Book Review: The City & The City, by China Mieville

One of my favorite books from a couple of years ago was Kraken by China Mieville. I enjoyed that audiobook so much that there was a part of me that had some trepidation about reading more of Mieville’s books because I worried that maybe they wouldn’t be as good as that first one, right? Please tell me that I’m not the only person that feels this way when they first discover a new writer or band.

Anyway, I overcame my perhaps unwarranted hesitancy and read Mieville’s novel previous to Kraken: The City and The City. At its core, it’s a detective novel. The setting is the rival Eastern European-ish cities of Beszel and Ul Qoma. A woman from one city is found dead in the other and haggard Beszel detective Tyador Borlu must work through the barriers in his own corrupt department as well as navigate the other city-state’s unfamiliar customs and inherent distrust to solve the crime.

Now, this might sound all pretty straightforward, but Mieville’s innovation is the locale. Beszel and Ul Qoma aren’t neighboring cities like East and West Berlin, or Buda and Pest. Their streets and buildings literally co-occupy the same space. This creates an environment in which citizens of one city are required to “unsee” and “unhear” the citizens of the other, even though they might be walking down the same street or sitting on the same park bench. Monitoring everyone from both cities is the (almost) all-seeing secret police, Breach, which ruthlessly “disappears” offenders that break the rules of separation.

Of course, Mieville is too subtle a writer to spell things out with exposition. He just dunks you right in and makes you figure the nuances of this world out for yourself. For me, this caused the first several chapters to be downright disorienting. And I found that slightly off-balance feeling staying with me during the entire book – which I’m pretty sure was the intention all along.

The overlapping cities and the beaten down, paranoid police-state culture that comes with it are the real stars of the book and create a palpable noir feel. Of course, the construct invites clear parallels to our own society, whether it’s “unseeing” the homeless person you walk past everyday, or “unhearing” facts that disagree with your own political worldview, or having a population that’s willfully ignorant. These contemplations lingered with me long after I put the book down.

The City and The City is solid detective mystery set in one of the most original backgrounds I’ve come across in a long time that can even induce a little self-reflection. See? Nothing to worry about.

Four solid stars.

Book Review: "Kraken" by China Mieville

When I finished the audiobook of China Mieville’s new novel “Kraken”, the first thing that went through my mind was was that it’s not too often that you come to the end of a book and think “I’ve never quite read anything like that before” – and it’s wonderful to realize that authors can still surprise and delight you.

Now I’m sure we can all agree that giant squids are awesome.  And I have always been fascinated by them.  Why?  Because they might be the last “monster” left on earth.  Smart, powerful, dangerous and “other” -- they’re not like you and me, these invertebrate behemoths of the deep.  So when this book popped up on some “if you liked that, you might like this...” algorithm, I knew that I had to give it a try.



Billy Harrow is a curator at London’s Natural History Museum and one day finds that his prize specimen -- a recently collected giant squid, indeed its entire tank full of preserving fluid -- has been stolen.  Who steals a giant squid and moreover how?  These questions lead Billy into a world hidden within our own -- one of magic, power, strange religions, its own police unit, and dangerous politics.  After the theft, things go from bad to worse, as it becomes alarmingly clear that the theft of the squid is central to an onrushing Apocalypse that threatens to wipe out all things.  The ensuing story is thoughtful, funny, scary, thrilling , and at times, oddly touching -- maybe the most bizarre whodunit I’ve ever read.

I’m sure that Mieville’s book will be compared to Neil Gaiman’s “Neverwhere” -- another novel that explores a world-within-a-world in London, but the book reminds me more of Neal Stephenson’s “Anathem”.  What makes this book so good to me is that like Stephenson, Mieville creates an incredibly realized world like nothing we’ve really seen and makes you believe in it and the fantastical characters that reside in it.  Mieville’s story has maybe a half-a-dozen ideas that are clever and powerful enough to power their own novels outright, but here are brought into service of this one.

The other thing that made this book an absolute joy to listen to was Mieville’s use of language.   He wielded grammar and vocabulary so deftly that it made me feel like English was my second language.  So much so, that in an unprecedented move, I am actually buying the physical book so that I can go back and re-read it sometime.

I don't believe in book-review grade-inflation, but easily five stars out of five.