The Scar (Bas-Lag Book 2)

The Scar was recommended to me as the best Mieville to start with, especially since I found Perdido Street Station a bit.... inaccessible. And I thoroughly enjoyed it, although I havent read its predecessor and although this type of fantasy is outside my comfort zone. The originality and unpredictability of the plot is one of the books major assets, so I wont give much away here. Essentially, the book follows a middle-aged woman named Bellis Coldwine whos fleeing her home of New Crobuzon; her ship, headed for a far-flung colony, is captured by pirates, and the passengers and crew taken to the city of Armada, constructed of hundreds of ships tied together and floating about the worlds oceans. Armadas rulers have some mysterious plans, and international politics wind up playing a large role in the plot. As I said, this is one of those rare books thats so original I had absolutely no idea where it would go, and that made it a lot of fun. The pacing is also excellent: its a gripping book, things are always happening, but Mieville manages this without cheap tricks, and its anything but one of those books with lots of action and little substance. Speaking of substance, the worldbuilding is incredibly original and intriguing. You dont see a lot of fantasy books with more modern technology (there are guns, motors, etc.) but set in a secondary world, so that in itself sets the book apart. And this may just be because I havent read Perdido, but I enjoyed the fact that everything isnt just explained; theres a lot more to the world than we see here, and a lot of it readers have to figure out from context. And its all very imaginative; Armada is a bizarre, fascinating idea, and thats without the hominoid sea-creatures, mosquito-people, machine-people and so on. Books with these sorts of non-human races in them arent typically my cup of tea; they didnt hinder my enjoyment here since its thoughtfully done, but I imagine somebody who likes that stuff will appreciate this book even more. So, the characters. We only really get to know a few of them, but Mieville does an excellent job. Bellis is a well-rounded, realistic, unusual heroine and I loved reading about her; she just felt so much more human than your typical fantasy protagonist. I found her very relatable and am a bit surprised (but only a bit) to see other reviewers calling her unlikeable and guessing that she was intended to be. Maybe so, but I liked her. I liked that it takes her awhile to make friends, that shes written linguistic textbooks (thats just awesome) and that she doesnt need a man in her life even though she likes sex. Great character. I wasnt so thrilled by the secondary protagonist, Tanner Sack, but thats a testament to Mievilles skill at creating characters; Tanner seemed like a basically good guy, but his personality comes through clearly and we had sort of a personality conflict. Which sounds bizarre, but is the closest I can get to describing it. I give Mieville a lot of credit for giving his main characters strong, unique personalities--even at the risk that not everyone will like them--rather than creating your standard blandly inoffensive protagonists. Anyway, the supporting characters are intriguing, and while they dont leap off the page, theyre decently well-developed. So overall, this is a very good book and I dont have the problem with the ending that other reviewers did; it works well and is interesting thematically. (There are a lot of interesting things going on thematically in this book, many of which I didnt notice till seeing other people point them out.) I could just as easily have given it five stars. It does have some minor flaws: I wasnt entirely convinced by Armada (how on earth do they get enough food and fresh water to support all those people? remind me again how the ships dont run into one another in a storm?), and the profanity, while it added realism to the dialogue, jarred when it seeped into the narrative. But no book is perfect and those minor quibbles arent why I give four stars instead; ultimately its because while I enjoyed this book and was impressed by it, I didnt love it. Maybe it was the level of weirdness, or maybe I wasnt emotionally invested enough in the characters fates. But I would certainly recommend it, even if its not quite your thing; we should all get out of our literary comfort zones every once in awhile.

Frustrating and yet compelling, China Mieville gets into your system like some strange food that is both addictive yet slightly nauseating. Once digested, you cant wait to have more! What price originality? Stick with it, you may get a big surprize...

Your Bas Lag experience should start and end with the Scar. The story and the characters in this novel are much better than the other Bas Lag books. Perdidio Street Station while good had large aspects of the story which did not tie into the main theme of the book. Pages of material that went no where filled the book. Pointless subplots. Iron Council was OK, but it didnt grab ahold of me the way that the scar did.

This is another powerhouse of the imagination from China Mieville, who certainly deserves the praise he has gotten as one of SF/Fantasys most important new writers. This book is not as gut-wrenching or action-packed as its stupendous predecessor Perdido Street Station, but it still demonstrates the range of Mievilles raw talent, although his lack of focus is also evident. Sheer imagination is the key to Mievilles work, and the most imaginative feature here is the books setting. The drama takes place on a floating city made up of thousands of ships tethered together, on which Mieville creates a highly unique society and cast of characters. Other outlandish feats of the imagination are a reverse fantastic voyage along the skin of a mile-wide monster, and a beach consisting of the rust of ancient forgotten machines. And dont miss at least two truly terrifying battle scenes. Mieville can also create intriguing characters. Winners here include the interpersonally bizarre Lovers and the supernaturally swashbuckling Uther Doul, although the action is hampered a bit by a pretty lackluster lead character in Bellis. Sadly, this book also displays some of Mievilles inherent weaknesses, which are merely a function of having just too darn many ideas that should be reined in more effectively. The book cant quite justify its 600+ page length, and in the final third things start to unravel and run out of steam with just too many plot elements appearing and disappearing. The supernatural concepts that Mieville introduces are not explored fully (especially the intriguing possibility mining concept), while the conclusion really fizzles out after such an extensive build-up. However, this is still an immensely enjoyable work and China Mieville has a real future as one of the most talented new writers of the modern age. [~doomsdayer520~]

China has once more returned us to the land of the wildly weird, the stuff of nightmares, the packaging around an intensely complicated plot of obsession, mystery, betrayal, and twisted desire. Set in the world of Bas-Lag that he first introduced to us in Perdido Street Station, this work shows us a much wider view, a diorama of images and creatures that at first blush seem incredibly impossible, not related to our world at all, but one quickly finds motivations and emotions that ring around both your heart and your head. Tinges of Melville surround the overarching story of the hunt and capture of a true miles-wide Leviathan, but trying to pigeonhole China is an impossible task, as one finds elements from Bram Stroker to Dickens to Richard Burton all thoroughly churned into this mix that China makes uniquely his own. Trying to predict what will happen or what a character will do is an exercise in futility, doomed to failure as China continuously surprises you. His characters, for all their incredible physiognomy, are recognizably human, richly detailed while maintaining depths that are just out of reach. Uther Doul is a true man of mystery, wielding his Possible Sword and twisting events (and possibilities?) for his own unknown desires, the prime mover of the events in this story. Bellis Coldwine is the main viewpoint character, in some ways equivalent to Ishmael of Moby Dick, an observer who nonetheless takes important actions that have definite influences on the final outcome; cold, distant, but yet one who gets caught in more than one love affair. The Brucolac, a real, practical vampire; Silas Fennac, the New Crobuzon spy; Tanner Sack, a Remade man who is the epitome of loyalty yet will still betray his chosen country of allegiance; each character adds their own touch of flavor and complexity to this bitter and compelling tea. And in the distance are The Lovers, erstwhile commanders of the motley collection of ships that make up the Armada, defined by their odd sexual practices, practices that leave them mirror-image scarred, a metaphor in flesh of Chinas thematic investigation of the cuts and scarring that happen to and are part of the definition of everyone. Chinas strength is his incredibly descriptive prose, much in evidence here, but the picture he paints is not as monochromatically dark as it is Perdido Street Station, as he dips his pen with bits and swirls color, highlights poking out of his black felt. His pictures of his diverse creatures are not as detailed as they were in the earlier novel, especially not for those creatures and near-human species that not new to this book. For this reason alone, I recommend reading Perdido Street Station first, so that one comes to this book steeped in the environment, the depressive bleakness of the earlier work. The plot is a continual set of twisting surprises and seeming diversions, but each part is fully tied to the climax of this work. In this area, this book far exceeds his earlier work, showing all the signs of meticulous planning, where each element is necessary to the story, and events are driven by the complex interaction of each of his characters, rather than mere happenstance or coincidence. My only real complaint with this book was the Coda that is tacked on after the main climax. While this Coda neatly wraps up all the unanswered questions and provides closure to some of the splinter stories, I felt it was unnecessary and spoiled the power of the highly emotional main ending line. With this book, I feel that China has entered the top flight of todays speculative fiction writers, mature, confident of his mastery of the art of story telling, with a voice that uniquely and compellingly his own. I predict this book will take all the various awards for this year, and I can look forward to many more years and many more great reads from this brilliant new fable spinner. ---Reviewed by Patrick Shepherd (hyperpat)

This is billed as part of a series, but the three books each stand alone and make only slight reference to characters in the other stories - Perdido Street Station, The Scar, and The Iron Council. Steampunk and like nothing I ever read - a great maritime adventure!

before you read the rest of this, do yourself a favor and read this book. in fact, i heartily suggest reading all the bas-lag stories by mieville. everyone one of them is like a little window, a window to a world that is beautiful and ugly tantalizing us with everything else there is to see, to know with what weve experienced so far. this story carries on shortly after perdido street station. if you havent read that you wont be completely in the dark. youll meet amazing people, see incredible places, witness utterly terrifying events and learn some of the expanded history of the world of bas-lag. through the eyes of the most useless and transparent main character, possibly ever. shes there, and is alive. and all these things happen around her. but shes there telling us the events, not taking part in them. while this is fitting considering her character and personality if you came into this book thinking her first person perspective would be that of the world saving hero, youd be wrong. oh, so very wrong. but in the end, thats ok. shes not a hero. she, like most of us, is just a person. a rather cardboardish person. but everything else makes it so worth it.

Miéville is an unparallelled worldsmith, but the scar is let down by flat characterisation and an ultimately pointless plot. I recommend you try perdido street station instead.

This was a really good book. Better than the Perdido Street Station.

This book took over my life. Intelligent, humorous and riveting.