"Following Perdido Street Station and The Scar, acclaimed author China Miéville returns with his hugely anticipated Del Rey hardcover debut. With a fresh and fantastical band of characters, he carries us back to the decadent squalor of New Crobuzon—this time, decades later.
It is a time of wars and revolutions, conflict and intrigue. New Crobuzon is being ripped apart from without and within. War with the shadowy city-state of Tesh and rioting on the streets at home are pushing the teeming city to the brink. A mysterious masked figure spurs strange rebellion, while treachery and violence incubate in unexpected places.
In desperation, a small group of renegades escapes from the city and crosses strange and alien continents in the search for a lost hope.
In the blood and violence of New Crobuzon’s most dangerous hour, there are whispers. It is the time of the iron council. . . ."
This is the summary from Goodreads, which I'm using because I have no idea how to summarize the plot of this book in a way that makes any sense at all.
Most people I talk to about China Mieville's books either love his books (like I do) or they don't like them at all. I have never met someone who has read one and said "meh, he's ok." This book is one that makes more sense if you have read the other books mentioned, although they don't give you too much to go on. If I tell someone about Mieville's books, I tend to say, "you just have to lean back and relax into the story. Just go with it because he's never really going to explain anything and your mind will just go with the flow if you let it."
The first time I read this book, I felt it was weaker than Perdido Street Station and The Scar. I hadn't picked it up for a few years, but my re-read this time felt the same way. While I like some of the concepts here, especially the one character who is able to make increasingly complex golems, I found the story just never quite caught me in the same way as some of his other books. I wanted to love it, but just didn't. It has a lot of the politics that you expect if you'd read his book. It has the complex characters and storylines and interesting (and flawed) characters. But . . . there's something about it that just does always come together smoothly. So, worth a re-read, but not my favorite.
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