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.