The City & the City in Crazy Challenge Connection

Sep 13, 2015 Olivermagnus rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: crime, mystery, 2024, sci-fi, zmay-24

What begins as a typical police procedural quickly evolves into a surreal psychological and political thriller. Taking place in the present day, the story offers us two fictitious eastern European city-states, Beszel and Ul Qoma, that are fighting not merely over a shared border but literally the same piece of ground. The cities exist atop one another. The citizens of both "unsee" those of the other city, even though they pass one another on the streets and their buildings stand beside one anoth What begins as a typical police procedural quickly evolves into a surreal psychological and political thriller. Taking place in the present day, the story offers us two fictitious eastern European city-states, Beszel and Ul Qoma, that are fighting not merely over a shared border but literally the same piece of ground. The cities exist atop one another. The citizens of both "unsee" those of the other city, even though they pass one another on the streets and their buildings stand beside one another. Beszel and Ul Qoma have distinct cultures, languages, architecture, cuisines, economies, fashions and even colors. Residents of each city grow up having to ignore and carefully "unsee" each other.

Violations of this bizarre boundary are considered Breach, and harshly punished by a mysterious Orwellian law enforcement body who somehow exist independently in both cities. This doesn't stop either city from developing the expected rebel countercultures like unificationists, who favor the assimilation of both cities. There appears to be no religious, cultural, or political divide that separates the Besz and Ul Qomans. The citizens of each city don't really seem to have a problem with one another. They maintain their strict separation because laws demand it, laws only a few bother to question.

Inspector Tyador Borlu of the Extreme Crime Squad of Beszel is tasked with solving the murder of a young woman who is found near a desolate housing project. He must navigate the convoluted borders that separate the two cities and allow himself to perceive what he's spent a lifetime "unseeing” and "unhearing". The paradox Borlu faces is that if he solves the crime, he must risk violating an even greater societal taboo than murder, one that could trigger his own disappearance.

It took me quite a while to read the first quarter of this book. I had a hard time understanding the two cities existing in the same space. Once I “got it,” I was completely hooked. I saw a blurb on the hard copy that said “If Philip K. Dick and Raymond Chandler's love child were raised by Franz Kafka, the writing that emerged might resemble China Mieville's The City & the City." I know that this author intrigued me and I plan to try some of his other work. ...more

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Sep 23, 2016 Tara rated it liked it

Shelves: read-in-2016

So this is the third book I've read by Mieville, and I have to say that something I really like is how adaptable he is as an author. Each book has a different tone and is written in a unique way, but still manages to maintain this sense of awe and wonder that I think it can be hard to find in fiction.

That being said, I didn't like this one as much as I thought I would. Probably because it was more thriller than fantasy; actually, I hesitate to call it fantasy. I guess speculative fiction would w ...more

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Dec 12, 2019 Chaitra rated it really liked it

Shelves: mystery, science-fiction, hugo-winners, police-procedural

I like China Mieville’s brain. I like the concepts he comes up with. Even when playing with an older classic, he doesn’t do a straight-forward retelling. And this one is utterly unique and genuinely interesting. I liked the two cities, the cross-hatching, the unseeing, the differences in the two cities because if they’re even a little bit similar how can they be unseen? I loved Breach, the concept of it even though I don’t know why Breach was needed. What if Ul Qoma and Beszel were unified? What ...more

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