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The City & The City (Hardcover)

by China Mieville (Author)
3.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (25 customer reviews)
RRP: £17.99
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Product details

  • Hardcover: 312 pages
  • Publisher: Macmillan; First Edition edition (15 May 2009)
  • Language English
  • ISBN-10: 1405000171
  • ISBN-13: 978-1405000178
  • Product Dimensions: 23.4 x 15.4 x 3.2 cm
  • Average Customer Review: 3.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (25 customer reviews)
  • Amazon.co.uk Sales Rank: 10,858 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Product Description

Amazon.co.uk Review

Certain writers absolutely defy categorisation – and China Miéville is most definitely of that rarefied company. His prose is exhilarating, poetic, coruscating with ideas and atmosphere – and it has enhanced a body of work that has almost no parallels in modern writing. Heretofore, if Miéville has brushed shoulders with any identifiable genres, they are those of fantasy and science fiction – which makes his remarkable new book, The City and The City, such a surprise. The author’s publishers compare this novel to Philip K Dick, Raymond Chandler and 1984 – which at least gives a series of corollaries for this book, however tentative. There are elements here of the crime thriller, but very much refracted through Miéville’s highly individual imagination.

The body of a murdered woman is discovered in the remarkable, crumbling European city of Besźel. Such a crime is par for the course for Inspector Tyador Borlú, who is the premier talent of the Extreme Crime Squad – until his investigations uncover evidence that bizarre and terrifying forces are at work – and soon both he and those around him will be in considerable peril. He must undertake an odyssey, a journey across borders both physical and psychical, to the city which is both a complement and rival to his own, that of Ul Qoma.

Like all of China Miéville’s work, The City and The City will not be to everyone’s taste – the very individuality of the prose and the surrealistic inventiveness will not attract those preferring more prosaic fare. But for readers who hanker after untrammelled imagination – and look for literary fare unlike anything they have read before (even, it has to be said, by Miéville himself), then this is a journey to be undertaken. But with caution, perhaps… --Barry Forshaw



Review

'A book that constitutes an SF event... Kafka-meets-noir mystery.' --SFX Magazine

'One of the most enjoyable and original novels of the decade.' --Morning Star

'A satisfying crime procedural novel loaded with parallels to pre-unification Berlin and Orwellian dread.'
--Totalscifi.com

'Beautifully, seamlessly, effortlessly created.'
--American crime writer Laurie R King

'One of the most fascinating literary creations of the new century so far.'
--Icon

`The City & The City works enormously well both as a post-Soviet murder mystery in the Olen Steinhauer vein, and as an innovative study of urban dislocation, segregation and Orwellian mind control. I would recommend this book to anyone looking for a refreshing change from more conventional police procedurals.'
--Eurocrime.co.uk
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Customer Reviews

25 Reviews
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Average Customer Review
3.7 out of 5 stars (25 customer reviews)
 
 
 
 
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

 
7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars Beware of Plot Spoilers, 15 May 2009
By G. Crone "gacman" (Scotland) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   
What could very well be a bog standard crime thriller (dull) is transformed by Mieville's unique imagination into something much finer. The gradual revelation of the relationship between the cities, and the behaviour this requires of their citizens, is masterfully achieved and, as was noted by a previous reviewer, is all the more effective by being placed in "the real world" rather than a fantasy location. An excellent, if undemanding read.
Please note: avoid the review of "salenku" unless you want your enjoyment of the plot revelation comletely ruined.
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18 of 21 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars Worlds apart, 20 May 2009
By Mr. David Halliday (Ilkeston Derbyshire United Kingdom) - See all my reviews
(TOP 500 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)      
China Mieville earned himself a reputation for being edgy and unconventional with the outstanding novel 'Perdido street station'. The other worldliness of that novel was then reproduced in 'The scar' but unfortunately it all went horribly wrong with the turgid & very boring 'The iron council'.
Since then,(2005), he has not released another adult novel and so it is with some hope & no little trepidation that his latest is received.
Set in the city of Beszel we are quickly introduced to a murder victim & the inspector investigating the crime. At the same time we learn that Beszel shares its space with another city called Ul Quoma. The two seem to somehow share the same space but have a long standing hatred of one another and so have invented a whole litany of rules and regulations to ensure the other is ignored by it's residents & anyone who fails to follow the rules is rapidly dealt with by the all seeing & deadly 'Breach'.
Confused? You will be as Mieville refuses to let out much information at any one time and keeps his characters under tight wraps. Just how did the girl die & why? Why does no one want to deal with the problem? For every answer given another question arises and this is where the author really finds himself without any modern day peers. He is able to confuse & disorient his reader while at the same time weaving an increasingly powerful aura of exotic mystery and suspense. The two cities are placed, not into some new fictional world or even Mievilles already existing one from his previous novels, rather they exist in our world with the beauty of mundane everyday actions like tourism given a fascinating slant for those wishing to visit Beszel. It's our history but with the 2 cities histories blended and subtly distorting what we know.
This author excels when lending an air of menace and strangeness to his work. The sense of foreboding is always there, you struggle in vain to see why, but it's ever present and drives the reader on to the next page and chapter.
This really is a return to form for this writer and that means this is a riveting and slightly confusing & scary ride with barely a moment to pause. You won't necessarily follow everything all the time but then you're not meant to. Instead this is best enjoyed as a sort of hypnagogic experience where what you see seems so real but in fact reality is just out of reach. The ending is no let down and offers an explanation most will not have considered.
If you enjoyed his previous novels then this will definitely not disappoint. If you are new to his work then this is a great introduction to an author whose ability to paint new worlds and alternate realities is of the very highest order.
An excellent book that bears repeated reading.
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16 of 19 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars A disappointing book from one of my favourite authors., 21 Jun 2009
By M. Coello "pathetical" (Sheffield, UK) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   
OK, so every review I read said that this would not be a typical China Mieville book. An existentialist murder mystery? OK. I like a good murder and I like a bit of existentialism, in moderation. I also like China Mieville books, and variety is a good thing, right?

As a premise for a book it was promising - a murder to be solved in two cities which geographically overlap but whose seperateness is ensured by some vast, abstract entity called Breach. The inhabitants of one city, though they can be walking down the same street, must not notice or interact with the inhabitants of the other. So far so good.

But the book itself was a bit dissatisfying. It was never really explained why so much time and effort was expended on solving the possible murder of one girl, when it was clear that the police resources were overstreched and in demand. The protagonist's motivation was a little unclear. But more importantly the thing with the two-cities-for-the-price-of-one started as quite a clever premise but quickly became irritating as it was never really fully developed. My favourite thing about Mieville's writing is the way that the cities take on a life of their own, whether it's the London of 'King Rat' or the, uh, un London of 'Un Lun Dun', or the New Crobuzon of 'Perdido Street Station' and the rest. This city had very little description devoted to it, which was kind of a shame because it made the two different cities difficult to visualise. Maybe I'm thick, here, but I needed some sort of pronunciation guide too.

There was alienation aplenty, and lots of interesting subtext which I'm not going to analyse because I'm not an Eng Lit student any more. Philosophically it was probably quite an interesting book. It lacks the overt politicism of most of Mieville's other stuff (I think that's a bad thing, but I guess it depends on your preferences). I just didn't think much to the actual story.

Now I'm going to sit and re-read 'The Scar', and hope that China Mieville writes another good book soon.
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Most Recent Customer Reviews

2.0 out of 5 stars Oh, I so wish I had paid attention to the poor reviews...Be warned!
To be brief (as I feel I have wasted my time and money on this purchase) this book was very hard to get into, the world and weird names came across as pretentious. Read more
Published 23 days ago by Asmodeous

5.0 out of 5 stars Mind Stretch
If the finale of Amber Spyglass awed you as a teenager, pick this up as an adult. Stunning. Clever. Congruent. Utterly symbolic and totally engaging. Read more
Published 1 month ago by ThinkerBoy

5.0 out of 5 stars The City and the City - China, on form with an excellent book! Thank you!
Though this novel departs from China Miéville's typical amalgamation of warped fantasy/sci-fi, it retains his usual darkness and adds a bizarre twist to what might otherwise be a... Read more
Published 2 months ago by J. Bell

1.0 out of 5 stars Did I really spend 2-weeks reading this?
Give this one a wide berth. If you are a China virgin then read Perdido Street Station or The Scar.

This is essentially a detective novel with the the twist that... Read more
Published 2 months ago by Mr. D. Rickett

5.0 out of 5 stars Unclassifiable - except as genius
This novel is a departure from the overt fantasy of his Bas-Lag series and his recent young adult book, Un Lun Dun. Read more
Published 3 months ago by J. Shurin

5.0 out of 5 stars Another Fantastic Mieville Novel
China Mieville comes closer to the 'norm' in this book, no wierd world with fantastic creatures, no huge stretch of the imagination that was required(not because he didnt describe... Read more
Published 3 months ago by Mr. W. R. Mcconnell

3.0 out of 5 stars A good read, but the weakest Mieville yet
The City and The City is set in two different cities, seemingly within one city. Inhabitants are trained from birth to ignore residents, cars and buildings belonging to the other... Read more
Published 3 months ago by Michael Sutherland

4.0 out of 5 stars Great Idea with an over obvious ending

The shared city space was a very interesting and, I think, novel concept. This was great read. Read more
Published 3 months ago by P. J. Dunn

3.0 out of 5 stars Red Herrings and Concrete
Those familiar with China's other works will notice almost immediately a great difference in this book, namely its prose style. Read more
Published 3 months ago by Patrick Shepherd

5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent stylist
China Mieville is an excellent writer and this book is perhaps his best yet. Worth every penny.
Published 3 months ago by Derek Malcolm

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