The Scar

by China Mieville

Paperback, 2002

Status

Available

Call number

823.914

Publication

Del Rey (2002), Edition: First Edition, Paperback, 656 pages

Description

A mythmaker of the highest order, China Miéville has emblazoned the fantasy novel with fresh language, startling images, and stunning originality. Set in the same sprawling world of Miéville's Arthur C. Clarke Award-winning novel, Perdido Street Station, this latest epic introduces a whole new cast of intriguing characters and dazzling creations. Aboard a vast seafaring vessel, a band of prisoners and slaves, their bodies remade into grotesque biological oddities, is being transported to the fledgling colony of New Crobuzon. But the journey is not theirs alone. They are joined by a handful of travelers, each with a reason for fleeing the city. Among them is Bellis Coldwine, a renowned linguist whose services as an interpreter grant her passage--and escape from horrific punishment. For she is linked to Isaac Dan der Grimnebulin, the brilliant renegade scientist who has unwittingly unleashed a nightmare upon New Crobuzon. For Bellis, the plan is clear: live among the new frontiersmen of the colony until it is safe to return home. But when the ship is besieged by pirates on the Swollen Ocean, the senior officers are summarily executed. The surviving passengers are brought to Armada, a city constructed from the hulls of pirated ships, a floating, landless mass ruled by the bizarre duality called the Lovers. On Armada, everyone is given work, and even Remades live as equals to humans, Cactae, and Cray. Yet no one may ever leave. Lonely and embittered in her captivity, Bellis knows that to show dissent is a death sentence. Instead, she must furtively seek information about Armada's agenda. The answer lies in the dark, amorphous shapes that float undetected miles below the waters--terrifying entities with a singular, chilling mission. . . . China Miéville is a writer for a new era--and The Scar is a luminous, brilliantly imagined novel that is nothing short of spectacular.… (more)

User reviews

LibraryThing member meganDB

I bought one of Mieville’s earlier books, Perdido Street Station, for two reasons: 1) The cover appealed to me, and 2) it was very thick. I was a poor uni student at the time you see, with a very limited book buying budget, so doorstoppers represented much better value.

By the end of the day I’d

learned two things about the book: The nice smelling German backpacker who was getting off the train as I got on was a big fan (‘China Meiville! Very cool!’ He exclaimed as he passed me), and 2) the first chapter featured a graphic sex scene between a man and a lady insect.

(The English language doesn’t really have a word for the peculiar sensation of reading about flushed bug gentalia in train surrounded by strangers.)

What can one say about Perdido Street Station? You’ll love it or you’ll hate or, more likely, you’ll love and hate it at exactly the same time. And what more can an author hope for than that?

I found Perdido Street Station to be such an intense and overwhelming read that it put me off China Mevielle a little. Not in a bad way, it was more like when you eat a bar of super dark chocolate and have to go a few days before you can eat some more. Except just replace days with years, because that’s how long it took me to find the strength to return to Mieville’s world of Bas Lag.

I was expecting the Scar to be as draining and awesome and frustrating as Perdido. Original settings wasted on a meandering plot, quirky characters getting a little lost amongst all the chaos, clear and sharp scenes book ended by lengthy blocks of confusing prose. But it seemed, to me at least, that the Scar displayed all that I loved about Perdido Street Station, and discarded all that I didn’t.

Or, to put in another way: I loved every single thing about this book. Seriously. While devouring it I would often set it down, get up from my cosy reading nest in front of the fireplace, find my boyfriend and shout ‘how can this book just keep getting better?’ It’s like it defied some law of literary physics, the way the Scar would just keep ramping up the awesome.

Floating cities and pirates and sea monsters and vampires (vampires!) and mutiny and, and, and, argh! How can one book contain so much awesome? It seems like every time you turn a page in the scar there are ideas that other authors would gladly devote entire works to exploring, but for Mieville it’s all just part of the background. Which is what makes the world of Bas Lag so dense and fun to explore and believable. Yes, believable. A race of mosquito like beings who live in exile because their women folk once took over the world? Believable. A distant land where the upper echelons are undead? Believable. A scar in the sky through which the Gods entered the world eons ago? Believable! And don't even get me started on Uther's crazy ass possibility sword....

The cast is populated with good people doing bad things and bad people doing good things, and you fall in love with some of them despite the awful things they have done, and you feel desperately bad for some them again in spite of the awful things they have done at the end you realise that there is not one character in the book who is wholly without blame for the all the catastrophic bad stuff that goes down. And frankly, I wouldn’t have it any other way.

There are plots and sub plots and sub sub plots and yet the book never feels crowded, and when the book ends there were no loose ends. Consider that for a moment. The Scar features a huge cast, with scads of POV characters, and every single one of them has their own story arc and at the conclusion of the book every one of those arcs has come to a satisfactory (which is not to say happy, no sir) conclusion. It all ends so perfectly that I don’t feel the slightest desire for a sequel. It all ended so perfectly that I actually find the idea of a sequel to be vaguely repulsive.

I’m aware that there are people out there who did not love this book as unreservedly as I did, so if you want to know if this book has any flaws possible you should ask them. In my eyes, the Scar is perfect. (It almost makes me want to reread Perdido Street Station…)

Show Less

24 more

LibraryThing member edgeworth

I read Perdido Street Station in 2009 and gave it what you might call a "conditional thumbs up." It was a first novel, after all. The biggest problems it suffered from were sluggish pacing and purple prose, but it presented an interesting enough world that it was still worth my time.

I was hoping

that The Scar would have addressed these issues, but it hasn't, really. Mieville still likes to slather up the page with excessive description (particularly with characters' thoughts) and the book is less than a hundred pages shorter than Perdido Street Station. To its credit, it does get the story started much faster, but then it slows down dramatically towards the end. I'm not sure if that's better or worse.

The novel opens with the main character, Bellis Coldwine, fleeing her home city of New Crobuzon after being wanted for questioning by the dictatorial government. Her ship is attacked by pirates and taken to a floating city called Armada, which is comprised of hundreds of ships lashed together, and which is travelling towards some unknown destination. Bellis is treated well, assimilated into Armada's society and given a job, but is told that the "press-ganged" can never leave the city. The prisoners aboard her own ship gladly enter Armadan life, but she is less enthused, in a city that is more equal yet less free than New Crobuzon.

The Scar is a clever thing, a seafaring adventure that takes us to new locales (unlike Perdido Street Station, which took place entirely within New Crobuzon) while still giving Mieville room for his true passion: a city to construct, explore, and bring to life. Armada is arguably a rip-off of Neal Stephenson's floating city in Snow Crash, but it doesn't take a genius to come up with the idea, and it's what you do with it that counts. Armada is just as fascinating and well-developed as New Crobuzon, and by the end of the book it feels like a living, breathing city.

I think what I enjoyed most about The Scar was that it takes place elsewhere, injects a bit of variety, shows us more of the intriguing world of Bas-Lag than just New Crobuzon. We visit Salkrikaltor, the half-submerged city of the crays, and the island of the mosquito-people (one of the highlights of the book), and hear about plenty more simply from the stories and backgrounds of all the disparate people who have been drawn together on Armada. Mieville is excellent at world-building, and slips details in here and there, never just telling the reader things outright. This makes for a deeper and more fascinating fantasy world than authors who treat their novels like encyclopedias. Bas-Lag is certainly one of the most original fantasy worlds in contemporary literature, and even if Mieville was a truly awful writer (which he isn't, not by a long shot) he'd still have my respect for breaking free of the Tolkien tradition and doing something interesting.

The characters of The Scar, unfortunately, are not a sympathetic bunch, but rather a motley collection of whiny bitches and cockney idiots. The character I ended up liking the most - and even this is a stretch - was the vampire lord Brucolac, one of the rulers of Armada, whose role in the story is similar to that of Moby-Dick's Starbuck. (There's a sentence I never thought I'd write.) I recall Perdido Street Station having much more likeable characters.

The other thing that irked me, which was also a problem in his first book, is Mieville's habit of telling rather than showing - particularly when it comes to characters and dialogue. Some of the conversations in this book are so littered with adverbs and excessive emotion that, were they translated to stage, they would be a textbook example of bad acting and hammy melodrama.

I found myself wondering why this bothered me so much, along with his florid prose, given that it's par for the course in most fantasy. I resolved that it's because in most other respects Mieville is an above-average writer. His books are much better than typical hack fantasy, but occasionally you can see through the cracks in the veneer, and it's disconcerting.

Overall, was The Scar better than Perdido Street Station? Marginally, yes. Once again, the sheer creative genius of Mieville's world is enough to outweigh the flaws in his writing, and I will read some more of his books down the track.

Show Less

LibraryThing member clong

Perdido Street Station made it pretty clear that China Miéville is going to be an important new voice in contemporary fantasy. In almost every way, The Scar is a better book.

For me, the real star of PSS was the city of New Crobuzon itself. While The Scar takes place on the same world, it

definitely offers more of a story--a journey, both literally and symbolically. The novel gives us an entirely new cast of characters, which move through a variety of fantastic locations, each fascinating in its own way. The plotting felt much more assured to me, with the story inexorably moving through a progression of episodes leading towards an exciting conclusion.

My biggest disappointment with The Scar was that I never really connected with the protagonist, Bellis. This alone keeps me from rating the book a 10. Many of the other characters, whether good, bad or somewhere in between, were memorable in a variety of ways, especially the two enigmatic leading men of the story, Silas Fennec and Uther Doul. The story does drag a bit early in the book, picks up in the middle, and is hard to put down for the last 200 pages or so.

Show Less

LibraryThing member misericordia

If Perdido Street Station left you with questions. Questions about the mythic origins stories, probability curves and leadership personality cults. Then hang on for another ride on the dark and twisted story that is China Miéville forte. If you thought the city of Bas-lag was something wait till

you come aboard Armada. If you haven't read Perdido Street Station don't worry you really don't have to. Either of these two books stand alone and yet each compliments the other. That either book stands alone is true a gift for a fantasy audience often taunted with "Book One in the BLAH BLAH BLAH saga".

This has book has a classic magic sword in the possibility/probability sword welded by Uther Doul a guy born in the land Vampires and Liches! The story is narrated by the mother of all brooding Gothic librarian/linguist heroines, Bellis Coldwine. And no story is complete without a convict outcaste mutant underdog like Tanner Sack. Rounding the caste of characters are con-man globe trotting spy Silas Fennac, who learns the perils of over using fish based stolen magic artifacts, Shekel the machine/women loving cabin boy, S&M power couple "The Lovers". Not to mention alternate reality cactus man and deep sea leviathan.

This is a grand and wonderful epic in a single book.

Show Less

LibraryThing member Carol_W

This is an interesting work of rather dark fantasy that manages to impressively transcend the fact that it is the story of – in the protagonist's own words – a "violent, pointless voyage." It's the second book by the author dealing with the world that contains New Crobuzon, and I haven't read

the first one, Perdida Street Station. If I had read that first book, I might have been a little less puzzled by some things, but really the plot of this second book stands alone.

The world of this story is wildly imaginative. There are many strange species of beings and a sometimes bewildering mix of semi-steam punk and magical technologies. Mieville could have made almost anything possible with this mix, but chooses not to. The limits of the magic aren't explained, but they are stated. The crowning glory of Mieville's invention in this book is its setting: Armada, a floating pirate city made up of a patchwork of old boats linked together into an almost organic whole. It's an intriguing concept, imagined in spectacular detail. If this were science fiction, I'd have to say that it couldn't actually work, but this is fantasy and - hell, who cares?

Mieville's writing is powerful and gritty. He does his characters' psychology well. The language is cruder than what I prefer to read, but I'm beyond being shocked or offended by it. It matches the world he's invented. This is not a nice place, and as long as you don't expect nice things to happen, you'll be fine. The main protagonist, Bellis, spends a lot of the story not being very effective and not even having a clear goal. This made it a little hard to get into the story at first. Normally it would be considered a flaw, but this is a story about people manipulating and using each other and Bellis is often on the receiving end of that despite her efforts to the contrary. The surprises have to do with unraveling the power structure of Armada and the purposes of its various denizens. Lots of intrigue, lots of double-crosses. And violence. Still, I spent a lot of the book waiting for the central conflict to emerge from the murk. It did eventually, though excruciatingly slowly.

All the major characters are well-drawn although the back-stories of the two central ones, Bellis and Tanner, take too long to be revealed. We never do know what Tanner's crime was that got him punished by New Crobuzon. (Maybe these two characters were introduced in the first book and we're supposed to know?) It doesn't matter to the story, but it disturbed me that Tanner never once thought about it and nobody ever asked. I was a little annoyed by the over-use of a few words – "cosseted" being the worst offender. (I don't think the more familiar synonym, "pampered" was ever used.) Mieville also has a habit of launching into what seems a description of significant time passing, only to jump back to specific events at the beginning of that time without so much as a "but" to cover the dislocation. In spite of these minor concerns, and the fact that I prefer a more feel-good story, I did enjoy reading this and recommend it to anyone who likes a dark tale.

Show Less

LibraryThing member TheAmpersand

A grand steampunk adventure that takes its readers to the literal ends of the earth, "The Scar" is probably a better book than its much-discussed predecessor. Not that it doesn't resemble it, mind you: the author's obsessions with nineteenth century technology, weird physiognomy, and the many ways

that disparate cultures can clash and blend are still very much in evidence. Still, he wisely chooses to rein in his worst impulses by limiting this novel's setting and trimming its plot: most of the book's action takes place on a single floating city, and you can (almost) count the book's major characters on one hand. Mieville's prose still a bit too verbose for my taste, but he's restrained himself here, too. His writing, while still intricate and stylized, is a bit more streamlined here, and he seems less eager to overwhelm his reader with long, grandiose descriptive passages. Mieville's plotting here is tighter, too: "The Scar" has a narrative drive that was notably absent from "Perdido Street Station" and a delicious sense of impending doom that seeps into the narrative as the the book draws to a close will keep many readers turning the pages well past their bedtimes. Mieville still seems more interested in systems and ideas than people: some of the book's characters, like Uther Doul's warrior figure, still seem seem drawn straight from a AD&D manual, and I'm not sure I'll ever be able to take a book that names its central protagonist "Bellis Coldwine" completely seriously. Still, his descriptions of the inner workings of Armada, a pirate city built from the hulls of captured ships, were engaging and and sometimes even beautiful, and somewhere in "The Scar" there's a serious meditation on the nature of loss and the condition of exile. I particularly enjoyed Mieville's treatment of Tanner Sack and Shekel, two characters of low social standing who see their assimilation into Armada as a chance to build a better, more humane life in a less repressive social environment. "The Scar" isn't a work of genius, but it's a fun read perfect for readers with a few hours to kill and an urge to journey deep into unknown lands.

Show Less

LibraryThing member ChrisRiesbeck

In this spoiler-free (I think) review I hope I can help others decide if The Scar is something they would enjoy. I say almost nothing specific about the plot but instead list the "flavor notes" I found, in the form of other books I was reminded of. I'm not suggesting that The Scar is derivative of

those works any more than wine actually is made from chocolate, oak or sauerkraut.

Since I have not read Perdido Street Station, I make no reference to that preceding text. While there may be much I missed, readers should know that The Scar stands alone quite well.

One almost overpowering and certainly lingering flavor is Peake's Gormenghast. The Scar is set primarily on a floating city made 100s of captured ships. How this city is maintained, how it works, how it feels to walk its many alleys under its many towers suffuses the story in the same way that the castle/city of Gormenghast dominated the first two books in Peake's trilogy.

Another strong flavor that appears early and repeatedly is horrific carnage from mysterious figures a la Simmon's Hyperion. Eventually all is explained but without lessening the original horror. As with Hyperion, there are sympathetic characters taken though some terrible times, though the focus is on just a few people.

Then comes the interleaved flavors of Victorian steampunk, a la Blaylock's Lord Kelvin's Machine with magic as engineering as in Campbell's Unknown magazine -- and maybe even a touch of the whaling chapters from Moby Dick. Many pages are spent on the technology of storing and applying magical sources of power, the cultural processes for living with vampires, and so on. I found the substitution of 'y' for 'e' to form terms like "chymical" and "elyctric" annoying, but otherwise these passages satisfied the SF reader in me far more than a typical fantasy does. In one of the touches I enjoyed quite a bit, the most magical device and the source of its power is also the closest to a pure science fiction device.

There are some off-notes. There are points where the city's populace "speaks" with one voice the way entire planetary populations used to be characterized in pulp SF. Some of the plot revelations are a bit thin to support the time and emphasis given them. Finally, I've grown to really hate long books. Even when I enjoy the book, as I did The Scar, I resent one author hogging my time to such an extent. I'd rather visit the world of The Scar in several shorter novels, on my schedule, than have a forced extended stay.

Still in all, I'm glad I read The Scar and some day I'll return to read Perdido Street Station.

Show Less

LibraryThing member ggarfield

On the one hand this book is a collection of amazing images, rich characters, exotic creatures, swashbuckling pirates and stunningly imaginative scenes. The whole notion that is “Armada” is really quite remarkable. The book is a cross between a Tolkien-esque fantasy and science fiction.

Mieville’s vocabulary is admirable in its vastness. On the other, however, I found the plot often redundant which, for me, made it’s reading a bit of a slog and a dark and foreboding one at that. A long circular journey which seems to end where it started-Uther Doul to Bellis Coldwine – “Enough is enough. We will take you back.” And so he does and she with scars and fatigue to show for it. Perhaps even a few “possibilities. We learn at the end that “everything has changed” and the journey is really just beginning. Moreover, “all that frantic fear is gone”. So apparently something redeeming may have occurred.

Overall, the depth of Mieville’s imagination, coupled with his descriptive vocabulary makes this a rich story even though I would not count it as one of my favorites.

Show Less

LibraryThing member kgodey

The Scar is set in Bas Lag, the world of the city-state of New Crobuzon, last seen in Perdido Street Station. Bellis Coldwine, a linguist, is escaping her beloved city of New Crobuzon because of the events of Perdido Street Station (no spoilers, but you'll recognise some references if you've read

it) by enlisting as a translator on a colony and prison ship. The ship carries a very disparate group of people, all looking to leave New Crobuzon for various reasons. Then they get attacked by pirates, and recruited to be colonists of an entirely different place – Armada, the floating city.

The world of Bas Lag is incredibly well-realised, and we meet more species and go to far more places than we did in Perdido Street Station. I've raved about Miéville's world-building before, and I will continue to do so in the future. The descriptions of Armada make for spectacular reading – a floating city, built from ships and platforms.

Bellis is an interesting protagonist – she's an established woman over forty, and I have read very few books that feature people like her. She's a pretty cold person, but she's also extremely sad at having to leave her home of New Crobuzon. I wasn't really sure whether I liked her, but she was certainly a good protagonist. The other characters of the novel were also fun – I liked Silas Fennec and Tanner Sack (in very different ways), and Shekel's thirst for learning was endearing.

The plot went along at a steady pace, and was pretty engaging. I didn't see a couple of the twists and turns coming. The ending disappointed me a little bit, because so much was left up in the air.

I have the same problems with this as I have with any Miéville book – it's a bit cold. I probably would have more to say about this if I hadn't read The City & the City so recently. Overall, a pretty good book.

Originally posted on my blog.

Show Less

LibraryThing member RobertDay

The blurbs didn't do this book justice. The setting was stupendous, the story and the characters involving (if sometimes a little difficult for the reader to wholly empathise with - but I suspect that may have been the idea), and the writing was a marvel. I was amused that Miéville chose a Welsh

name for the monster from the deep that was the object of the Armadans' quest; and I suspect he had been spending a lot of time looking at the history of London's East End and Docklands. The floating pirate city of Armada sounds inspired by photographs of the heyday of the London docks, and the flagship of the Lovers is Brunel's 'Great Eastern', built in London and lovingly recreated in some detail (much of it fairly accurate) in the novel. As for the rest of it - Pirates! Airships! Vampires! Sea monsters! McGuffins! Cactus men! Mermaids! (I'm sure there was a mermaid somewhere in there.) Sea battles with ironclads! Grumpy dolphins! Lost books! Steampunkery! Spies! Mosquito women! Galleons and gallies and paddle steamers!

Miéville does exercise his talent for gory horror, and some will not find that to their liking. And many of the characters' motivations are distinctly suspect. Some of the magical apparatus is a bit hand-wavy, but although in his world of Bas-Lag there is supposed to be a system of magic, Miéville hasn't spent too much time going into the detailed mechanisms of it, which is perhaps as well. Don't come into this book expecting wizards and spells; magic is just a tool that people use to achieve their ends, and they have other tools as well. But I enjoyed this vivid, sprawling adventure.

Show Less

LibraryThing member -Eva-

Miéville extraordinary world-building skills coupled with pirates - have I gone to heaven? I know a lot of people rate this as slightly sub par compared to Perdido, but I actually think it's as good, if not even better, in that it exponentially expands the world of Bas-Lag. Bas-Lag lives not only

on land and in the water, but potentially everywhere. The floating city, complete with gardens, shops, libraries, restaurants, etc., makes Bas-Lag so much grander than it was in Perdido (although it was already quite grand there).

Also, because we're dealing with pirates and an amalgamation of various peoples, the characters are so much more difficult to figure out, which I enjoyed. Everyone has their own covert agenda and it becomes a bit of a mystery trying to ascertain who is doing what to whom and why. Funnily enough, it's those that have to hide from daylight that tend to be the most honest and forthcoming about their aims and goals.

As is true with most (all?) of Miéville's writing, there is an underlying discussion about society and power and classes and their functions and this discourse sometimes takes over from the characters, which is the book's only flaw. It doesn't detract much, though, and The Scar is still a powerful part of the Bas-Lag mythology.

Show Less

LibraryThing member Sungold

The Seattle Times review quote on the cover says "Gritty, dark fiction at its finest...a captivating romp through a richly imagined universe." Gritty, dark, and a richly imagined universe -- with those descriptions I wholeheartedly agree, but Mieville is never a "romp." Challenging and pleasingly

unpredictable, the Scar loosely follows Perdido Street Station, but weaves a complicated, multi-perspective plot in less than half the space of its predecessor. Dark, complex characters who realistically portray the hidden, inner goodness, and darkness, of the human condition. If you like Mieville, you'll love it; if you are expecting light, fantasy fiction, this work is not for you.

Show Less

LibraryThing member sarah_rubyred

I bought this book straight after reading Perdido Street Station, which is set in the same fictional universe(s). It has lived up to my expectations as a follow on from PSS, although it did take me longer to get into. The main character is not actually that likeable and I found her to be quite

moany. However, the story develops and the attention is taken away by massive floating pirate cities, grindylows, alternative realities, along with the normal Mieville cast of oddities, and a bit of S&M, and the whining leading lady is only a cog in the wheel.

China Mieville has a fantastic way with words, an expansive vocabulary, and is not scared of dark, subversive, perverted,and occasionally nauseating stories. If you are a fan of fairy fanstasy I would steer clear!

Show Less

LibraryThing member BarbN

Journey to the center of the earth recast as if in dreams. Vivid, memorable writing, wonderfully imaginative with bizarre creatures and motives. The lead characters (of whatever species) become very real and tangible through the course of the story. The heroine does not start out as a sympathetic

character, but her eventual engagement and punishment for becoming engaged grab one by the throat. I found this book quite brilliant and absolutely absorbing.

Show Less

LibraryThing member kmaziarz

Bellis Coldwine, a translator who has lived in the city of New Crobuzon her entire life, finds herself fleeing her beloved city for the colony of Nova Esperium. Unfortunately for Bellis, her ship is attacked by pirates along the way. The pirates kill the captain and first mate, and offer the

passengers—and the hold full of slaves who were on their way to a life of servitude in the colony—a chance at a new life in the pirate city of Armada. Armada is like no other city ever created; over the centuries, ships have been lashed together into a great conglomeration, with bridges built between them and buildings built upon them, creating a vibrant and ever-evolving seagoing civilization whose population is ever supplemented by the press-ganged like Bellis.

Cold and bitter to begin with, Bellis now finds herself an unwilling inhabitant of Armada and her anger grows. Quickly, however, she finds herself caught up in the plot being hatched by Armada’s rulers, known only as the Lovers, to raise a giant beast from the deeps and harness its mighty strength. It seems that the Lovers have been targeting ships to acquire books and personnel with specialized knowledge, and Bellis discovers that she is the only one in the city who can read the dead language in which the most important text is written…and that raising the beast may only be the beginning of the Lovers’ sinister plans. Add into the mix a spy from New Crobuzon who needs Bellis’s help; a freed slave who will do another for his new city but finds nostalgia in his heart for his old; and Uther Doul, a deadly mercenary who chooses not to lead but to follow and who bears ancient artifacts from the long-dead and inhuman Ghosthead Empire; and mysterious aquatic entities stalking the city for their own purposes, and you have the formula for a complicated, vibrant story in which nothing and no one are what they seem and everything can change at a moment’s notice.

China Mieville is an up-and-coming name in the genre of urban fantasy. Whereas many writers in the genre set their stories in cities that are recognizably our own but which then morph and twist into new forms, Mieville’s work creates cities that are new and strange, becoming vibrant characters in their own right. Armada is a triumphant and magical creation, and the eccentricities of the characters and plot are mesmerizing.

Show Less

LibraryThing member kevinashley

The second of the books set in the world of Bas-Lag, this met all the expectations that had been set by the magnificent 'Perdido Street Station'. In this book, although some of the primary protagonists come from NC, the action takes place entirely away from it, with the opening taking place on the

edge of the city and the rest over the world of Bas-Lag on the floating city-state of Armada. Sweeping ideas well-realised and excellent characterisation, with leading characters that are not entirely sympathetic. One or two frustrating loose ends remain, as many mysteries are slowly revealed and it is unclear which of them will be key. We never discover what Uther Doul and the Brucolac were up to together, nor what Uther did after leaving High Cromlech, nor why The Lovers were as they are. But very satisfying, nonetheless.

Show Less

LibraryThing member iftyzaidi

For sheer imagination and scale, I can think of no other fantasy or science fiction writer that can beat China Mieville. Its astonishing the amount of miscellenia he can cram into one book - cities of the dead, pirates, leviathans, underwater races, sea battles, airships, vampires, spies,

espionage, deadly swamps, obsession and magic. I did feel that the book could have been streamlined a bit, but thats a minor issue in light of the lovely characterisation and the dense, tangled plot. Another winner.

Show Less

LibraryThing member idanush

China is actually getting better with time.
His second attempt is a little more subtle and subdued. he relaxes a bit and that's a good thing (Massive and huge and any derivative are still abundant though).
Again, he takes us on an unbelievable journey that is impossible and yet fascinating. Full of

aliens that feel truly alien yet are strangely easy to relate to, and technology that is magical and fantastic yet so familiar.
China shows us that the journey is the biggest part of the trip aboard an absurd city that is built out of salvaged boats.

Show Less

LibraryThing member jmgold

One of the few sequels to be greater than its predecessor. While the plot was not quite as interesting as that of Perdido Street Station's was, this novel is far more assuredly written. Plus the setting is just astonishingly well realized. Easy the most immersive reading experience I've had in the

last few years.

Show Less

LibraryThing member Bookalicious

Strange, Bizzare, a freak show of oddities and weirdos that somehow come together in a fantastic yarn. Perhaps a little heavy for those just looking for some light reading or just for some thoughtless escapism, but still worth making time to read.

LibraryThing member tronella

I have to say that I preferred the plot Perdido Street Station (an earlier book of his set in the same world), but this was still great, and the setting of the main part of the story was amazing. As with Perdido Street Station, the whole world and all the characters seem very well though out. Lots

of little comments about some great historical event that all the characters know about, and so clearly don't need describing. Descriptions of trading routes and government and so on. I love it.

Show Less

LibraryThing member woodge

After reading China Miéville's novel Perdido Street Station last June, The Scar was quickly added to my Must Read list. Like the former, The Scar takes place on Miéville's intriguing and bizarre world of Bas-Lag. It's a world of vast oceans, many strange races, and a smattering of magic (or

"thaumaturgy" in Miéville's prose). The protagonist this time around is Bellis Coldwine, a woman on the run from the New Crobuzon authorities. She boards a ship leaving New Crobuzon which is heading for a new colony. The ship hasn't traveled too far before it is captured by pirates from the floating city of Armada. There are some fascinating characters living on Armada and Bellis becomes embroiled in the strange plans of Armada's hideously scarred rulers known only as The Lovers. Miéville kept me continually in awe of the weird happenings and travels of the Armadans. His world of Bas-Lag is dense with peculiar people, landscapes, and customs. He's quickly become my new favorite science fiction writer. I was pleased to discover that his next novel, Iron Council, will also be set in Bas-Lag and is due out in July 2004. His novels are just wildly entertaining.

Show Less

LibraryThing member wyvernfriend

The main focus character of this book is Bellis Coldwine. Tanner Sack, one of the main secondary characters was one of my favourites and I wouldn't mind reading more with him and possibly Uther Doul.

The story opens with Bellis running away from New Crobuzon wanting to get away from some enemies

and the events of "Perdido Street Station". When the ship she's sailing in is captured by people from the Armada her life changes and she has to respond to these changes.

Interesting but it seems to lag occasionally and with Bellis as a fairly unsympathetic character it's occasionally hard to connect with the characters.

Show Less

LibraryThing member sunwukung

One of my all time favourite fantasy books - there is more invention and imagination inbetween the covers of this beauty than in half the derivative fantasy I have read. No obligatory trilogy, no default 500 pages of padded fetch quests - this is absolutely popping with fresh ideas, glimpses of a

vast world that leaves you wanting more.

Show Less

LibraryThing member Harlan879

My third China Mieville book, after City & the City and Perdido Street Station, and so far my favorite. This is a terrific novel, with the spectacular sense of bizarre urban density and authentic place that the other two novels had, plus a really compelling set of characters, each with personality,

sometimes-ambiguous motivations, and stakes. Mieville creates a world with crazy and imaginative rules, but instead of resolving the intricate and fascinating plot by inventing more rules, a common problem in genres like this one (urban fantasy, sorta, or slipstream), he resolves (sorta) the plot by understandable, justifiable motivations of the characters. Extremely enjoyable.

Show Less

Fewer