I'm a guest panelist at Readercon 2009 and working on my assigned reading, which includes China Miéville's "The City & The City." I never managed to finish "The Iron Council" a couple years ago, so I groaned a little upon ordering Miéville's latest novel. Silly of me. My biggest mistake in reading "The City & The City" was starting too late in the evening to finish the book in one sitting. Alas, my eyeballs turned into bloodshot pumpkins at midnight and I had to wait to discover "who done it."
One might consider "The City & The City" as being set in a parallel world. Yet the sense of place is so real. As I read the novel, I visualized the eastern edge of Europe in our own world, and stretched my imagination to make room for the cities of Ul Qoma and Bes?el.
As the novel opens, an unidentified woman is found murdered in Bes?el. Unknown at the time, she was a foreign graduate student working in Ul Qoma. Ul Qoma and Bes?el both are sovereign with restricted passage between them. Their cityscapes–with some shared areas–intertwine, complicating the subsequent investigation of the crime.
Residents of Ul Qoma and Bes?el learn from an early age to see what happens in the city they are located in and "unsee" what doesn't–even if they must unsee something several feet away from them. Sounds impossible to believe? Miéville pulls it off.
Miéville has given "The City and The City" strong forward momentum. His protagonist, Inspector Tyador Borlú of Bes?el's Extreme Crime Squad, is sympathetic and compelling. Miéville has created a plot as intricate as his two sovereign societies and marvelous city sights. The only downside I noticed was in the paragraph structure of some of the dialogue. I had to reread some sections to ascertain the identity of the speaker. All in all, I highly recommend this wonderful and literary piece of speculative fiction.
Repeat warning: this book is hard to put down, a real page turner. Start reading "The City and The City" many hours before bedtime. Your eyeballs will thank you.
Laurel Anne Hill
Author of "Heroes Arise"
http://www.laurelannehill.com