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

more reviews

[kaan]

Here's the amazon link which provides a bunch of formal reviews as well as the usual customer reviews.

Perdido was horrible.

[kid zeus]

Unreadable, actually. I forced my way through a hundred pages before I had to toss it down and move on to something well written. It's overloaded with gratuitous 'ambient detail' in an effort to give it this crazy, unique world feel. Unfortunately it ends up resembling a mish-mash of just about all the modern fantasy fan fic on the web. Which is not a complement. The characters and the situations just don't read true. Everything's way too contrived.

No way in heck I'm trying the sequel. I wish I could get my money back for the first.

Re:Perdido was horrible.

[foniksonik]

The Scar is much faster paced than Perdido.. borrow it from the library if you're concerned about getting ripped.

I read Scar first and was moderately disappointed by Perdido.

I also had trouble getting into Perdido and getting through it though I kept reading hoping to see some of Scar come through in his writing and it did but not until 2/3rds of the book was behind me.

Ha! I just read this!!

[Fux the Penguin]

How come /. only reviews books I've already read? Oh well. Still, I have to say, while Perdido was an excellent book in its own right, I was impressed by how much better The Scar was. Mieville has an excellent ability to make you want more by throwing out snippets of descriptions of people and places and civilizations inhabitaing bas-Lag that invariably made me want to learn more.

One of the creepiest and most striking images from the book was Doul's description of his home city of High Chromlech, with its quiet streets full of shuffling high-caste dead, with their lips sewn together. Only a fine writer could pack so much imagination and imagery into a few short pages, and The Scar is full of this, It's part Dickensian (though less so than Perdido), part Lovecraftian, part Moorock, but transcends all those sources. The main character is a bit of a dud (the supporting characters are far more interesting), and the ending fizzles just a little, but the ride getting there justifies the trip. I really enjoyed it, and I highly recommend it to Slashdot!!

$3.75 cheaper at amazon

[zontroll]

Starting today, I will be posting non-referral links only...

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0345444388/
Amazon has this book for $3.75 cheaper than bn
Spend $11.75 more to get free shipping.



If you want to support my efforts to provide prompt Amazon pricing information, add ccats-20 to the end of the above URL. Thanks.

Re:$3.75 cheaper at amazon

[Anonymous Coward]

> some of us (read: sane people) like to know the price of the book being reviewed.

It's sad you don't know how to use the Internet effectively. Here's a quick tutorial, since you're obviously incapable of discovering this on your own.

1) Open your browser. That's the program you use to connect to the Internet. You'll probably see it as a big blue "e" on your screen.
2) Click the address bar. That's the big line near the top of the screen that has a funny looking line of text starting with "http" or similar. Delete this text by pressing either the delete or backspace (backwards arrow) key.
3) Type "http://www.amazon.com" in the address bar, then press Enter. It might be called Return on your keyboard.
4) Amazon's page will load. There will be lots of brightly-coloured things that might be distracting, but you want to look for a text box (a wide rectangle) in a "Search" box on the left. This is where you can search for books online.
5) Type the name of the book you want to locate, then press Enter (Return) or click the "Go" button with your left mouse button. You only need to click this once, unlike some of your Windows icons.
6) A page will appear with search results. Find the one that most closely resembles your book, and click the link. The link should be underlined, so you can figure out what is text and what is the link. Again, only one click with the left mouse button is necesssary.
7) A page will appear with information about your book. Price will be one of these things.

To order the book is beyond the scope of this tutorial, and is left as an exercise to the consumer.

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:Don't forget to go to your public library

[kfg]

Support library levies.

I make a point of always returning my books late.

KFG

Not Amazing

[TwistedSquare]

While The Scar does have some original imagery, you should be warned that none of the main characters are very sympathetic so it can be tough going unless you really love the world around them.

Then again I bought this (hardback) for 4 quid in a bargain bookship to held prop up a bowing bookshelf, so I didn't mind!

China Mieville is one of SF's new wonders

[Anonymous Coward]

We've been losing so many of the original generation of Golden Era SF authors. It's a common lament among my friends whenever we read another obit ( I think Hal Clement died recently).

The only thing that cheers me up is seeing that every now and then another amazing writer hits the scene. China Mieville is one of those, IMHO.

His stuff is just about the most original I've seen in the last 10yrs, at least. I can't even put it in a genre. The reviewer mentions steampunk, but that's not complete... there are so many elements and .... aaiigghh... I love authors that can show me something NEW !!!

It's not for everyone. One poster mentioned he couldn't read the book, and set it down after 100pp.

I actually think that might be a common reaction. There are a lot of folks who seem unable to read stuff that's written in a original style, (i.e. not blandified for mass readership)

Reminds me of a friend that I loaned Samuel Delaney's Dhalgren to. He gave it back a few days later, and said he coldn't make it past the first 10pp or so, because it was messing with his head too much.

Of course, that guy (my friend) had a tendency to have bad trips, so it may not entirely have been Delaney's awesome writing.

Re:China Mieville is one of SF's new wonders

[kid zeus]

I can read Joyce, Faulkner and have lapped up generations of Sci Fi writers who dabble in stream of consciousness and radical visions.

Not being able to read 'truly original work' isn't the problem here. The problem I found that Mieville was far more interested in proving how 'utterly charming' his world was than crafting a good story. I don't need (or even prefer) traditional narratives. What I need and prefer is good prose instead of the amateurish stuff I found in Perdido. As well as characters who's actions are more than an attempt at showing just how damned cool they are. Perdido didn't strike me as original in the least. It glommed bits and pieces from a number of closely related modern fantasy environments using what I find to be very clumsy descriptive ability, and it tried to do it by overwhelming with volume instead of quality.

As for messing with heads, this doesn't even rate on any kind of scale that includes the likes of Philip K. Dick. That's messing with heads.

You want original worlds? Try Jonathon Lethem (Gun With Occasional Music, As She Climbed Across the Table, Fortress of Solitude or almost dozen others) or James Morrow (Blameless in Abbadon, Towing Jehovah, This is the Way the World Ends and a dozen others.)

I snortled your chir-blek!

[Fnkmaster]

A long, long time ago, in a zilblex far far asnog, a chir-blek named Firby snortled a zamphod.

Sorry, I'm not attacking the book, since I haven't read Perdido, nor any work by this author, but if the review is an indication, this falls into the category of sci-fi author who feels the need to throw strange terminology out there to make it feel "different". In my experience, this is what happens when an author can't make the story compelling enough on its own merits - I mean, every sci-fi or science fantasy work has strange, inexplicable elements. And, sure, some of them will have odd and unusual names. But it should be done where it's important to the plot, the storytelling and the characters, not just because it sounds cooler to call it a "sneebleblex" than a "car". And generally nonstandard words that at least convey an image to the target audience are substantially better than random combinations of non-standard phonemes.

Anyway, this isn't intended to be a flame against this author, just a general gripe I have with a type of sci-fi. I'm going to go back to snortling my chir-blek now.

Re:I snortled your chir-blek!

[qengho]

this falls into the category of sci-fi author who feels the need to throw strange terminology out there to make it feel "different".

Not at all. The "strange terminology" is used mainly to refer to alien species. The rest of the language is ornate, but based on English and Latin derivations for the most part. The milieu of Perdido Street Station is so odd and wonderful that the author could refer to the various races by numbers and still the city of New Crobuzon would dazzle readers.

I was a bit disappointed by The Scar, mainly because it didn't give me the same Shock Of The New that PSS did[1], but it's a far better work than most of the stuff in bookstores.

[1] I experienced the same let-down when I read Gibson's Count Zero, because Neuromancer was a hard act to follow. When I re-read his cyberspace triology, however, I realized that the other two books were every bit as good as the first.

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.

Re:pathetic

[Sulihin]

I have to say, I hope the wonderful irony of this post is intentional. Boromir indeed.

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.

The city was the main character (you idiot)

[thnmnt]

claiming perdido street station was horrible and the characters lacked development is just silly. had you paid any attention you would have realized that the city was the main character of the book and everyone else was supporting cast.

i, for one, immensely enjoyed his longish descriptions of new crobuzon and the myriad species that lived there. comparisons to dickens in this regard would not be unjustified.

to classify perdido, or the scar as SF is really the heart of the problem though. mieville himself refers to his style of writing as 'weird fiction' - which i think is much more descriptive. many people also feel that this could have been classified as 'horror' which i can also see.

as much as i enjoyed perdido - the scar was better. it's a monumental book and will be looked back on as being seminal.

i'd read a napkin that this guy had written on.