Another evocative story from the mind of China Mieville. Our prime POV is Bellis Coldwine, a language scholar forced to leave New Crobuzon to a colony far across the sea. She gains a berth on a ship as a translator but soon finds herself drawn into a quest that was hatched on the floating pirate city of Armada. We also have Tanner Sack, a remade prisoner forced on the same ship as Bellis to live out his sentence in the same colony.
Bellis is our POV for around 80% of the time, so we really get to know her quite well. A cold woman, all she wants is to get back to New Crobuzon but is inadvertently drawn into other people's schemes. She is not the easiest person to empathise with due to her nature but you understand her motivations and I was rooting for her. Tanner is also well drawn, even with less page time, and is much more sympathetic, more your traditional everyman hero. There are a few more POV's but none major and to talk of them would be somewhat spoilery.
Like Perdido Street Station the world that Mieville has created is the real star. Those hoping for more New Crobuzon will be disappointed. It is always there in the background but none of the story is set there. This is almost an old fashioned quest pirate story but as always they are twists. Again the imagination on show here is staggering from giant sea creatures from another dimension, to an island of mosquito people to a literal rift through space and time. What is really impressive is how ordinary it all seems to the characters in the book. It's just another journey, another job, worrying to be sure but all quite normal. There was a revelation (perhaps too strong a word) later in the book that blew me away for it's ordinariness, it was brilliant.
What let it down from a possible five stars was its pacing. I have no problems with a slow burn but honestly you could do a summary of the plot of the book in a couple of paragraphs. I just felt it dragged a bit in places, even with all the beautiful and horrible descriptions that the author so likes to give. It did of course heat up towards the end but the vast majority of the book is just day to day living, though in a singular unusual place. This is not a typical fantasy book even if it consists of most of the ingredients. A great book though maybe not if you're looking for something fast paced.
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