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The Scar (New Crobuzon, #2)
by China Miéville (Goodreads Author)
by China Miéville (Goodreads Author)
My second time in China Miéville’s world, and a visit every bit as compelling as the first. More so, even.
The Scar begins when a fugitive from New Crobuzon, the fascinating city of Perdido Street Station, takes ship for a colony of the bloated polis. It’s a slave ship, of course. En route, the ship is not-so-coincidentally taken by pirates. These are very peculiar pirates however, for they are not as interested as booty and prizes as Johnny Depp has led you to believe all pirates are. In fact, it’s a scientist they want, though they’re happy to have the slaves as well, to whom they give jobs and their freedom once back to port.
And oh, what a port. Miéville clearly has a love for cities, and in this tale he crafts another. Armada is a floating city, wrought of derelict ships and antique sailing vessels, rafts, steamers, paddlewheels, and anything else that floats, all bound together, bridged, and built up. The main viewpoint character, who spends much time writing a wonderfully post-modern letter to someone she has yet to decide upon, is billeted in a circular room converted from part of the smokestack of a centuries old coal burning steamship.
The thing that made The Scar a better read for me than Perdido Street Station was that in this novel I could detect the bones of the story underneath the amazing flesh Miéville covered them with. I’ve described the beginnings of the vivid surroundings in which this story takes place, but they are not the story; this plot is no excuse to make up bizarre and wonderful worlds. There are serious layers here, but they are discernible if you wish to discern them: a passionate love and/or a desperate narcissism between “The Lovers” drives Armada and its pirate citizenry to feats of science and bravery that threaten to ultimately destroy them. Coupled to that is an intricate nest of deception and bondage in which our protagonist is used, again and again, against and with her will, to accomplish the ends of others—ends she never understands until too late, and then has to go through with anyways.
Amazing. Truly amazing.
The Scar begins when a fugitive from New Crobuzon, the fascinating city of Perdido Street Station, takes ship for a colony of the bloated polis. It’s a slave ship, of course. En route, the ship is not-so-coincidentally taken by pirates. These are very peculiar pirates however, for they are not as interested as booty and prizes as Johnny Depp has led you to believe all pirates are. In fact, it’s a scientist they want, though they’re happy to have the slaves as well, to whom they give jobs and their freedom once back to port.
And oh, what a port. Miéville clearly has a love for cities, and in this tale he crafts another. Armada is a floating city, wrought of derelict ships and antique sailing vessels, rafts, steamers, paddlewheels, and anything else that floats, all bound together, bridged, and built up. The main viewpoint character, who spends much time writing a wonderfully post-modern letter to someone she has yet to decide upon, is billeted in a circular room converted from part of the smokestack of a centuries old coal burning steamship.
The thing that made The Scar a better read for me than Perdido Street Station was that in this novel I could detect the bones of the story underneath the amazing flesh Miéville covered them with. I’ve described the beginnings of the vivid surroundings in which this story takes place, but they are not the story; this plot is no excuse to make up bizarre and wonderful worlds. There are serious layers here, but they are discernible if you wish to discern them: a passionate love and/or a desperate narcissism between “The Lovers” drives Armada and its pirate citizenry to feats of science and bravery that threaten to ultimately destroy them. Coupled to that is an intricate nest of deception and bondage in which our protagonist is used, again and again, against and with her will, to accomplish the ends of others—ends she never understands until too late, and then has to go through with anyways.
Amazing. Truly amazing.
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