'The Scar' by China Mieville is a novel set in the same universe as 'Perdido Street Station' but with a different cast of characters and settings. The book is praised for its tightly plotted narrative, well-drawn characters, and the absence of gratuitous elements like slime and gore. The story follows the main character Bellis Coldwine as she navigates through a world filled with bizarre urban density, alternative realities, and a floating pirate city known as Armada.
The narrative of 'The Scar' is described as captivating, dark, and richly imagined, with complex characters who grapple with hidden goodness and darkness within the human condition. The book delves into themes of duplicity, energy policy, and exile, all while maintaining a focus on character development and a multi-perspective plot that weaves together various storylines in a compelling manner.
Genres:
Tropes/Plot Devices:
Topics:
Notes:
Sensitive Topics/Content Warnings
Content warnings for The Scar include themes of violence, body horror, manipulation, death, and potentially distressing imagery involving gore and grotesque elements.
From The Publisher:
A mythmaker of the highest order, China Miéville has emblazoned the fantasy novel with fresh language, startling images, and stunning originality. Set in the same sprawling world of Miéville's Arthur C. Clarke Award-winning novel, Perdido Street Station, this latest epic introduces a whole new cast of intriguing characters and dazzling creations.
Aboard a vast seafaring vessel, a band of prisoners and slaves, their bodies remade into grotesque biological oddities, is being transported to the fledgling colony of New Crobuzon. But the journey is not theirs alone. They are joined by a handful of travelers, each with a reason for fleeing the city. Among them is Bellis Coldwine, a renowned linguist whose services as an interpreter grant her passage-and escape from horrific punishment. For she is linked to Isaac Dan der Grimnebulin, the brilliant renegade scientist who has unwittingly unleashed a nightmare upon New Crobuzon.
For Bellis, the plan is clear: live among the new frontiersmen of the colony until it is safe to return home. But when the ship is besieged by pirates on the Swollen Ocean, the senior officers are summarily executed. The surviving passengers are brought to Armada, a city constructed from the hulls of pirated ships, a floating, landless mass ruled by the bizarre duality called the Lovers. On Armada, everyone is given work, and even Remades live as equals to humans, Cactae, and Cray. Yet no one may ever leave.
Lonely and embittered in her captivity, Bellis knows that to show dissent is a death sentence. Instead, she must furtively seek information about Armada's agenda. The answer lies in the dark, amorphous shapes that float undetected miles below the waters-terrifying entities with a singular, chilling mission. . . .
China Miéville is a writer for a new era-and The Scar is a luminous, brilliantly imagined novel that is nothing short of spectacular.
Ratings (13)
Incredible (4) | |
Loved It (6) | |
Liked It (1) | |
It Was OK (2) |
Reader Stats (32):
Read It (13) | |
Want To Read (11) | |
Did Not Finish (1) | |
Not Interested (7) |
1 comment(s)
The Scar's heroine, Bellis Coldwine, is a translator on the merchant vessel
Terpsichoria. When the ship is overtaken by pirates, Bellis is brought to Armada, a floating city made up of stolen ships. The pirates of Armada capture new ships to grow the city, introduce new laborers to its workforce, and free the slaves being transported to far-off colonies. In her new life, Bellis is expected to become an Armadan citizen, to do the everyday things every city-dweller does: walk to work, buy lunch at a restaurant, meet friends and lovers. However, Bellis is desperate to return to New Crobuzon, her home city, and vows never to conform to the floating city's way of life.
That itself is enough plot to fill a normal novel, but Mieville isn't halfway done setting the stage. Human beings Remade into monsters through a combination of surgery and magic? Check. Submarines, blimps, steam engines? Check. A race of mosquito-people trapped on an island to prevent them from sucking the world dry (again)? Check. Vampires? Check. Chthulu-like creatures torn through the fabric of the universe and used for humanity's nefarious purposes? Check. Making all of this yet more terrifying through, of all things, math? Um, check.
Mieville's imagination is nothing short of humbling, and his skill in prosody is more than enough to match it. The plot points above could easily become silly caricatures of horror fantasy (or horror scifi), but Mieville keeps it reined in. His universe is carefully crafted and utterly real. His characters range from cactus-people made of vegetable fibers to fish/men/eel things, but they are grounded in the all-too-familiar human tendency to act in their own self-interest at all times.
I don't know how I've gone this long without even hearing of this dude, but I'm going to go out and read his entire backlist now. Well, maybe after a palate-cleanser, something that won't give me nightmares.
What can you read after
The Scar?
About the Author:
China Miéville is the author of numerous books, including This Census-Taker, Three Moments of an Explosion, Railsea, Embassytown, Kraken, The City & The City, and Perdido Street Station. His works have won the World Fantasy Award, the Hugo Award, and…
When you click the Amazon link and make a purchase, we may receive a small commision, at no cost to you.
