The City and the City by China Miéville

Teaser

“He went further – said that Orciny wasn’t just somewhere that had existed in the gaps between Qoma and Besźel since their foundings or coming together or splitting. …he said it was still here.”

“Orciny?”

“Exactly. A secret colony. A city between the cities, its inhabitants living in plain sight.”

“What? Doing what? How?”

“Unseen, like Ul Qomans to Besź and vice versa. Walking the streets unseen but overlooking the two. Beyond the Breach. And doing, who knows? Secret agendas?”

-The City and the City

China Miéville

Summary

China Miéville’s The City and the City is difficult to place in a category. The plot is driven primarily by a murder mystery, and the whole story reads a lot like a classic mystery novel. However, Miéville also incorporates politics, familiar societal and social dynamics, and a number of fantastical elements. To say it is a mystery novel, fantasy novel, or social commentary wouldn’t do it justice. It is all three. And to consider attempting to summarize it is, at the very least, rather daunting, but I will certainly try my best.

The story opens in the fictional city of Besźel, a seemingly typical Eastern European city. A girl is discovered dead on one of the city streets and detective Tyador Borlú of the Besźel Extreme Crime Squad is called in – our point of view character. He begins the investigation, but soon discovers that beyond the murder mystery is another twist. The girl they’ve found dead isn’t a Besźel citizen. She is from “neighboring city” Ul Qoma.

Besźel and Ul Qoma are unlike normal neighboring cities. Rather than existing next to one another, we are told that the two cities occupy the same space at the same time. From birth, citizens of each city are taught to “unsee” the citizens, vehicles, and buildings in the other city. In certain “crosshatched” sections of town – shared sections where there are particularly high levels of activity in both cities – they navigate around each other out of habit with learned ease. Citizens of Besźel are forbidden to interact with or even look at citizens of Ul Qoma and vice versa. If caught doing so, the citizen in question will invoke “Breach” – an entity of sorts that travels between the two cities and maintains order by ensuring the two never interact.

As detective Borlú continues to investigate the murdered girl, he discovers that there is much more to her story than anyone could have imagined. She was a scholar at an Ul Qoma university and was studying the possible existence of a third city – Orciny. Supposedly, Orciny is a myth, but the girl had begun to believe in its existence. She had been under the impression that it existed between the two cities – in the sections that Besźel citizens assumed were part of Ul Qoma and vice versa.

As Orciny is said to be an extremely powerful city, the investigation of it raises an entirely new set of questions for Borlú. Did Orciny really exist? Had it been citizens of that third city who killed the girl? Was Orciny at war with the mysterious Breach?

Detective Borlú’s investigation takes him out of his home in Besźel, into Ul Qoma, and even into the mysterious Breach in order to uncover the murderers and the truth behind the city in between the cities.

Rating

I’m going to give this book a rating of 4 out of 5 stars.

The idea for this novel is excellent, fascinating even. The two cities existing together never felt unbelievable to me. I loved reading about citizens “unseeing” one another – especially when, say, a citizen doesn’t recognize that the person they’re seeing is from the other city and they have to quickly “unsee” them once they realize it. Fantastic premise and well-executed as far as setting and plot are concerned. Miéville set up these two cities incredibly well with their different cultures, customs, and even different languages. I had a clear picture in my mind of what was going on at all times.

However, this book was told from a first-person point of view. I normally have no aversion to this style of storytelling at all, but I have never read a first person narrative and felt this distant from the main character and, in fact, ALL the characters. I felt no compassion when characters were shot, killed. I didn’t much care if the point of view character went through any emotional hardships. I just felt so incredibly disconnected from all of them. For this, I took away one star.

Overall, I finished this novel feeling happy that I had read it. Though it was complex and occasionally a bit too confusing, the ending made it worthwhile. I still find myself thinking about it days after finishing, which I think is the mark of a good read. It is definitely worth picking up whether you’re in the mood for fantasy, mystery, political commentary…or perhaps all three.

Song For The Basilisk by Patricia A. McKillip

Teaser:

"He saw the Basilisk's eyes, then, searching for him and he turned back into ash.

'Take him to Luly,' he heard the white haired man say clearly.  'No one will expect to find him there.  If they ever suspect he is still alive.'

'To Luly?  That's nowhere. The end of the world.'

'Then it might just be far enough for the Basilisk.'

'But the bards-- they're scarcely human, are they?  They live on a rock in the sea, they go in and out of the hinterlands, they can turn into seals--'

'Tales,' the white haired man said brusquely.  'Go before they find us here, I'll finish this.'

'You'll be killed.'

'Does it matter?  Tell them to call him Caladrius, after the bird whose song means death.  Go.'"  ~Song for the Basilisk by Patricia A. McKillip

Review

Griffin Tourmaline was a child when Arioso Pellior, the Basilisk of Pellior house, slaughtered his noble family.  He only escaped by hiding in the ashes of the fireplace.  When discovered he was called Caladrius then hidden away on the isle of Luly.  There he became a bard, living by the name Rook, hiding not only from the Basilisk, but from a past he refused to remember.  It is only when the Basilisk’s eye turns toward Luly that Rook also called Caladrius and Griffin, must remember his past and must face the Basilisk in Berylon to play a song for him of death and revenge.

Once again, World Fantasy Award winning author, Patricia A. McKillip gives us a beautifully woven tale, full of clever dreamlike descriptions, imagination, and well rounded characters in Song for the Basilisk.

Within the first section of the book,  McKillip masterfully builds the rich character that is Rook.  Its necessary for the story and necessary for him, for he has been running from his past, and it is this past that drives him, molds him, makes him who he is, and what makes the reader sympathize him and love him.

We see him make a life for himself and, as McKillip writes:

He picked her up and carried her out to sea.

And so the years passed.

The child in the ashes waited.

He pushes his past, and the knowledge of his past, aside to grow up first.  It is only years later, after his child is grown, he remembers to find himself.

This is what I respect about McKillip; she shows all the rich layers that get added to a character as time passes, but beneath it all is still that one thing that drives/molds/shapes.   And she led us through it all in the first chapter. Not many authors write Fantasy with older MC’s, but McKillip does it and does it well.

An advantage of working with and older main character, and an older antagonist, is that the parent/child relationship can be explored.  This relationship forms a, albeit subtle, pull throughout the book and gently molds conflict within the plot.  Hollis’s effect on Caladrius keeps him human, in a way.  In fact one could argue that Hollis is one of the reasons Caladrius rediscovers his past in the ashes.  Another relationship, a father/daughter relationship between the Arioso and Luna, forms a problem for Caladrius.  In this relationship, however, McKillip explores another aspect of the connection between parent and child: being a child and being, to quote Luna Pellior “What our father’s made us.” This is an interesting turn of phrase because being made like her father, does not necessarily mean she is like her father. She may love him and she may seek his approval, but she is also her own person.   It is this relationship of adopting some aspects of a parent, and yet the child is still their own person, making their own choices, and learning from the elder’s mistakes.   

In a way, this brings about a second theme, one that is also presented in The Book of Atrix Wolfe: The legacy given by parents to their children.  Arioso expects his bloody legacy to be carried on by his children. Caladrius/Rook/Griffin fears his own legacy of hate and revenge will be passed on to Hollis.

The rest of the story is dedicated to Rook, now Caladrius, avenging his House and destroying the Basilisk of Pellior House.  The change of name is no accident it seems.  As the MC’s name changes, so does his strength.  He flattens a little during the second section of the book, as his motives turn soley towards revenge.  He is, in this section, no longer Rook from but Caladrius, named for the bird that plays a song at the deathbed of a king.   And he plays that song at the end of the second section.

 Other characters keep the book moving with subplots of rebellion and the build up to the birthday feast where Caladrius will play his song.  The court composer is even composing an opera that mirrors Rooks life and hints and the future.  McKillip introduces some subtle but brilliant foreshadowing when her characters repeat now and then that an ending can be changed.  Although there are multiple characters in this second section, Luna Pellior is one of the strongest characters with the strongest voices.  Sometimes she outshines even Caladrius himself.

The ending has a bit of a surprise to it, but then again, maybe not.  It just shows again McKillip’s great understanding that characters are people with their own thoughts, feelings, and minds, and not simple archetypes.  I love the ending of this book, and it is the ending which echoes with me and is what I remember most about this work.

Song for the Basalisk, as a whole,  seems to find its roots within other McKillip tales.  The short story A Matter of Music seems to be much the source for Luly and Guilia is a displaced, renamed Cresce.  The tale of the bard in the hinterland as well as Rook/Caladrius’s ability to hide himself, echoes of Morgon from The Riddlemaster of Hed.  These echoes and incarnations, however, just added to the tale and the themes that make a McKillip story memorable.

Music is the backbone around which McKillip builds her story.  While nice, she didn’t close and envelope the story with this theme as well or as masterfully as she has done in other works, notably The Book of Atrix Wolfe.  This is a petty criticism however, for a story that was still wonderfully written, imaginative, and spellbinding.

Bravo.

Rating

 I’m torn between four and four and a half stars.  In terms of fantasy literature, it is an exceptional and unique work.  The characters are multilayered and dimensional, and the creativity and uniqueness of her novel is unmatched.  The word choice is fluid and flawless and I would read this book over and over again.  I can’t give full five stars, however, because I know McKillip has written better.  The music theme got a little too saturated at points to really give the impact that she got out of works such as The Forgotten Beasts of Eld, The Book of Atrix Wolfe and Ombria in Shadow.  Caladrius also got a little overshadowed.  Again, these criticisms are small, for Song for the Basilisk is well worth the read and is satisfying for any lover of fantasy, folktale, or fairy tale.

**********************
Book Review by Jenny Fierro.

Jenny Fierro talks fantasy literature, writing, and other such nonsense on her blog Seedlings

The Windup Girl, by Paolo Bacigalupi

  

teaser

"She waits, expecting him to strike her. No one tolerates impudence from New People. Mizumi-sensei made sure that Emiko never showed a trace of rebellion. She taught Emiko to obey, to kowtow, to bend before the desires of her superiors, and to be proud of her place. Even though Emiko is ashamed of the gaijin's prying into her history and by her own loss of control, Mizumi-sensei would say this is no excuse to prod and bait the man. It hardly matters. It is done and Emiko feels dead enough in her soul that she will pay whatever price he chooses to extract."

review

While perusing the shelves in the SF section at work, the cover art for a particular book continued to draw my eye. We had a single copy of The Windup Girl available then. Every time I'd pass the book, even if I was with a customer, I'd find a free moment to ogle over the image. You can see it for yourself. It's certainly worth a second... third... fourth look.

Dirigibles score the smog-ridden skies of a ruined metropolis. A creature akin to an elephant ambles alongside littered streets lined with souks that brim with whatever miscellany of wares. And what are those!? What else? Teetering telephone poles: seeming relics of a dystopia that has achieved autonomy over the expensive oil that once pumped through its historical veins.

That was my initial reaction to the cover alone. And I have to give mad props to the artist, Raphael Lacoste, for hitting the story's main nerve head on. I came away from the image with only questions. Without so much as reading the back, I had an accurate impression that the story had real depth to it, as though this image were a feasible shadow resulting from the socio-political blunders of our own time.

When the news reached me that The Windup Girl had received the Nebula Award for best novel, I couldn't hold out any longer. It went straight to the top of my list. How fortunate that Paolo Bacigalupi's prose do not fall flat to Lacoste's beautiful setup. I can't say I was disappointed--far from it. If you'd like a sample of his writing style, Bacigalupi currently has a few stories available on his site.

• The Tamarisk Hunter
• The Fluted Girl
• The People of Sand and Slag

Despite the title, the novel revolves around several protagonists, as it takes us from one perspective to the next with each chapter. This approach can be jarring in some cases. As a reader I can have difficulty anchoring myself to a story when it has as many perspectives as this one. In this case there was no exception, but I did find myself easily attaching to the setting instead of a character, which kept me flipping the pages wanting to know more about the nightmarish future that Bacigalupi has envisioned for us. And as we go along, and the plot builds and builds, it becomes evident that showing the world through many different eyes is central to getting a rounded view of this world.

How do we experience the future of Thailand? We see it through the eyes of a cynical expatriate with his unending ulterior motives. As a bitter, self-serving old man, former royalty of a fallen empire. As an idealistic native, willing to die for a cause even if it means taking the whole world down with him. As a woman who lives a contradiction of the things she knows and the things she wants to believe in...

Finally, we see it as Emiko, the windup. She offers a nonhuman view of our future selves: how will we appear once removed from our most grievous misdeeds? And as irony would have it, we find in this "soulless husk" the most human perspective of all.

rating

I feel The Windup Girl deserves an exceptional rating at four out of five stars (three being average). The quality of this novel is mind-boggling considering it was Bacigalupi's first. It had emotional depth and cultural relevance, despite his caveat in the credits. Already it has received the Nebula and is up for a Hugo. I fully enjoyed the ending. But I do feel the arc of the story is not quite wound as tightly as it could be. It left me wanting more--which is a marketable quality. It's also the kind of thing that loses you half a star from jerks like me. That's what you get for making the world wait for a sequel, Mr. Bacigalupi.

That said, it has become a book I enjoy recommending to customers. I hold a copy at Customer Service for just such a purpose.

available works by paolo bacigalupi

Also available in eBook format