The Scar (New Crobuzon, #2) in The Alternative Worlds

Mar 25, 2008 Brad rated it it was amazing

Shelves: faves, speculative, to-read-again, mieville50

I restarted The Scar last night because I needed a dose of Mieville's prose, and was blown away, as I always am, by Mieville's description of place. This time he is describing Bas-Lag's oceans. He captures flavours and temperatures and underwater sounds and the danger inherent in the waters that have no boundaries in a way that is poetry for me. I have heard from other readers that these disconnected, deep descriptions are difficult beginnings for them, that they make it tough to connect early w I restarted The Scar last night because I needed a dose of Mieville's prose, and was blown away, as I always am, by Mieville's description of place. This time he is describing Bas-Lag's oceans. He captures flavours and temperatures and underwater sounds and the danger inherent in the waters that have no boundaries in a way that is poetry for me. I have heard from other readers that these disconnected, deep descriptions are difficult beginnings for them, that they make it tough to connect early with Mieville's world, and I suppose I can understand that, but the pure beauty of the prose is the sort of thing I could read just for itself. Pull it out of the story, make it a fragment, and I would savour it like a tasty meal I was eating for the first time.

On the story level, the opening of The Scar is both an important introduction to the story where so much will happen on Bas-Lag's oceans and an instant tug away from New Crobuzon, the steaming Metropolis at the heart of Perdido Street Station. It offers a hint of a vaster, less crowded, but no less dangerous place wherein he-cray hunt with their squid and danger rises from the deep to slaughter hunter-gatherers indiscriminately. It's a reversal of the horror of the Slake Moths from Perdido Street where death fell from the sky, and I imagine it was an intentional reversal.

Just the opening is good enough for me to give The Scar five stars. And I am nowhere near Armada yet.

***

I'm not even going to bother looking at what I wrote before, so consider this addendum a mini-review of its own.

This time I listened to The Scar with my boy (he's nearly twenty).

His mind was blown, mine was blown again. The absolute ferocity of Mieville's imagination is humbling. Best vampire ever. Best city ever. Most realistic without being disappointing ever. Other books of his contain other best evers, that beat some of the beats in The Scar, but who cares about that. Mieville is an author of best evers who needs to tell stories that challenge his readers as readers and as people. And The Scar does that to the edge of a broken ocean and beyond and back.

I love this book. And the craziest thing is that it isn't even his best. ...more

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Dec 16, 2009 Kara Babcock rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: hugo-nominee, owned, 2011-read, fantasy, pirates

I'm not sure how I feel about China Miéville.

On one hand, Miéville is a competent writer and, even better, a superb storyteller. The three books of his that I've read (including this one) are good. People tend to gush about his worldbuilding, often at the expense, I think, of talking about everything else that's great about his stories, but they do it because of his obvious skill in this area. Many great fantasy authors create wonderful stories by taking the traditional elements of fantasy and e ...more

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Jul 09, 2013 Wealhtheow rated it it was ok

Shelves: disabled-character, sci-fi, fantasy

Miéville writes beautiful descriptions. Everything else about this book was a slog to get through, from the monologues he has characters give in the midst of battles to the repetitious similes. Another annoying tick: characters had (incredibly obvious) realizations and then spent pages thinking about how much their mind was blown. Yes yes, we get it, your whole universe is rocked on its axis by the very idea that, say, a spy might have collected plans for an invasion. Let's get on with the story Miéville writes beautiful descriptions. Everything else about this book was a slog to get through, from the monologues he has characters give in the midst of battles to the repetitious similes. Another annoying tick: characters had (incredibly obvious) realizations and then spent pages thinking about how much their mind was blown. Yes yes, we get it, your whole universe is rocked on its axis by the very idea that, say, a spy might have collected plans for an invasion. Let's get on with the story, shall we? Oh no, we have to spend at least three more pages reading descriptions of how this totally shocks you? All righty then.

There were some bits here I really liked, like Tanner's conflicted feelings about the ocean deeps, or the idea behind the scabmettlers. The ideas behind Miéville's societies are good, but he doesn't follow them up well--I still don't know how a single character ate, or where they got their clothes, or anything like that. There wasn't much foundation to the world building, just a lot of flash and wordy purpley description.

I got annoyed that not a single female character succeeded at anything. There are exactly four female characters with any page time: Bellis, who (view spoiler) There's Shekel's girlfriend, who doesn't do anything except provide Shekel an opportunity to get over his prejudice against the Remade and Tanner a chance to show off his engineering skills. Carrianne is Bellis's friend from the library, who has about three lines, no plot purpose and mostly serves to introduce the idea of the goretax. And there's the Lover, who has I think two monologues and that's it. (view spoiler) Every other character is male and every single goddamn thing that happens in this entire goddamn book is driven by dudes. It is dumb and it started really straining my ability to believe the world.

As for the plot...well, it's very episodic and poorly paced, and the main characters are completely useless within it. I had a really hard time maintaining interest in this. ...more

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Jan 02, 2009 Nicky rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: speculative-fiction, steampunk, fantasy

I'm glad I was already familiar with China Miéville's work before I read The Scar. I don't think I would have appreciated it as much if I hadn't known, to some extent, what to expect. The Scar is set in the same universe as Perdido Street Station, and has links with it, although it is not set in the same city. The prose is similar, very rich and dense, and the world-building is just as intense. It can be a little hard to get into: I remember with the first book that I found myself wondering what ...more

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Jul 19, 2011 Lori rated it really liked it

And my marathon of Mielville continues! Again so different than PSS and Embassytown, I'm impressed.

Finito. Actually a few days ago. While reading Mielville I have so many thoughts, I even plan some sentences in my head for my GR review. But usually these thoughts are nowhere in sight when I sit and write! Especially with this book, because I'm still deliberating over the end. It's one of those ambivalent endings, what REALLY happened, there are various other possibilities.

Which is really the po ...more

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Apr 12, 2008 Sandi rated it really liked it

Shelves: sci-fi, 2008, fantasy

I really enjoyed "The Scar". It was a great adventure. But, it did drag in spots, so I couldn't give it a full five stars. ...more

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Nov 11, 2011 Taueret rated it liked it

Shelves: sci-fi, audiobook, speculative-fiction, have, literary

Again, enough imagination for 100 books, packed into one. The crazy world of Bas-Lag is worth the price of admission alone. Story full of intrigue and adventure, and a lot of interesting, more or less likeable characters. Bellis though, who provides the main point of view? Geez louise, what a narcissistic, stick-up-her-butt bitch! I'm actually really glad the book is almost over- I am enjoying the story but can't wait to part company with the whiny cow! It's like visiting that kid in the "hunger ...more

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Jan 08, 2011 Marty rated it really liked it

Bellis Coldwine is an unlikely hero but I found this book to be relentlessly compelling. Mieville creates worlds with completeness and his characters are often these flawed anti-heroes but I find myself being drawn into their lives. His use of language and archaic English in particular are fascinating as well.

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May 03, 2011 Daniel Roy rated it it was amazing

Shelves: fantasy

In my opinion the best book in Mieville's New Crobuzon series. It possesses both an insane sense of imagination, and a sobriety that's rarely seen in fantasy. It left me haunted, and wanting more. Definitely superior to Perdido Street Station. ...more

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Apr 29, 2008 Brooke rated it really liked it

Shelves: science-fiction, 2012

I'm giving this book the same rating that I gave Perdido Street Station, but I definitely liked this follow-up better. The Scar doesn't require any knowledge of PSS, as they're only tenuously linked, and I recommend this one to anyone who was overwhelmed by the slog through the insane detail in PSS. Miéville does a much better job being descriptive without wallowing in it here, and the story moves forward at a pretty decent pace even though it's nearly 600 pages long. I spent the last 100 pages ...more

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Apr 24, 2009 This Is Not The Michael You're Looking For rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: fiction, fantasy, steampunk, urban-fantasy, locus-award

After a slow start, The Scar turned into a very enjoyable read. Miéville has woven together a unique universe, filled with strange and wondrous characters and creatures. The story is somewhat complicated and I was a bit disappointed that we were never really able to learn more about certain characters, but overall a fascinating tale.

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