The Scar

ajm writes "The Scar is China Mieville's second novel set in the world of Bas-Lag. His first, Perdido Street Station, has already been reviewed on Slashdot. However, The Scar is not a sequel. Though the events it describes take place after those in Perdido Street Station, they don't depend on them. The setting isn't the city of New Crobuzon, and the story of Issac Dan der Grimneblin, Lin, and Yagharek is not continued in The Scar." Read on for the rest of ajm's review. The Scar author China Mieville pages 638 publisher Del Rey rating 9 reviewer ajm ISBN 0345444388 summary genre-breaking steampunk fantasy - a must read

I'll try not to reveal too much of the plot in this review. It doesn't spoil the book if you know what's going to happen next (I've read it a couple of times myself), but watching it all unfold through the language of China Mieville is far better than reading my bland precis here. I'll just say that it's gripping enough to make you want to keep reading, and to linger over the marvelous settings. It's also a more straightforward narrative than Perdido Street Station, so if you found the twists in that one a bit confusing don't let it put you off The Scar. To get my biases and preferences on the table, I'm normally a straightforward science fiction reader of the usual suspects, for instance William Gibson, Neal Stephenson, some David Webber, Peter Watts (you've got to read Starfish), Ken Macleod, and Richard Paul Russo.

Bas-Lag, the setting for The Scar, is a strange world. Physically it's not clear it's even spherical. Technologically, it's steampunk, with punch card-driven calculating engines, steam-powered heavy industry, and airships. Magic, referred to as thaumaturgy, works in this world, but the understanding of it is like late 19th Century physics. The scientists of Bas Lag know there is a physical underpinning to thaumaturgy, and they understand some of the particles and forces involved. It is manipulated by calculation and machines, not spells and wands, but some are more skilled in its use than others. The inhabitants themselves are of many different races. Some (the beetle headed kepri, the cactacae, and the remade) will be familiar if you've read Perdido Street Station. Others, for instance the ab-dead, the anophelii, and the grindylow, are new. None seems out of place in Bas Lag, and all have a part to play in the story. The richness of the setting, with all of its excellently described details, really brings Bas-Lag to life.

The story is told mostly from the point of view of Bellis Coldwine, a linguist fleeing New Crobuzon on the first vessel she can get passage on, a prison ship taking a cargo of remade prisoners to one of New Crobuzon's colonies. She and the other main characters in the book are interesting -- not just for their strangeness, but for how they adapt themselves to and deal with the situations they find themselves in. For instance, there's Uther Doul, born in the city of High Chromlech, where the reanimated high-caste dead rule over the living; Tanner Sack, remade in New Crobuzon's punishment factories with tentacles grafted to his chest; and the Lovers, the scarred rulers of the most powerful part of a very strange city.

As in Perdido Street Station, China Mieville uses language wonderfully, particularly descriptive language. All the small details have the perfect names, from pubs called "Unrealized Time" and "The Clock and Cockerel" (now isn't that an excellent name for a pub?), to ships called "Grand Easterly" (shades of Isambard Kingdom Brunel) and "Terpsichoria," to the Witchocracy, Hive of the Jet Sorrow. His descriptions of places and characters are just as good. In other reviews of his work, you'll see comparisons to Charles Dickens and Stephen King, and in fact just about every other descriptive writer you could name.

For me, the main theme of the book is scarring -- physical and emotional -- what it means and what its effects are. All of the main characters in the book, and even the land of Bas-Lag itself, have been scarred. For some, as a chirgeon says, "Scars are not injuries, Tanner Sack. A scan is a healing. After injury, a scar is what makes you whole." For others, like the Lovers, scars are a source of power while for the scabmettlers they are protection.

I'd highly recommend The Scar to just about anyone, apart from hard-core space opera fans perhaps. It's an enjoyable read, but it's also a good book in a larger sense. The first two thirds are perhaps superior to the last third but when it's all so good who am I to quibble? It has great descriptive passages combined with a interesting plot involving compelling characters, set in a fully realized world. The only problem is, how is China Mieville going to top it in his next book?

You can purchase The Scar from bn.com. Slashdot welcomes readers' book reviews -- to see your own review here, read the book review guidelines, then visit the submission page.

Comments

Don't forget to go to your public library

[Trolling4Dollars]

My local library has it.

Remember folks, we wouldn't all be geeks if there wasn't a public library around. Support your public library. Support library levies. The more money they make, the better materials and services they can have.

Re:I snortled your chir-blek!

[danlyke]

I read Perdido Street Station and although the language was often alien, I thought that this was one of the few places its use was justified. So often when SF writers try to write about creatures that are outside of human experience they end up being humans in other guises, but Perdido Street Station managed to make some of those characters the best realized because they were so strange.

Unfortunately, I found I didn't care enough for the more human characters to give a damn what happened, so in the end I thought the story was weak enough that I don't recommend the book, but the dense prose builds the best Giger-esque world I've read about.

So, yes the prose is dense, but it works. I won't be picking up the current version because I think that the story skills aren't up to the storytelling skills.

My review

[Hobbex]

I wrote a short review of The Scar for my blog. Here goes:

This is something as unusual as a fantasy book that I enjoyed reading. Except for Tolkien I postively loath fantasy - all that Eddings and Shananananana crap - which seems mostly to be stupid D&D induced masturbatory escapism recorded and published for God knows what reason. Interestingly, I read something by Mieville describing how much he hates Tolkien - I love it, especially The Silmarillion, but I can see why disliking Tolkien is probably a necessity for producing good fantasy.

This isn't about kings and dwarves and dragons, but rather set in a fantasy world with technological level fixed in early industrial, rather than medieval, times. Mieville uses this as a basis for a fastasy in the true sense of the word - not just picking off Tolkien and folk stories, but imagining a completely different world what I've read anywhere else. He has fun doing it, and so does the reader.

Still, there are things about the book that don't work out completely. Some things about it aren't really credible (most of the book is set in a floating city made up tethered ships - at times you are left wondering why one of the characters doesn't just light a match and say goodbye to the whole place. There is a reason fireships were feared in maritime combat when most hulls were wooden). The main character achieves very little, which is fine but ultimately she is completely forgetable, which is unforgivable. And while I don't mind that the book doesn't come to a text-book conclusion one is left wondering by the end of the six hundred pages why one didn't just stop reading two hundred pages earlier. It doesn't help that Mieville writes out the most compelling characters much earlier.