The Scar

[Rane Longfox]

Water was partially purified, and partially bought from traders, iirc. And why can't you have livestock? The scale of the city is enormous, it's not just a few boats cobbled together

[Karsa Orlong]

Haven't posted for a while, but I'm getting back in the mood.

I've just finished The Scar, and I was just wondering to myself whether I enjoyed it more than Perdido Street Station, and I'm finding it a difficult question to answer. I think that Perdido Street Station felt more unusual to me, it was less accessible but perhaps more ambitious. I read it in a week as well, so it certainly wasn't a struggle to get through, and all in all I loved it. That said, there were parts where the book really did lull, in particular much of the stuff involving the constructs. A few ideas were too gimmicky, and the way things came together was also a little haphazard in places, though not as much as some of you are claiming methinks. I liked it when the character we'd never met popped up to save the day for example, I actually thought that was a nice touch.

I also really liked the way the book violently changes a couple of hundred pages in, and I don't think many authors could've managed that so successfully. I thought the pervasive sense of dread and horror that the moths induced was absolutely incredible, the city was wonderfully imaginative yet believable with a bizarre claustrophobic atmosphere as others have said, and all the stuff with the Garuda was fascinating - I loved his first person broodings. Oh, and it has the Weaver.

Still, The Scar might just be even better. Halfway through I would've said otherwise, I think the environment, writing style and atmosphere are all less *different* than they are in Perdido... for much of the story, and thus less impressive initially. But at some point, a very strong bond seemed to grow between me and the Armada. I thought the sections written from an omniscient standpoint were excellent and really captured the mood of the place. The characters, meanwhile, were consistently more interesting and complex in this one, Bellis always held my interest (and empathy - I'm surprised more people don't feel the same way), Doul is obviously utterly cool and very intriguing, the vampyrs were a great surprise (I usually don't like it when conventional *races* are found in books where everything else seems so different, but somehow he pulls it off without a hitch), the Lovers are morbidly fascinating, etcetc - even the less interesting characters seemed somehow necessary (Shekel and Angevine, for instance).

Take nothing away from the characters in PSS, I still think they were damned interesting and stayed well away from stereotypes, but I related to the cast in The Scar just a little more. All the plot twists were unexpected, yet had a feeling of inevitability about them at the same time - he structured the story more effectively than PSS I think.

The Scar also has its weaknesses for sure - for example I don't like the way Miéville ends a segment then starts the next segment in virtually the same conversation, it felt awkward to me. I don't remember him doing that in PSS (correct me if I'm wrong). Writers like Erikson pull this off better, mostly because they usually use breaks in the text in order to jump either to a different character or a different time period, rather than throwing them about willy-nilly.

One thing that I didn't think was weak was the ending. I'd like someone to explain why they didn't like it - for me it wrapped things up very fittingly.

Great book anyway, he's quickly established himself as one of my absolute favourite sci-fi/fantasy authors.

[Karsa Orlong]

Why the hell can't you edit posts after 60 minutes? That's seriously annoying, the structure of that post was awful because I was pressed for time, and I was only half done improving it. Oh well, I guess you'll get the gist.

Anyway, I was going to add that Miéville's one of the better writers in the genre for creating characters who will do very strange, surprising, and even conventionally immoral things, that are nevertheless grounded in very understandable, human emotions (albeit complicated ones, especially in Doul's case). It's difficult to maintain a balance between the bizarre and the relatable, the alien and the human, but that seems to be his forte.

[ravenus]

Nice review, Karsa. I like PSS more for the reasons I outlined here, but The Scar is also a great book and testament to Mieville's awesome imagination.

[speedingslug]

The Scar was great, it was slightly read different to PSS, but embellished more of the world and creatures that exist there. I still wonder where they xenian's come from is it from the torque the wanders the world is this something to do with the Ghosthead Empire ?

I started to feel more emphatic to the Remade in this book, New Crobuzon is a terrifying place indeed, with no morals at all.

[kaelcarp]

It's been a few years since I read The Scar, but it has stood as my all-time favorite book since I did, knocking Geek Love from that perch. I just thought it was pretty much perfect. Unlike many people, I loved the ending. I thought it was great. The thing for me is that I can't stand endings that wrap things up neatly or explain everything. I find them contrived and unrealistic. I think Mieville's endings are so much better than most.

Iron Council was a slight let down, though I still liked it a lot, and Un Lun Dun restored Mieville in my mind as the best young writer out there. I look forward to following his career and reading anything he puts out.