Embassytown.
Oct. 11th, 2011 09:50Miéville, China. Embassytown. New York: Del Rey, 2011.
This is, unequivocally, Miéville's best book yet.
I've loved most of Miéville's other novels, mind you, which is part of why this book was even more of a revelation to me. For the first time, all of Miéville's bowstrings are twanging in concert, and seeing all of his impulses and talents working in tandem to an end throws into relief how, in almost all of his earlier works--Kraken, I think, being an important near- or partial exception--he was clearly, fundamentally at war with himself. But peace has broken out now, and this book, much as Miéville's language in others was revelatory for other reasons, is, even on the level of prose, beautiful.
( The girl who ate in pain what was given her )
This is a brilliant, brilliant, brilliant book. As![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
rushthatspeaks rightly notes, the sheer brilliance of the language Miéville uses may be the single most dazzling aspect of this book, but the plot is brilliant too, and consistently goes places you don't expect. Miéville zigs when you think he will zag, and this ingenuity extends to the characters--they are consistently three-dimensional, far more than the clichéd stock type you would expect from space opera. As usual, Miéville tosses off more brilliant, innovative ideas on one page than most authors have in a whole novel. The Hosts, too, alien though they indubitably are, eventually come into focus as agents in their own destinies, as does--not against her will and her learned habit of "floaking"--Avice too.
So, in short: go read it.
This is, unequivocally, Miéville's best book yet.
I've loved most of Miéville's other novels, mind you, which is part of why this book was even more of a revelation to me. For the first time, all of Miéville's bowstrings are twanging in concert, and seeing all of his impulses and talents working in tandem to an end throws into relief how, in almost all of his earlier works--Kraken, I think, being an important near- or partial exception--he was clearly, fundamentally at war with himself. But peace has broken out now, and this book, much as Miéville's language in others was revelatory for other reasons, is, even on the level of prose, beautiful.
( The girl who ate in pain what was given her )
This is a brilliant, brilliant, brilliant book. As
rushthatspeaks rightly notes, the sheer brilliance of the language Miéville uses may be the single most dazzling aspect of this book, but the plot is brilliant too, and consistently goes places you don't expect. Miéville zigs when you think he will zag, and this ingenuity extends to the characters--they are consistently three-dimensional, far more than the clichéd stock type you would expect from space opera. As usual, Miéville tosses off more brilliant, innovative ideas on one page than most authors have in a whole novel. The Hosts, too, alien though they indubitably are, eventually come into focus as agents in their own destinies, as does--not against her will and her learned habit of "floaking"--Avice too. So, in short: go read it.