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labingiI finally finished this book. Quick and dirty review. Overall, it was good; it was better in the beginning. It was somewhat too long. If you like Iain M. Banks, you'll probably like it. The star of the show is the setting.
Summary: On a distant planet in a rundown city, an unlikely group forms an alliance to destroy a threat to all life in the city.
The Good
* Excellent world-building: deep and grubby and convincingly real. Nice concept for deploying what we would usually call "magic" as a separate branch of physics and discussing how an impoverished, decaying civilization would employ it--just as such societies employ the other laws of physics--mainly (but not always) to degrade, punish, and make the rich richer. Good integration of several alien cultures together. Nice mix of super-advanced tech with old tech: it feels alien and also like a society that's been through many rounds of development and collapse.
* Fake science: especially near the beginning, the discussion of fake physics and scientists' attachment to their work was interesting and felt psychologically plausible. So, too, the discussion of art.
* The action story (no spoilers): he presents a convincingly tricky problem with various possible solutions, none easy. Nice sci fi realism and tension.
* The characters are not silly or stereotyped. They are diverse and plausible, if not deep. (This is the second of Miéville's books I've read, and this seems his standard approach to character.)
The Less Good
* The characters are not deep. The only potentially profoundly interesting one is Yagharek, and his particular story occupies about 1/30 of the book. Isaac (the best candidate for protagonist) is like intricate pastel painting: a lot of subtlety went into it, but it's all in bland colors.
* It's too long, i.e. too detail- and subplot-heavy to fully sustain interest over 600+ pages (for me).
* It's got some mild gender fail (on which more beneath the cut), which is not egregious by any means, but I'd like to be able to hold Miéville to a higher standard.
Gender and Spoilers
Boy, this is all subtle stuff, but it needles me.
1) It was a fascinating choice to create an alien insectoid species in which the females function basically like humans and the males are almost mindless, not unlike real insects. It was fascinating enough to be disappointing that we see almost none of this society. It's only representative is someone disenchanted with it, who has left it for the human world.
It makes sense, as the book avers, that the main religion in this society would worship a goddess... yet most of the page time is given to the fringe cult that worships males. Not only is this a missed opportunity to explore matriarchal religion; it is one of the few places in which the world-building makes no sense. Religions, like all social institutions, form in a way that gives the people who form them some sort of power. A society of females is not going to spontaneously form a religion that tells them they are all base beings who should be worshiping the bugs. Sure, religions can be self-hating, but there's always someone who's benefiting, and it's not going to be primarily the mindless insect who had nothing do with creating the narrative.
2) One would get the impression from this book that Miéville thinks breasts are an essential female trait. Almost every female from every (at least bipedal) species is identifiable as such because she has breasts, even if they are only "ornamental" (?). It makes me feel like I'm watching an old cartoon where you can always identify the female dog, cat, flower, whatever, because she has foot-long eyelashes.
3) A gender sub-point but worth mentioning. SPOILER: So the upshot is that the great "taking away of choice" crime mentioned on about page 20 is a rape. This is revealed on page 608 as if it were a shocker, as if every person from modern human society would not instantly think of rape as the quintessential "taking away of choice" crime back on page 20. Isaac, then, jumps to the conclusion that this rape must have been perpetrated against a female (because males are never raped, right?), and oh look, he's right. (You can tell because the accuser has breasts.) I just found this reinforcement all the standard rape tropes as if they were somehow cutting-edge a tad annoying.
One Final Frustration--not Gender-Related, Big Spoiler
I mentioned that Yagharek is the most interesting character but gets little page time. Indeed, the narrative of this generally heroic figure being guilty of a brutal rape (i.e. the event and his motivations) gets about five lines. It's a good basis for a narrative: the heroic, good person grappling with responsibility for a heinous crime. But it needs to be the center of the narrative. Otherwise, it's unsatisfying at best, a cheap-shot played for cheap thrills at worst. This premise could have been a novel by Joseph Conrad. Instead, it's a footnote, which is disappointing.
On the whole, I'm glad I read the book. It's basically a thriller with great world-building. I wish it hadn't set up an expectation of being more and had sped through it's basic thriller story in a more aerodynamic 300-400 pages.
Summary: On a distant planet in a rundown city, an unlikely group forms an alliance to destroy a threat to all life in the city.
The Good
* Excellent world-building: deep and grubby and convincingly real. Nice concept for deploying what we would usually call "magic" as a separate branch of physics and discussing how an impoverished, decaying civilization would employ it--just as such societies employ the other laws of physics--mainly (but not always) to degrade, punish, and make the rich richer. Good integration of several alien cultures together. Nice mix of super-advanced tech with old tech: it feels alien and also like a society that's been through many rounds of development and collapse.
* Fake science: especially near the beginning, the discussion of fake physics and scientists' attachment to their work was interesting and felt psychologically plausible. So, too, the discussion of art.
* The action story (no spoilers): he presents a convincingly tricky problem with various possible solutions, none easy. Nice sci fi realism and tension.
* The characters are not silly or stereotyped. They are diverse and plausible, if not deep. (This is the second of Miéville's books I've read, and this seems his standard approach to character.)
The Less Good
* The characters are not deep. The only potentially profoundly interesting one is Yagharek, and his particular story occupies about 1/30 of the book. Isaac (the best candidate for protagonist) is like intricate pastel painting: a lot of subtlety went into it, but it's all in bland colors.
* It's too long, i.e. too detail- and subplot-heavy to fully sustain interest over 600+ pages (for me).
* It's got some mild gender fail (on which more beneath the cut), which is not egregious by any means, but I'd like to be able to hold Miéville to a higher standard.
Gender and Spoilers
Boy, this is all subtle stuff, but it needles me.
1) It was a fascinating choice to create an alien insectoid species in which the females function basically like humans and the males are almost mindless, not unlike real insects. It was fascinating enough to be disappointing that we see almost none of this society. It's only representative is someone disenchanted with it, who has left it for the human world.
It makes sense, as the book avers, that the main religion in this society would worship a goddess... yet most of the page time is given to the fringe cult that worships males. Not only is this a missed opportunity to explore matriarchal religion; it is one of the few places in which the world-building makes no sense. Religions, like all social institutions, form in a way that gives the people who form them some sort of power. A society of females is not going to spontaneously form a religion that tells them they are all base beings who should be worshiping the bugs. Sure, religions can be self-hating, but there's always someone who's benefiting, and it's not going to be primarily the mindless insect who had nothing do with creating the narrative.
2) One would get the impression from this book that Miéville thinks breasts are an essential female trait. Almost every female from every (at least bipedal) species is identifiable as such because she has breasts, even if they are only "ornamental" (?). It makes me feel like I'm watching an old cartoon where you can always identify the female dog, cat, flower, whatever, because she has foot-long eyelashes.
3) A gender sub-point but worth mentioning. SPOILER: So the upshot is that the great "taking away of choice" crime mentioned on about page 20 is a rape. This is revealed on page 608 as if it were a shocker, as if every person from modern human society would not instantly think of rape as the quintessential "taking away of choice" crime back on page 20. Isaac, then, jumps to the conclusion that this rape must have been perpetrated against a female (because males are never raped, right?), and oh look, he's right. (You can tell because the accuser has breasts.) I just found this reinforcement all the standard rape tropes as if they were somehow cutting-edge a tad annoying.
One Final Frustration--not Gender-Related, Big Spoiler
I mentioned that Yagharek is the most interesting character but gets little page time. Indeed, the narrative of this generally heroic figure being guilty of a brutal rape (i.e. the event and his motivations) gets about five lines. It's a good basis for a narrative: the heroic, good person grappling with responsibility for a heinous crime. But it needs to be the center of the narrative. Otherwise, it's unsatisfying at best, a cheap-shot played for cheap thrills at worst. This premise could have been a novel by Joseph Conrad. Instead, it's a footnote, which is disappointing.
On the whole, I'm glad I read the book. It's basically a thriller with great world-building. I wish it hadn't set up an expectation of being more and had sped through it's basic thriller story in a more aerodynamic 300-400 pages.
