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Summary
Summary
New York Times-bestselling author Mieville delivers an existential thriller set in a city that is unlike any other, real or imagined--a murder mystery taken to dazzling metaphysical and artistic heights."
Author Notes
China Miéville was born in Norwich, England on September 6, 1972. He received a B.A. in social anthropology from the University of Cambridge in 1994, and a Masters' degree with distinction and Ph.D in international relations from the London School of Economics, the latter in 2001. He has also held a Frank Knox fellowship at Harvard University.
His first novel, King Rat, was nominated for both an International Horror Guild and a Bram Stoker award. His other works include Perdido Street Station, The Scar, Iron Council, Un Lun Dun, The City and the City, Embassytown, and Three Moments of an Explosion: Stories. He has won numerous awards for his works including three Arthur C. Clarke Awards, two British Fantasy Awards, the British Science Fiction Award, and the 2008 Locus Award for Best Young Adult Book.
He also published a book on Marxism and international law called Between Equal Rights: A Marxist Theory of International Law. He teaches creative writing at Warwick University.
(Bowker Author Biography)
Reviews (3)
School Library Journal Review
Adult/High School-A blend of near-future science fiction and police procedural, this novel is a successful example of the hybrid genre so popular of late. In a contemporary time period, two fantastical cities somewhere between Europe and Asia exist, not adjacent to one another, but by literally occupying the same area. Forbidden to acknowledge the existence of one another-a discipline imposed by the shadowy and terrifying entity known as Breach-residents in both cities have honed the ability to "unsee" people, places, and events existing in the other realm. This ticklish balance ruptures when Inspector Tyador Borl of the Extreme Crime Squad must investigate the murder of a foreign archaeological student. Long after the book's satisfying conclusion, astute readers will have much to ponder, such as the facility with which Authority can manipulate and repress a population and the attendant ills that life in such a society inevitably generate. Add in the novel's highly effective cover art and the result is a book that may appeal as much to a young, new-to-Mieville audience as it will to his loyal fans.-Dori DeSpain, formerly at Fairfax County Public Library, VA (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Publisher's Weekly Review
Better known for New Weird fantasies (Perdido Street Station, etc.), bestseller Mieville offers an outstanding take on police procedurals with this barely speculative novel. Twin southern European cities Beszel and Ul Qoma coexist in the same physical location, separated by their citizens' determination to see only one city at a time. Inspector Tyador Borl of the Extreme Crime Squad roams through the intertwined but separate cultures as he investigates the murder of Mahalia Geary, who believed that a third city, Orciny, hides in the blind spots between Beszel and Ul Qoma. As Mahalia's friends disappear and revolution brews, Tyador is forced to consider the idea that someone in unseen Orciny is manipulating the other cities. Through this exaggerated metaphor of segregation, Mieville skillfully examines the illusions people embrace to preserve their preferred social realities. (June) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Library Journal Review
Mieville (Un Lun Dun; Perdido Street Station) tells vivid stories in the borderlands of literary fantasy, science fiction, and horror, and here he adds noir crime to the mix. Fittingly, his tale is set in the borderlands, creating a mysterious pair of cities somewhere on Europe's eastern edge. Beszel and Ul Qoma share the same ground, but their citizens are not allowed to react to one another, learning to "unsee" the other city and its inhabitants from a young age. Enforcing this division is a mysterious power called Breach. When an archaeology student is found dead, Inspector Tyador Borl gets caught up in a case that forces him to navigate precariously between the cities, perhaps into the sinister worlds that straddle them. It's a fascinating premise. Unfortunately, the cities, protagonist, and case remain stubbornly in the haze. For all genre fiction collections because Mieville is a trailblazer with a dedicated following, but this work is more an existential thought piece than a reading pleasure. [Library marketing.]-Neil Hollands, Williamsburg Regional Lib., VA (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Excerpts
Excerpts
Chapter One I could not see the street or much of the estate. We were enclosed by dirt-coloured blocks, from windows out of which leaned vested men and women with morning hair and mugs of drink, eating breakfast and watching us. This open ground between the buildings had once been sculpted. It pitched like a golf course--a child's mimicking of geography. Maybe they had been going to wood it and put in a pond. There was a copse but the saplings were dead. The grass was weedy, threaded with paths footwalked between rubbish, rutted by wheel tracks. There were police at various tasks. I wasn't the first detective there--I saw Bardo Naustin and a couple of others-- but I was the most senior. I followed the sergeant to where most of my colleagues clustered, between a low derelict tower and a skateboard park ringed by big drum-shaped trash bins. Just beyond it we could hear the docks. A bunch of kids sat on a wall before standing officers. The gulls coiled over the gathering. "Inspector." I nodded at whomever that was. Someone offered a coffee but I shook my head and looked at the woman I had come to see. She lay near the skate ramps. Nothing is still like the dead are still. The wind moves their hair, as it moved hers, and they don't respond at all. She was in an ugly pose, with legs crooked as if about to get up, her arms in a strange bend. Her face was to the ground. A young woman, brown hair pulled into pigtails poking up like plants. She was almost naked, and it was sad to see her skin smooth that cold morning, unbroken by gooseflesh. She wore only laddered stockings, one high heel on. Seeing me look for it, a sergeant waved at me from a way off, from where she guarded the dropped shoe. It was a couple of hours since the body had been discovered. I looked her over. I held my breath and bent down toward the dirt, to look at her face, but I could only see one open eye. "Where's Shukman?" "Not here yet, Inspector..." "Someone call him, tell him to get a move on." I smacked my watch. I was in charge of what we called the mise-en-crime. No one would move her until Shukman the patho had come, but there were other things to do. I checked sightlines. We were out of the way and the garbage containers obscured us, but I could feel attention on us like insects, from all over the estate. We milled. There was a wet mattress on its edge between two of the bins, by a spread of rusting iron pieces interwoven with discarded chains. "That was on her." The constable who spoke was Lizbyet Corwi, a smart young woman I'd worked with a couple of times. "Couldn't exactly say she was well hidden, but it sort of made her look like a pile of rubbish, I guess." I could see a rough rectangle of darker earth surrounding the dead woman--the remains of the ?mattress-?sheltered dew. Naustin was squatting by it, staring at the earth. "The kids who found her tipped it half off," Corwi said. "How did they find her?" Corwi pointed at the earth, at little scuffs of animal paws. "Stopped her getting mauled. Ran like hell when they saw what it was, made the call. Our lot, when they arrived?.?.?.?" She glanced at two patrolmen I ?didn't know. "They moved it?" She nodded. "See if she was still alive, they said." "What are their names?" "Shushkil and Briamiv." "And these are the finders?" I nodded at the guarded kids. There were two girls, two guys. Midteens, cold, looking down. "Yeah. Chewers." "Early morning pick-you-up?" "That's dedication, hm?" she said. "Maybe they're up for junkies of the month or some shit. They got her Excerpted from The City and the City by China Mieville All rights reserved by the original copyright owners. Excerpts are provided for display purposes only and may not be reproduced, reprinted or distributed without the written permission of the publisher.