international law based on a Marxist theory of human rights. Seriously, old school Marxist all the way. A big part of More...

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Apr 05, 2010

Brad rated it:

I'm a closeted China Mieville fan.

I wonder how my buttoned-down circle would take to Mieville's fantasy saga- ripe with sexual energy and heavily Marxist themes.

I know how I take to it: I love that crazy insect sex and class-consciousness shit. Pour me another, and he/she/it can be on top this time.

The Bas-Lag saga continues in Yet Another Movable City. This one's an endless train (compare with The Scar's Armada), on the run from the New Crozubon heat. As More...

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Feb 15, 2010

Aneel rated it:

Dave got me a signed copy when Miéville from was in town. I'm sad I missed that.

I really enjoy the way Miéville's books in this world have characters who experiment with the way magic works. I like fantasy novels where the author has come up with an intricate, consistent cosmology to explain the magical effects that make their worlds unlike ours. (Maybe books that have this quality are really SF, rather than Fantasy...)

Usually, this cosmology is presented from a medieval pers More...

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Feb 15, 2010

Gine rated it:

Iron Council, Mieville's sequel to Perdida Street Station and The Scar,I didn't find enjoyable at all. This novel's about the rebellion of railroad laborers --about what the Amazon review calls "a perpetual train"-- and about the people nowhere near the train, who are also revolting against the same evil empire. That was the main problem I had with this novel: it flip flopped between revolting factions, first the train and then the nontrain folk, back and forth, and then there was a fl More...

3 comments like

Aug 09, 2009

Patton rated it:

Iron Council
China Miéville

If you're a relatively astute follower of contemporary genre fiction then you are most likely aware of China Miéville. Since debuting in 1998 with King Rat, each of his novels has been nominated for several of the major science fiction, fantasy and horror awards; and, he has won multiple Arthur C. Clarke Awards, British Fantasy Awards and Locus awards. His work is the primary (or, some would contend, only) example of the sub-genre known as New Weird. H More...

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May 25, 2009

pearl rated it:

This book was fantastic. I picked it up with some hesitation because of reviews I'd read, which said that Iron Council was "the weakest" of the series, that the plot and setting were a far cry from the complex, violently magical and Victorian-inspired backdrops of the previous two books. Other reviews simply said the book was too slow.

And to some extent it is all true. Iron Council takes the reader much farther from the brilliant magics, sciences, and mythologies depicted i More...

3 comments like (2 people liked it)

Feb 25, 2011

Alexandra rated it:

Character and Setting: As with all of Mieville’s works, the characters are beautifully, poetically imperfect. These are not people you are going to agree with on every decision they make, these are not character you are going to fawn over and write fanfiction over, these are not characters you are going to love. But they are painfully real, a trait so rare of fantasy characters that I think this alone turns many away from his writing. Some critique Iron Council for its heavy politics, but I thin More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Oct 26, 2011

Pol rated it:

Good, but in my mind every one of China Miéville's books is just sitting in the shadow of Perdido Street Station. That book was so stellar, the rest are just playing catch-up, or trying to vicariously borrow its verve and punch by being in Bas Lag.

Iron Council was good, but I couldn't help but find the plot unconvincing. I just didn't believe that <spoiler>the Parliament would send the Militia halfway around the world for several decades to catch a bunch of runaways on a t More...

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Mar 24, 2011

Mykl rated it:

This is the third book in bas-lag. The first PSS introduces us to this world and has main characters who are garuda, professor, constructs, Weaver, Wrymen, Khepri and many more. Individual choices and impact on others, the city prevail. Second book TS takes us on the Armada and examines personal, physical, emotional and geographical scars with Remade, pirates, and beasts and vamps.

The third book IC brings us swamp creatures that create golems, Tecsh golems as weapons in war, revol More...

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Jan 11, 2012

John rated it:

In the short span of a literary career which has produced two acclaimed books set on the fantasy world of Bas-Lag, China Mieville has become the finest contemporary writer of science fiction and fantasy from the United Kingdom. His dense, vivid, lyrical prose easily brings to mind comparable literary eloquence achieved by the likes of William Gibson and Ursula K. Le Guin. "Perdido Street Station", the first of Mieville's "Bas-Lag" novles, won instant acclaim as a genuine lite More...

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