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The City & the City

China Miéville

Start date: March 1, 2025

Finish date: March 31, 2025

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The City & the City

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What Members Thought

Sep 10, 2010 Veronica Belmont rated it liked it

Shelves: fantasy, alternate-history

I'm still not entirely sure how I feel about this book. There was so much going on, and so much left to our own interpretation (not necessarily a bad thing) that even by the end of the book I felt like I was swimming in its own ideas.

Definitely worth a read if you're a fan of China Miéville, but I would more highly recommend Perdido Street Station 2. Der Weber over The City & The City. ...more

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Oct 04, 2009 Winter rated it really liked it

Shelves: urbanfantasy

This was a little bit of a different path for Mr Miéville. First, I should confess I'm a big fan. If China Miéville bound the notes he took during a comparative study of growing grass and drying paint and sold them as a novel, I'd pre-order.

That being said, I'd recommend this book to pretty much anyone.

The premise is just so unique. How often does a truly unique idea like this come along? And what I loved was that this unique concept was wrapped up in such a literary cliche. The gumshoe, the mur ...more

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Jan 31, 2010 Novel Currents rated it liked it

Quite simply, the cities just aren't as compelling as they need to be -- nor the characters in them -- for this novel to be more than just a satisfying read.

Mieville's latest is a great example of an author falling so in love with his conceit -- that the cities overlay one another, and that there may be a third city -- somewhere in the "middle" -- that he spends far, FAR too much time mentioning and describing the characteristics of the conceit over and over and over again.

Really, it got old. T ...more

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Jan 26, 2014 Stephanie rated it liked it

Shelves: audio, fiction, sci-fi, mystery, crime, authors-i-missed, suspense-thriller, 2014reads

Format: Audio on Ipod from library
Narrated By: John Lee
Original Publication Year: 2009
Genre(s): Mystery-thriller, Science Fiction
Series: NA
Awards: Hugo Award; Nominated for Nebula Award; Arthur C. Clarke Award; World Fantasy Award; Locus Award; A LOT of others

Recommended Subtitle: The City and The City and The City

My expectations for this novel were very high because of all the awards that were heaped on it as well as the general ravings about China Mieville's talent. As those pesky expectation Format: Audio on Ipod from library
Narrated By: John Lee
Original Publication Year: 2009
Genre(s): Mystery-thriller, Science Fiction
Series: NA
Awards: Hugo Award; Nominated for Nebula Award; Arthur C. Clarke Award; World Fantasy Award; Locus Award; A LOT of others

Recommended Subtitle: The City and The City and The City

My expectations for this novel were very high because of all the awards that were heaped on it as well as the general ravings about China Mieville's talent. As those pesky expectations are apt to do, they contributed to some disappointment with the book. I still thought it was pretty great and had an incredibly unique premise though I struggled with embracing the idea.

My first comment would be that while this book was firmly classified and lauded as science fiction, it feels much more like a mystery/thriller. The science fiction components, while integral, were not supernatural or really even science-y or futuristic. The book is set in two fictional cities/countries called Beszel and Ul Qoma. The two cities and their inhabitants exist in the same physical space in Eastern Europe somewhere but are treated as two separate countries. Citizens are taught from a young age to “unsee” the residents and buildings of the other city. If someone does slip up, and actually sees something from the other city it is called breaching and they risk being set upon by the shadowy and mysterious Breach who wield immense power and police the separation of the two cities. Tyador Borlu, a Beszel policemen, becomes entangled with the crazy relations between the two cities when a women who was a resident of Ul Qoma shows up dead in Beszel. The investigation into her death gets complicated very quickly and seems to be related to the folk tale that there is actually a third city existing in between the City and the City…

It’s an interesting premise and the book succeeded on many levels for me. The mystery is complex and interesting with a satisfying conclusion. I enjoyed that much of story revolved around questions of Anthropology which I find to be really interesting. The pacing was fantastic, clues being revealed with good timing to keep the suspense and mystery building. It was really pretty action packed and while I wasn’t dying to get back to it in between reading times, it is definitely a page turner.

My biggest stumbling block with the book was that I never really bought the premise. Despite how well thought out the idea was, it just always seemed ridiculous and impossible to me. I usually have no problem suspending disbelief but I had trouble here, I think, because it wasn’t fantastical enough. It was just a little too close and grounded in our present reality. That makes sense in my head though I don’t that I’m expressing it well on paper. Basically, I just kept thinking why would anybody put up with that crap - navigating through “unseen” cars in traffic etc… Mieville was likely making political allusions or commentary about racial and cultural segregation in cities or perhaps referencing the Serbs and Croations or other countries where there are racial divides that seem so artificial to outsiders. Or maybe not. I just had trouble embracing the world as it was written.

All that being said it was a really intriguing idea and was pretty fascinating to read about even if it sometimes kicked me out of the story. It must have taken a lot of planning and thinking to figure out all the possible ways the idea could be tripped up and account for them.

Final Verdict: A satisfying and complex mystery/thriller with an intriguing science fiction premise.
...more

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Sep 29, 2009 Tensy (bookdoyen) rated it liked it

Shelves: science-fiction, audiobook

An unusual combination of police procedural mystery mixed in with a fantasy locale. It just won the World Fantasy Award. Although I am not a huge mystery fan, the unusual setting of the novel and the way the author stayed consistent with the dual city premise in the plot was interesting.

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Nov 01, 2011 Ruaidhri rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

An enjoyable read, but it takes a bit of work to get into. The descriptions of the two overlaying cities are very vividly described. It's essentially Mieville's attempt to have a go at the pulp detective genre and mostly it works. Mieville manages to get you to care about the politics of two impossible cities, through the lens of the murder of a girl which straddles the border between the city and the city. ...more

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Aug 29, 2009 Zen rated it liked it

Shelves: scifi-fantasy, the-alternate-reality, the-thriller

I really like this book. However, after putting it down, I could never get around other books long enough to want to finish the last third. Does that make it bad? I think not. The writing is intriguing and the characters, solid. The author makes a great social commentary though the book and doesn't fall into his own habit of being too convoluted to follow. Read at your own preference. ...more

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Jan 04, 2014 L. Lawson rated it it was amazing

Shelves: best-of-the-best, friend-recs-2014

Stunning, complex, and riveting. The first book by Mieville I've been able to finish, so if you're not a fan of his other work, you might still really enjoy this one. ...more

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