Sprawling, vast, beautiful, challenging, important...
I hate to contribute to the hyperbole surrounding this novel, but it really is all that and more.
Mieville has captured elements of Dickens and Peake and put them in a world that breathes and stinks and sweats. New Crobuzon is alive, but not because Mieville throws vast details at the reader, hoping some of it sticks. Instead, the feeling of the city-state creeps and builds as the novel progresses.
Similarly, the characters are three-dimensional and revealed slowly, and never at the expense of the story, which involves terrifying predators and smarmy politics, but also love, hope, science, and humanity.
It's not perfect--some moments are underdeveloped and other overly so. However, the plot was coherent and mostly tight, and the payoffs, in terms of both characters and story were rewarding. I felt like I had survived an earthquake when I finished it.
Highly recommended.
I hate to contribute to the hyperbole surrounding this novel, but it really is all that and more.
Mieville has captured elements of Dickens and Peake and put them in a world that breathes and stinks and sweats. New Crobuzon is alive, but not because Mieville throws vast details at the reader, hoping some of it sticks. Instead, the feeling of the city-state creeps and builds as the novel progresses.
Similarly, the characters are three-dimensional and revealed slowly, and never at the expense of the story, which involves terrifying predators and smarmy politics, but also love, hope, science, and humanity.
It's not perfect--some moments are underdeveloped and other overly so. However, the plot was coherent and mostly tight, and the payoffs, in terms of both characters and story were rewarding. I felt like I had survived an earthquake when I finished it.
Highly recommended.
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