[Sir Thursday]

Finished China Mieville's new novel Embassytown a few night back, and it was one of the best science fiction novels I've read in a long time. It did all the things good sci-fi does - it took an intriguing concept, built on it in a well thought out manner and in doing so raised some interesting and thought-provoking questions.

Peter Watts' Blindsight is the standard I use to judge all sci-fi with aliens. While not quite as impressive as the aliens in that book, Mieville (who has always been good at thinking up interesting monsters) has nevertheless managed to create an alien race that feels plausible and sufficiently alien to be interesting to read about. The Ariekei are not incomprehensible, but the first-person narrative does a good job of initially making them feel that way. Their Language, and the effect it has on their culture and society are fascinating, as are the lengths humanity has had to go to to even communicate with them.

It's also ripsnorter of a plot once it gets going - I ended up tearing through the second half of the novel at a pretty fast pace. I won't say anything more, since I'd probably start spoiling it, but this is a fantastic book and one that I'd highly recommend to anyone who enjoys intelligent and innovative science fiction.


ST

[QuickTidal]

Mieville is coming to my local bookstore this Thursday, so I'm going to go meet him and pick up a signed copy of Embassytown as well. Can't wait!

[Salt-Man Z]

I read Embassytown at the beginning of the month. It was my first Miéville, and it was fantastic. My own review is here.

This post has been edited by Salt-Man Z: 27 May 2011 - 04:52 PM

[kcf]

I read Embassytown a couple of months ago, it's up to the usual quality of of Mieville and a nice and refreshing jump into science fiction. Below is an excerpt from my review.

Quote

Miéville is a master of creating atmosphere and all things weird, which is one of the most exciting aspects of his foray into science fiction. Embassytown is an isolated backwater and Miéville subtly reinforces this through the travels of Avice. The atmosphere he creates is superb – and it’s utterly alien, which is where the weird comes in.

All too often sentient science fictional races feel too anthropomorphized – either that or they feel like too strong of an effort to avoid anthropomorphization. Miéville walks this fine line with excellence and subversion. The Hosts and their world are completely alien, yet the mistake made over and over again is to assume that they can be understood in ‘human’ terms. While Miéville’s descriptions of the Hosts are strong, they are just vague enough that I don’t really have a good mental image of what a Host really looks like, and that feels just right. Unfortunately, it’s a bit tricky to write about the most fascinating and more subversive qualities about Miéville’s aliens without giving too much away, so I’ll leave that for readers to explore on their own.

But the real emphasis of the Host’s alien nature is in their language. It is unlike any other known language in the galaxy and humanity has had to do some really horrific genetic engineering to develop communication with the Hosts – communication that is in reality not well understood at all. Through a bizarre ritual Avice actually becomes a simile in the Host’s language – she is an object of the language, an object of reverence and true meaning. And it confuses the hell out of her. I know my description of this aspect of Embassytown feels incomplete and probably a bit confusing, but long essays could be written on this and my advice is to read the book to come to an understanding of your own.

...

It’s through Embassytown’s view of colonialism that it becomes rather interesting, if not necessarily unique to the writings of science fiction. Embassytown is not told from the more traditional perspectives of colonists seeking independence, repressed indigenous species seeking freedom, or the conquering nation/empire/species – it is essentially the story of simple people trying to survive. And the ambiguity of where those simple people fall on that list of traditional perspectives is thought provoking – especially considering how the book ultimately ends. Is it a happy ending? Is it a sad ending? Was a culture destroyed or saved? Is it overall a hopeful story or one of despair? Who were the winners and losers? Were there winners and losers? Miéville doesn’t take any clear sides – he lays it out for readers to consider.

Full Review

[alt146]

Finished it last night. Thought the end was a trifle weak, but only in comparison to his other books. Other than it was pretty good, beautiful prose, mindbending concepts and good pacing. The Arakei are well realised and interesting - it's nice when aliens are truly alien.

[QuickTidal]

Here's a post about last night's book signing for this in Toronto, with photo's and info.

http://bit.ly/laf3pl