The enthralling new novel from the award-winning author of Kraken and The City & The City
Embassytown
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'There are few (releases) that can command the anticipation that the latest Miéville does... Given the huge burst of publicity that the author received with his novel Kraken, we're expecting this to be one of the big hits of the year, certainly on Tor's list and most likely another awards contender, given Miéville's three-times victory at the Arthur C Clarke Award.' SciFiNow < br/>< br/>
'Breathtakingly original, smart and imaginative storytelling.' --Fortean Times
'Breathtakingly original, smart and imaginative storytelling.' --Fortean Times
Book Description
Embassytown: a city of contradictions on the outskirts of the universe. Avice is an immerser, a traveller on the immer, the sea of space and time below the everyday, now returned to her birth planet. Here on Arieka, humans are not the only intelligent life, and Avice has a rare bond with the natives, the enigmatic Hosts - who cannot lie. Only a tiny cadre of unique human Ambassadors can speak Language, and connect the two communities. But an unimaginable new arrival has come to Embassytown. And when this Ambassador speaks, everything changes. Catastrophe looms. Avice knows the only hope is for her to speak directly to the alien Hosts. And that is impossible.
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
34 of 36 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
I'd been looking forward to this for a while. It is at first sight something of a departure from Miéville's last two books, in being, perhaps more overtly "science fictiony" that them (which will maybe please some of those who didn't like The City & the City and Kraken?)
Set on a human colony, on an alien planet, right at the end of everywhere, it is narrated by Avice, a cool-headed space sailor who has returned to show her new husband her very odd home world. The aliens whose world Avice was born on are very.. alien, something Miéville conveys well by not describing them. It's not just their physiology that is strange, or their technology of "biorigging", making buildings, machines, everything from live flesh. The oddest thing is their language - or as it is rendered, Language. It would be a shame, and spoil some of the careful revelation that Mieville uses to draw his reader in, to say much about how it is produced or what humans need to do to speak it, but one feature he makes clear from the start is that the natives of this planet - the Host - cannot lie. Their Language does not allow it. So when a cult of would-be liars springs up, it is a matter of concern, and the repercussions of this seem to be shaping up to the climax of the book - until Miéville deftly twists his plot and everything changes. The crisis we thought was coming is suddenly unimportant, and a much worse threat arises.... Read more ›
Set on a human colony, on an alien planet, right at the end of everywhere, it is narrated by Avice, a cool-headed space sailor who has returned to show her new husband her very odd home world. The aliens whose world Avice was born on are very.. alien, something Miéville conveys well by not describing them. It's not just their physiology that is strange, or their technology of "biorigging", making buildings, machines, everything from live flesh. The oddest thing is their language - or as it is rendered, Language. It would be a shame, and spoil some of the careful revelation that Mieville uses to draw his reader in, to say much about how it is produced or what humans need to do to speak it, but one feature he makes clear from the start is that the natives of this planet - the Host - cannot lie. Their Language does not allow it. So when a cult of would-be liars springs up, it is a matter of concern, and the repercussions of this seem to be shaping up to the climax of the book - until Miéville deftly twists his plot and everything changes. The crisis we thought was coming is suddenly unimportant, and a much worse threat arises.... Read more ›
20 of 22 people found the following review helpful
3.0 out of 5 stars
the girl who did not read what she wanted but read what was given to her
8 Jun 2011
By Maria
Format:Hardcover
This feels like the penultimate draft of what could have been a really good book, but it isn't quite 'there' yet. It's difficult to get into, and feels as if a couple of different attempts at starting the novel have been integrated, not wholly successfully, into what we have here. Is it going to be about immer? Is it going to be about the Festival of Lies? As ever, it's a hugely intelligent and interesting work, I just wish, in fact, that Mieville would write more slowly instead of producing a book a year as he is at the moment.
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful
By Cathy Hill
Format:Hardcover
In this book a world is created then torn apart. In this respect it reminded me a bit of Perdido Street Station, which I found more unnerving (terrifying, giant moths) and in the end more melancholy. The major difference is that Embassytown is a far more fragile settlement, it's a human settlement that relies entirely on the cooperation and technology of the native alien Hosts (Ariekes). The story is told entirely in first person by Avice Benner Cho, a woman from Embassytown who was one of few inhabitants to leave and go out to other planets. The first part alternates between present events and flashbacks so that Avice and the world she grew up in are introduced to the reader.
Once we are familiar with Embassytown and how it works -its links with the Host aliens, its bubble of breathable air, its upper class of Ambassadors (fully identical, linked, doppels/twins)- a paradigm shift happens and everything goes to pot. The society that was built up faces a major catastrophe and descends into desperation and barbarism and war. The book is about the people who carry on trying to keep things running in the face of likely destruction. It's about how there will still be factions and politicking even in the face of disaster.
Once we are familiar with Embassytown and how it works -its links with the Host aliens, its bubble of breathable air, its upper class of Ambassadors (fully identical, linked, doppels/twins)- a paradigm shift happens and everything goes to pot. The society that was built up faces a major catastrophe and descends into desperation and barbarism and war. The book is about the people who carry on trying to keep things running in the face of likely destruction. It's about how there will still be factions and politicking even in the face of disaster.
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful
By Wrinkles
Format:Kindle Edition|Amazon Verified Purchase
I gave up on this twice when I first tried to read it. It's pretty incomprehensible for a while - even more so than the beginning of "The City and The City". But I decided to persevere, having liked previous Mieville novels, and I'm really glad I did. It turns into a really imaginative and original story - there's enough spoilers and descriptions in other reviews. The main thing is that if you're in the early stages of the book and wondering whether to bother forcing your way through - the answer is a most emphatic yes! In the end I absolutely loved it. If only I'd loved it when I first started it, it would have had the full five stars.
18 of 21 people found the following review helpful
By Simon Savidge Reads
TOP 500 REVIEWER
Format:Hardcover
I'd best get this first bit out the way and say that to try and describe `Embassytown' to anyone who hasn't read it yet it going to be hard work. Not because the book is completely flummoxing, though I will admit I had a pen and notepad to hand for the first 100 pages or so but that could simply be me, but because there are so many strands and themes and, well, `things' encompassed in it that to try to define its 432 pages in one set of thoughts is going to be pretty tough. I could simply say that I am not the biggest sci-fi fan and yet I finished it and I really rather liked it, but that wouldn't be enough would it. So here goes...
In another world, Areika the home of many life forms, we follow the story of Avice. Avice has returned to her homeland of Embassytown after spending many years as an immerser in the `immer', a substance or lack of substance that can send you from star to star "the sea of space and time below the everyday". As she returns at the bequest of her new husband Scile, a man of language, this leads her to look back from her childhood onwards and an event with The Hosts, a species who cannot lie, that made her literally become a story in the Areika consciousness that helps them bend the truth in the future. However on her return she finds that the homeland she knows is changing under the new rule of the Ambassador EzRa and something sinister has started and that something truly awful lies ahead, but in order to stop it Avice is going to have to do something that is almost impossible.
That is possibly the easiest, though by no means best, way of trying to describe the way the book starts. It's hard to say more without giving away too much plot or discussing how Mieville throws in some unexpected, and often rather weird, twists as the book moves on.... Read more ›
In another world, Areika the home of many life forms, we follow the story of Avice. Avice has returned to her homeland of Embassytown after spending many years as an immerser in the `immer', a substance or lack of substance that can send you from star to star "the sea of space and time below the everyday". As she returns at the bequest of her new husband Scile, a man of language, this leads her to look back from her childhood onwards and an event with The Hosts, a species who cannot lie, that made her literally become a story in the Areika consciousness that helps them bend the truth in the future. However on her return she finds that the homeland she knows is changing under the new rule of the Ambassador EzRa and something sinister has started and that something truly awful lies ahead, but in order to stop it Avice is going to have to do something that is almost impossible.
That is possibly the easiest, though by no means best, way of trying to describe the way the book starts. It's hard to say more without giving away too much plot or discussing how Mieville throws in some unexpected, and often rather weird, twists as the book moves on.... Read more ›
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3.8 out of 5 stars
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Most Recent Customer Reviews
5.0 out of 5 stars
Real science fiction
A book for people who appreciate real SF - chewing tenaciously on a single, rich philosophical issue (the inter-relationship between language and consciousness), in a well-imagined... Read more
Published 7 days ago by Mr. A. Hibbert
3.0 out of 5 stars
An Ordinary Story in an Extraordinary Setting
This is the second China Miéville novel that I've read, having enjoyed "The City & The City" very much. Read more
Published 1 month ago by decco999
4.0 out of 5 stars
Possibly his best book
This book appears to really divide readers. I thought it was possibly his best (maybe The City and The City is though, hmm.) I loved all the language play. Read more
Published 2 months ago by FrankBeynon
5.0 out of 5 stars
This is not Space Opera, so don't approach it as such
This book is amazing. China's aim was to create a truly "alien" race and in the Hosts he did so. He builds a socio-political world, impacted by distant powers, with a rich culture. Read more
Published 4 months ago by Brettt
2.0 out of 5 stars
Brilliant set-up, dissolving into emetic pretension.
Mieville has been compared, by some reviewers, to Haruki Murakami, presumably because his fiction's, well, odd. This comparison, though, is deeply unfair to Murakami. Read more
Published 7 months ago by Donmeh Junkie
3.0 out of 5 stars
Fascinating, if flawed
I had not read anything by Mieville previously, though I have long read in the SF/weird/dark fantasy genre. Having read this, I'm not sure this was the best place to start. Read more
Published 9 months ago by Philtrum
5.0 out of 5 stars
You'll need to read it twice
This is the first time since I read a Deepness in the Sky that I've really felt the alien-ness of non Terrans in such a real way. Read more
Published 9 months ago by mak
5.0 out of 5 stars
Far out!
China Mieville just goes further than any other author I've read, and I've been a fan of the genre since I could read Dan Dare! I often have to reread sections as I lose track. Read more
Published 10 months ago by Ben Cowell
5.0 out of 5 stars
Cutting edge science fiction about language...
As the title of this novel suggests, it is set in a special place, where different peoples meet. However, it is soon clear that the 'people' who meet are somewhat more different... Read more
Published 10 months ago by A. J. Poulter
3.0 out of 5 stars
A chore to get through. . .
Well, this one was a chore, no question about it. Had I not been reading this during my trip through the Southern Balkans and had access to my collection, I would never have... Read more
Published 10 months ago by Patrick St-Denis
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