- Paperback: 624 pages
- Publisher: Tor; New edition edition (4 April 2003)
- Language English
- ISBN-10: 0330392905
- ISBN-13: 978-0330392907
- Product Dimensions: 11.1 x 17.8 x 3.5 cm
- Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars See all reviews (31 customer reviews)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 161,332 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
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Product Description
Amazon.co.uk Review
The question was always: what would he do for an encore? China Mieville's third novel The Scar is set in the same world as his award-winning Perdido Street Station but is a very different book, set in a very different city. Where his New Crobuzon was an old metropolis of cruelty, oppression and glamour, the floating freebooter city Armada is a place of refuge even for those who experience it as a prison. Brilliant linguist Bellis Coldwine is on the run when she is press-ganged by pirates who turn out to be rather more; her abilities make her a valuable commodity and she finds herself intermittently useful to a project so ambitious that it takes her much of the book to comprehend fully. Mieville takes interesting chances by making Bellis his protagonist--she has an arrogant selfishness that at times makes one breathless--but her guts, determination and intermittent realism about herself gradually endear her to us. This is an intelligent book about how individuals and events influence each other and the meaning of freedom. Mieville has a sense of the sea as the place of a menace almost incomprehensibly huge; like Perdido Street Station, The Scar is full of breath-taking moments of wonder which are also moments of heart-stopping terror. --Roz Kaveney
--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
Review
The reaction to China Mi ville's Perdido Street Station was remarkable: few books in the SF and fantasy field achieve the acclaim of this dark masterpiece. Its seaborne successor is rich with the same vaunting imagination and cannily wrought prose. A ship sets out on a voyage from New Crobuzon towards a new colony, its hold full of criminals to be used as slaves. It passes over inshore waters ruled by a race of human-lobster centaurs, is pursued by demonic mermen, and is captured by a floating pirate city tugged across the sea by a giant beast. This fantastical voyage of exploration and discovery coruscates with Mi ville's unstoppable imagination, and the inventiveness takes the breath away.
--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
16 of 17 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
From the author who gave us the brilliant and phantasmagoric 'Perdido Street Station' comes a new work similarly brimming with wit, inventiveness and interest.
The author's use of language to paint vivid and engaging pictures is just as evident as in 'Perdido Street Station'. Sights which could be comic if handled only slightly differently hold chilling and at times repellent fascination. Mieville's ability to capture the essence of s scene, person or thing within the space of a few words is one of the things which makes 'The Scar' a truly enjoyable read.
However, it's not one for the faint hearted. The author is certainly emergining as one of the finest current exponents of weird fiction. His books blur the boundary between fantasy, SF, horror and all manner of traditional genres, giving a sense of the truly new and innovative. Like any author, there's a certain amount of hat-tipping to favourite and inspirational writers, yet the book has a freshness of idea and place which marks it out from others. The story starts off simply, with the escape of one character from the sprawl of New Crobuzon, the transporting of prisoners across the sea, acts of piracy and the amazing appearance of familiar objects (you'll know what I mean when you come to them).
All in all, if you enjoyed 'King Rat' or 'Perdido Street Station', then you'll most certainly enjoy 'The Scar'. If you've not read the authors work before, then I'd heartily recommend this and all of his novels.
4 of 4 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
The second book after the innocuously titled "Perdido Street Station" builds upon the wonderfully leftfield creation from Britain best fantasy writer China Mielville. Insanely descriptive and awash with strange creatures fathomed from a otherworldly conscience this book is brimming full of ideas. Mielville tells the story of a pirate nation searching for a well of power found within a fabled scar, a rent in the bottom of the ocean. This is a backdrop for a myriad of subplots and twists involving politics, war and people. Motivations are mapped out and charted in rich detail that bring you into the tale and help expand the world of Bas-Lag. There are wider horizons than New Crobuzon but the echoing desire to explore that city from the first book is felt by the central character well carved out but never overshadowing the numerous other players in the tale.
Miellville never disappoints in this weighty tome and leaves one wanting to find out more about what makes this world tick and what indeed fuels his mind.
Miellville never disappoints in this weighty tome and leaves one wanting to find out more about what makes this world tick and what indeed fuels his mind.
11 of 12 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
Given the huge success of China Mieville's second novel Perdido Street Station, a follow-up was eagerly expected, but Mieville has bucked expectation by setting The Scar in an entirely different area of Bas-Lag - as such readers hoping for a return journey to the vivid city of New Crobuzon will be disappointed, though to be fair having explored it so thoroughly already any follow-up utilising the same setting may well have suffered from diminishing returns. Instead The Scar is set almost entirely on the floating city state of Armada - a pirate city that is comprised of a mass of stolen ships lashed together, and follows the fortunes of two shanghaied inhabitants: one of whom is desperate to escape, and the other who having been rescued from a prison ship finds a haven on Armarda.
As such, The Scar is the best sort of sequel, in that it is only tangentially linked to the previous novel - in this instance the lead heroine is initially on the run from New Crobuzon because she is wrongly suspected of being involved with the Slake Moth outbreak that drove Perdido Street Station. However, while you don't therefore NEED to have read Perdido Street Station in order to enjoy The Scar, I would still recommend reading the previous volume first for one simple reason - it's slightly better.
The Scar is filled with fantastic concepts -the city of Armada itself; the leviathan avanc that the Armadan's plan to harness to their city; an island of terrifying mosquito women; and a scar in the fabric of Bas-Lag seemingly created by a crashed alien spaceship that bleeds out quantum instability, and the characters are compelling, but the crucial difference between The Scar and Perdido Street Station is the lack of narrative tension this time round. In Perdido Street Station the narrative was driven by the deadly threat of the Slake Moths, and the characters desperate attempts to contain the threat before the creatures spawned - in The Scar the threat is much more nebulous - whether it's the threat of the monstrous Grindylow hunting someone on board Armada, or the Lover's quest to drive Armarda into the Scar, the threat's are always somewhere over the horizon, and during the novels middle section the book feels rather becalmed. As with Perdido Street Station this is a brick of a novel - unlike Perdido Street Station this feels in need of a little editing.
Still - a fine book, but one it's easier to admire than love.
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Most Recent Customer Reviews
Well written but ultimately heartless
Nothing wrong with the plot, far from wrong in its excellent vibrant prose yet ultimately this much hyped author fails to impress me... Read more
Published 12 months ago by C. E. Hopwood
Sinks without trace
Mieville no doubt has a great imagination. The opening three or four pages to the book were also excellent, describing an underwater scene with a real feeling of grandeur and rich... Read more
Published 15 months ago by The Goat
Mieville's masterpiece
Fleeing from New Crobuzon for reasons she prefers to keep to herself, Bellis Coldwine is heading for Nova Esperium, a colony located thousands of miles away across the Swollen... Read more
Published 18 months ago by A. Whitehead
Hard to judge three stars going on five
I do like the work of China Mieville. It is so very inventive and believable, truely worlds you would not really wish to be in. Read more
Published 18 months ago by Alec
Epic!
The Scar follows the adventures of Bellis Coldwine, a linguist on the run who happens to pick the wrong ship on which to try to escape. Read more
Published 21 months ago by Little Green Alien
I am remade
Didn't think it possible that Mieville could outshine his own Perdido Street Station in this manner. Read more
Published on 19 Mar 2010 by G. Timmins
A little disappointed - if only it was as good as it as it could have...
This book has some fantastic (in every sense) writing. At its best, there is vivid prose and stunning imagination. Read more
Published on 18 Mar 2010 by wolf
A stupendously imaginative book
"The Scar" is Mieville's second book in the series set in the fictional world of Bas-Lag, following obliquely on from the events of Perdido Street Station, although you don't need... Read more
Published on 11 Sep 2009 by hwade17
A fascinating blend of genres
Chine Mieville proves his worth as an inventive and captivating author. He masterfully mixes a wide range of influences and genres to create this thrilling novel. Read more
Published on 22 Aug 2009 by A. J. Waters
A little bit of thaumaturgy.....
O for half stars or a rating scale stretching from 1 to 7! I feel a little mean only allocating 4 stars for this engaging piece, however, 5 implies a perfection this book doesn't... Read more
Published on 19 Jun 2009 by Nick Phillips
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