Review: Embassytown

Embassytown marks China Mieville's first foray into the science fiction genre.  For the most part, I've been a big fan of his fantasy works, but I'm not nearly as much a fan of SF as I am Fantasy, so I was definitely feeling a little bit of trepidation going into this read.

Mieville's tenth published work is set in the far future. Humans have colonized a distant planet populated by the Ariekei, an alien race famed for their language that only a few altered human ambassadors can speak.  Avice, one of the human colonists, has the dubious distinction of being a part of the Ariekei language.  As a child, she became a living simile, and is literally a figure of speech.  Avice has returned to Embassytown after years of deep space travel, and finds herself caught in the middle of some political turmoil as a new ambassador arrives in Arieka and upsets the delicate balance between the humans and the aliens.  With total catastrophe looming Avice  must thread the currents between the political system she no longer trusts, the humans she cares about, and the alien race which has made her an indelible part of their language.

The opening pages of Embassytown can be a confusing bunch as Mieville throws the reader in at the deep end.  You have this far future universe-scape that needs to be understood; kids are raised by shift-parents who take turns caring for the children. Time is measured in kilo-hours instead of years, and to top things off, Mieville jumps back and forth from past events to present as well.  Sure, understanding a strange and different world is all part of reading SF/F but Mieville doesn't do any hand holding or add any exposition to help ease the reader into the novel.  I'm not saying this is a bad thing, but it did make me have to work a bit harder than usual to get into this book.

I found myself torn over Embassytown.  On the one hand, it is an incredibly ambitious novel.  It is a book about language, and how different cultures communicate and understand each other. As far as concepts go, that is a pretty bold choice.  Intellectually, it provides some interesting food for thought, and explores some topics, like how language is created and built upon, which I never thought I'd read about in a SF/F novel.  However, the story that surrounds the concept is not one that I found to be all that interesting or engaging.

As usual, Mieville's world building is top notch.  Arieka is a planet where technology and biology seem intertwined, with little distinction between the two.  The Ariekei are an interesting bunch too, and Mieville does a solid job of showing the reader how their relationship with the human colonists is a strange and strained thing at best.  I've always reveled in Mieville's created worlds, as they are the perfect blend of weird, scary and fascinating, it's a treat I don't often get from any other writer.  It was nice to see that this trait made it's way over to his SF writing as well.

Though Mieville is responsible for some of the most memorable characters I've ever come across, Avice, and the other folks, both human and alien, fall pretty damn flat in Embassytown.  Sadly, I can't say that any of them stood out, or had qualities I could relate to.  This may have been deliberate, as Mieville might have wanted his far future world to seem completely strange and foreign to his readers, thus making his ideas about language and the culture clash of communication that plays a pivotal role in the novel have more impact.  I can see that working to his advantage from a conceptual standpoint, but for the kind of reader that I am, one who needs characters to connect with, or to loathe, it led to further dissatisfaction with the novel.

The kicker here is that I found it hard to relate the world building, the conflict, the characters, and the concept to one another.  I never felt like they all meshed or worked in symphony.  While I was reading I kept getting the feeling that the story, characters and world were nothing more than add-ons to this one thing, (language), Mieville really wanted to write about.  The result is a book that I never was able to sink into, or fully enjoy.  To say the least, this lack of cohesion is a departure from what I've come to expect from Mieville.

From the past few paragraphs, it must sound like I am totally poo-pooing this novel...which is kinda true I guess, because I had a hard time being a fan of this book.  That being said, it wasn't all bad.  I was very interested in the concept of the book.  Embassytown provides a very interesting look at language.  It is a book that made me think, and a book that challenged some ideas of my own. So, the book isn't a total let down. Still, it didn't really work for me as a piece of fiction.  I've come to expect great things from Mieville, and this was a disappointment.  Though it is an impressive achievement in terms of exploring an interesting concept, it is a rather dry book and not up to the standards story-wise I expect from such a great writer.  The result is that I can only recommend Embassytown on the merits of it's concept, otherwise, it is not worth the read.

Grade: C-

Comic Quickies: Dial T for Tardy

Comic Quickies are back after a brief hiatus.  I've been so insanely busy with school and other life adventures that I've haven't had much time for blogging.  In fact, this is the first time I've sat down to pound out a blog post in over a week... I've been able to keep the blog semi-regular with updates thanks to a couple blogging binges where I cranked out a load of posts, but that supply is starting to dwindle.  So, even though much of the stuff in this Comic Quickies is a week or more old, it's stuff I've read this month that I think merits mention.

Dial H #1: I knew as soon as I heard about China Mieville's comic debut, Dial H, I would have to pick up the first issue.  However, I did a dumb thing and didn't add it to my pull list, so on the day this one came out, I walked into the store to grab a copy off the shelf, and was sadly denied because the shop had sold out all of their copies.  I had to wait two weeks for the re-order to come in, and then, grabbed one of the last few re-order issues. So, suffice it to say that the "H" stands for "hot".

Keeping with China Mieville's modus operandi, this one is kinda weird.  It starts out as two out of shape friends are having an argument about being out of shape.  One guy leaves in a huff, only to be attacked by street thugs a few blocks down the street.  Nelson, the other friend, hustles to try and help, but catches an epic haymaker for the effort.  Luckily, he gets punched right into a phone booth, and while trying to dial 911, somehow gets magically turned into a strange freakshow of a superhero by the name of Boy Chimney.

As the magical smoke-phantasm producing Boy Chimney, Nelson is able to ward off the attackers and carry his friend to safety.  He then awakes a few hours later on random roof top with a minimal memory of the night's events.  After piecing things back together, Nelson figures out that his buddy has gotten on the wrong side of his sketchy employer.  Hoping to set things straight with his new-found Boy Chimney skills, Nelson returns to the magic phone booth and tries to duplicate the previous night's transformation, which he sorta does, but with vastly different results.  From there things get weird and weirder.

I can't really say I was a fan of this one.  It is just all kindsa strange, and nothing about the first issue made me care about what was going on.  Maybe I'll check out the collected trade sometime down the road, but for now, I'm gonna pass on this one.

The Bulletproof Coffin Disinterred #4: Rounding out the "That Shit Cray" double header for the month is the fourth issue of The Bulletproof Coffin Disinterred.  This one scores high in weirdness for the fact that it is a total non-linear issue comprised of 84 panels printed in random sequence.  Yup.  Weird.


The idea here is that one can just paw through the issue willy-nilly and read the damn thing in any order and achieve some sense of entertainment and enlightenment.  I'm not so sure I was enlightened, but this sure was entertaining.  It was one strange, fucked up issue, but I'm always interested to see how people push the comics medium in new and cool directions.  Shaky Kane's art was awesome and trippy as per usual, so I was hugely entertained by that to say the least.

Though the first Bulletproof Coffin mini series provided a great story, this second mini series appears to be just a collection of one-shots set in the world of BPC.  So far, there is nothing to tie together the four distinctly different narratives that we've seen so far, but I also wouldn't put it past Hine and Kane to tie it all together somehow by the end.  If you wanna get your dose of strange, surreal and off-beat in the same serving, Bulletproof Coffin is your medicine.

Mystery in Space (One-Shot): So, uh, I totally picked this up because it had a short comic in here by Nnedi Okorafor.  Sure, there were a few other draws, like the Ryan Sook cover, and the Mike Allred short, but it was pretty much all about Nnedi.

Her story is pretty cool.  I'm not sure if this is her first foray into comics or not, but she's off to a pretty good start.  The story, The Elgort had Okorafor's stamp all over it as her writerly voice, or whatever you wanna call it, came through loud and clear from the get go.  Her scripting was a little shaky, but the story was assisted by some purely sublime art by Michael Kaluta, who I was familiar with from some Rocketeer Adventures stuff.  Overall, The Elgort was a great fantasy story veiled as an SF tale.  This one stood out as the champ of the collection.

The whole she-bang-a-bang probably wasn't worth the $7.99 price tag, but I enjoyed enough of the various comics to be entertained.  I find that I always get really excited about short comic collections, but am ultimately disappointed by what's between the covers.  Maybe  I should lay off them for a while.

Book Review: Kraken

China Mieville is what I would consider a top tier fantasy writer;  Up there with the likes of Martin, Rothfuss, Kay, Abercrombie, and Bakker. A guy known to crank out quality works that I consistently want to read.  With Mieville I always try to make sure I read at least one of his works per year.  Up for 2011 is Kraken an urban fantasy tale set in London.

Billy Harrow is a pretty ordinary guy.  He works at the Darwin Center in the Natural History Museum as a cephalopod specialist.  One of his tasks is to conduct tours through the museum.  On the day the reader meets Billy, he is doing just that, leading a tour through the center, saving the museum's prize piece, a giant squid, as the grand finale of the tour, when he realizes the squid, tank and all, has vanished.  No incriminating tire tracks from a fork lift, no tell-tale drops of embalming fluid on the floor, no wet foot prints, just vanished as if it was never there to begin with.

Billy soon discovers that the disappearing squid is just the beginning of events that will vastly alter his life.  Like it or not, Billy is soon caught up in a struggle between a variety of mysterious, magical, and mythical forces.  It turns out the missing giant squid happens to be the god of a cult, who are hoping to track down their God-Kraken so they can have their prophesied Armageddon. There are numerous other forces at play here too, as every magical, strange and mysterious force in London seems to want to get their hands on the missing Kraken, or failing that, Billy, whom everyone seems to think is the key to the God's whereabouts.

Mieville is a writer of many skills, but I normally find myself drawn to his works for his wonderfully weird fantastical ideas.  I'm always impressed with his ability to create fantasy elements that are unique, and mind-blowingly cool; I'm very happy to report that there's an abundance of great fantastical elements at play in Kraken.  My favorite among these were the "knacks" or special abilities many of the characters possessed.  One character had some telepathic abilities which were used in interesting ways, and I especially liked the "Londonmancers" who draw power from the city itself.

As great as the fantastical elements were, I was slightly surprised to find myself more impressed and drawn in by the characters that populate the story.  There's a diverse group of characters in Kraken, and they are all well developed and came across as feeling vibrant and alive.  Mieville achieves this high level of character development by using the tried and true technique of showing what they are like rather than telling.  A lot of  this is done through fantastically written dialog which not only sounds incredibly realistic, but also gives the reader a strong sense of the character's personality through the way they speak and interact with others.

While there's talking tattoos, an old Egyptian spirit that travels from one statue to the next, magicians, assassins, and also characters of less magical origins, I found myself most impressed with Kath Collingswood, a knacked cop and member of the FSRC, a branch of the London police that looks into cases of the more fantastical nature.  Collingswood is a character with some serious attitude and swagger, and anytime she graces a page, the scene crackles with energy.  Collingswood is a testament to Mieville's ability to create great characters, and while there are many great ones in Kraken, for me, Collingswood is a great example of the brilliant character development on display in this novel.

Even though I enjoyed and connected with many of the characters in Kraken, I had a hard time doing the same with the main character, Billy Harrow.  I never felt like I had a strong image of him in my head, or a good sense of what kind of person he is.  I don't think this is any fault of Mieville's, especially considering how well developed many of the other characters are.  I think it is more a product of the fact that Billy gets caught up in the events of the narrative, and the character is more of a reactor rather than an actor.  He is consistently forced to respond to strange events rather than making things happen.  As a character Billy is always changing, growing and developing throughout the story that it was hard to get a grip on him as a character.

Out of any of my previous China Mieville reading experiences, I would say that this is his lightest book, aside from his YA novel Un Lun Dun.  That being said,there is still plenty of the signature dark and weird fantasy elements that makes this book have that Mieville feel...Goss and Subby anyone?  Still, I was surprised to find a fair amount of humor in this book.  Sure, most of it is dark humor, but comedy is an element not typically found in a China Mieville novel, and its a welcome addition in Kraken.

Though Kraken isn't my favorite China Mieville novel, that honor would go to The Scar, it is still an incredibly impressive novel.  Aside from being wonderfully entertaining, Kraken is proof that Mieville is still growing and developing as a writer.  His character development has clearly taken a leap forward, and his willingness to add new elements like comedy to the mix shows that he's willing to try new things in order to achieve new heights.  As always, Mieville's imaginative and weird fantasy elements are mind blastingly awesome.  If the guy keeps improving at this rate his skills will achieve Kraken-esque proportions. 

Devoted China Mieville readers will be happy to know that Kraken is another great installment in the man's already impressive bibliography.  For those who are new to the author, I think Kraken would serve as a great introduction to the author and his writing.  Either way, new reader or old, this is one you don't want to miss.

Grade: A-

China Mieville's online comic

While perusing the headlines at Bleeding Cool I came across this sweet little tid-bit.  It looks like China Mieville has himself a fledgling online comic.

Titled London intrusion, the webcomic is in the early stages, but Mieville's ink-line art is looking pretty good. The guy has one of the most imaginative minds out there, so chances are it will develop into something pretty cool.

The tantalizing first four parts can be found at Mieville's tumblr blog Rejecamentalist Manifesto. 

Review: The City & The City

The City & The City by China Mieville



Initially, The City & The City takes place in the fictional eastern European city of Beszel, where a young woman is found murdered. At first glance it appears to be a routine case for Inspector Tyador Borlu, but it turns out to be anything but routine. In order to properly investigate, Borlu, must travel to the neighboring city of Ul Qoma, a city that is very different from Beszel, yet the two are related in a very fantastical way.

Once in Ul Qoma, Borlu teams up with Ul Qoman detective, Qussim Dhatt, and the two work to uncover clues about the murder. As they begin to unravel the mystery, they also begin to suspect a truth, one that points to unseen powers behind both cities, and the secret that relates the two cities to one another.

The major, and arguably only, fantastical element to this novel is the nature of the two cities, Beszel, and Ul Qoma. The two cities share physical space, but not social or legal space. This at times was a hard concept to grasp because it is a multi-faceted concept. At times the terms of the distinction between the two cities appeared to be physical, the two cities certainly have their own identities, and characteristics. However, at other times it came across as a psychological distinction: inhabitants of one city simply used a technique of "unseeing" to maintain distinctions. Then there are "crosshatched" sections of the cities where a location appears to be in both cities at the same time. Things like greenspaces, rivers, and large buildings often had a degree of crosshatching that caused ambiguity. Of course all of this gets even more fantastical as the author begins to explore the space between the two cities: Breach.

While this novel is much lighter in terms of the surreal that you can usually find in a book by China Mieville, there are hints at it. Not only in the relationship of the two cities, but also in the bizarre artifacts that are dug up at an archeological site in Ul Qoma.

Above all else, this is a well written crime novel. If taken only at that single value, this is a solid book, however when you add in the surreal, fantastical elements you get much more. I found the relationship of the two cities to be quite thought provoking, and since Mieville never comes right out and tells what the hell is going on, the reader gets a personalized perception of what is going on in Beszel, Ul Qoma and inbetween.

One complaint I have is that the book was difficult to get into. I dragged through the first third of the book, then my enjoyment waxed and waned through the final two thirds. This might just be a gripe that is unique to me though as the book wastes no time, beginning at the scene of the crime.

Overall this is a solid novel. It is interesting and thought provoking, and I like knowing that, due to the fantastical content, my experience of reading it is unique to me. This is a "fantasy" novel that can be enjoyed by a wide range of readers.

Grade: B-