China Miéville made his mark in 1998 with King Rat, his first fantasy novel set in New Crobuzon, an imagined world. Five more fantasy novels followed. For some reason, I’ve never read any of them, but when The City & the City was described as his brand of fantasy melded to the private eye genre, I snapped it up.
And a wonderful, unique book it is. The underlying concept is so bold as to be unbelievable, but Miéville renders it utterly real through the skill of his writing. Inspector Tyador Borlú lives in the rundown, European city of Besźel but in the same physical space, or rather, meshed together, is a completely different city named Ul Qoma. Citizens in either country learn to not see their opposing city members and a guardian group guards against a ‘breach’. At the start of The City & the City, Borlú investigates a woman’s murder, seemingly a routine crime, but quickly it becomes apparent that a cross-existence crime must have occurred.
The author’s prose is wild and poetic, his narrative control absolute, the weird place completely compelling. Given the amazing nature of the book’s world, there is tons of technical explanation to provide, and this is done at leisure and with great aplomb. The inspector is a wonderful character and the plot spirals into increased complexity and wonder. I was entranced from start to finish. While The City & the City is really only for sci-fi or fantasy readers, it comes highly recommended.
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[...] interested in is: should I read any of them? I read the wonderful The City & The City last year and have read previous books by the first two authors below, but the final three are new to me. [...]