Customer Reviews

The Scar

5 star:		(31)
4 star:		(9)
3 star:		(8)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

China Mieville, The Scar (Ballantine, 2002)

Comparing any fantasy novel to Mieville's mighty Perdido Street Station invites a bad review. But it can't be helped, in the case of The Scar. After all, it's the sequel to Perdido Street Station. It's not surprising that it doesn't measure up; what is surprising is how close it comes to doing so.

Not long after the events of Perdido Street Station, Grimnebulin's sometime-girlfriend, Bellis Coldwine, flees New Crobuzon when she feels the militia closing in. Boarding the Terpsichoria, she heads off for the colonies on the other side of the world, stopping at Salkrikaltor Cray on the way for some negotiations. Not long after they leave Cray, however, they are ambushed by pirates from a nation who are completely unconcerned with New Crobuzon's might, and taken prisoner. Things go, to put it mildly, downhill from there.

It seemed to me throughout that much of Mieville's impetus for writing The Scar was to explore and flesh out some of the places that were just mentioned in Perdido Street Station. All well and good, as much of what was praised about the former novel was Mieville's ability to build a world with an awe-inspiring amount of descriptive realism. So it's no surprise that the same happens here, as Mieville takes us thousands of miles north and west of New Crobuzon, jumping around the map and filling in pieces of it we didn't get to see before. Mieville's descriptive talents are as strong as ever.

The plot's got a good deal going for it, as well. The pirates are not your normal brand of pirate, and Bellis spends much of her time trying to figure out what's really going on as a possible means of somehow winning her freedom from her captors. She, and her various co-conspirators, are just as expertly drawn as the batch in Perdido Street Station.

Where the book sometimes flags is pace. Perdido Street Station is compelling reading, the kind of book for which foregoing food and sleep often seems like a good idea. Not so in parts of The Scar. Only parts, mind you, but there are passages here and there where the pace flags. That Mieville previously achieved a perfectly-paced novel in the midst of the vast amounts of thick description therein is the only reason for criticism here; with most authors, we'd be amazed it moves as swiftly as it does.

A worthy, if (very slightly) inferior, successor to Perdido Street Station. **** 

A second novel to be set in China Mieville's fantasy world of Bas-Lag, The Scar once more displays the author's prodigious imagination and command of language. Sea battles, weird science, fantastical creatures, monsters of the deep and a piratical floating city feature in this compelling story. The characterisation is subtle, with a main protagonist who is somewhat cold and inexpressive. Some plotlines are not developed too well and go nowhere, but there is more than enough great stuff to compensate. Most impressive creature has to be the avanc. Scariest creatures, in my opinion are the anophelii, mosquito women from hell!

THE SCAR is even more original and twice as artful as Mieville's previous PERDIDO STREET STATION. If you like great writing, get it. If you like wondrous, original, vivid imaginary worlds, get it. I haven't seen such a marvelous imaginary world in years.

However, if you like characters who set out to make a positive difference in their world and succeed, don't get this book. Mieville likes to write about good guys who aren't really good and who lose even when they win. If he had to do a Churchill biography he'd write about everything except World War II. If he had to do a Presidential biography he'd choose Clinton over Lincoln or Washington every time.

I think he prefers to close his eyes to heroes.

But the world he creates in THE SCAR is gorgeous. It's wonderful. A floating city, a whale as a steed, two different kinds of underwater civilizations, battles with magic and ironclads and airships, an isle of mosquito people, catcus pirates, a magic based on probability theory and oil drilling as a means of magical power--there's just so much stuff in this book. If you want a world you haven't seen before, one wonderfully written, full of life, completely different and completely believable--this is for you.

It's got drama, too, plenty of it, even if Mieville likes to put lots of depressing bits in alongside the successes. There's heroism and war and titan-scale engineering and mysterious magic.

Did I mention that this book is packed full of stuff? And that the world is wonderfully original?

THE SCAR is set in the same universe as PERDIDO STREET STATION, but it goes leagues beyond that in quality. It's the tale, more or less, of a woman who gets hijacked to a fantastic city whose rulers are embarked on an even more fantastic quest, a quest she gets caught up in and that puts half the rest of the world at war with the city -- not to mention the battles within the city itself...

If you want a book that'll leave you smiling, go find some other book. Mieville's too in love with misfortune. His main characters are pretty ordinary people, and even if he lets the good guys more or less win, he leaves you feeling that the characters you were reading about have been left used and broken and mostly defeated. He can't stand to imagine triumph as a good thing. But if you want a world that will absolutely blow your mind and plenty of scenes to leave you breathless, get THE SCAR.

Plot in a very small nutshell: Travellers, prisoners, and slaves (many of whom have been biologically modified against their wills) are on board a sea vessel bound for the New Crobuzon colony. Pirates seize the ship and take the survivors to their floating city Armada to become a part of that rather unorthodox society.
The characters and the society and culture of Armada are very detailed and well thought out. There are bizarre characters, monsters, magic, secrets, and intrigue. The language and descriptions are effective and beautiful. I have not yet read PERDIDO STREET STATION (though I plan to remedy that very soon), but that did not hamper my reading of THE SCAR in any way that I was aware of.
THE SCAR is one of the most unusual books that I have read in a long time and it is one I will read again.

I really wanted to love this book.

However, I did not.

The process of reading it was one of frustration and irritation, because the author is so obviously capable of writing better than this. At least, I hope so, for he is a wordsmith of fantastic ability, whose sentences thrum with surreal vision and passion.

The descriptive passages were thrillingly vivid and entrancing. The setting of Bas-lag is minutely rendered in sense-stirring detail, though the marriage of science fiction and fantasy elements was a bit heavy-handed and less than deftly done. (I had to keep telling myself, in the case of the mosquito women that this was -not- science fiction, so that I could quiet my mind which kept screaming: "But they shouldn't be able to fly! Exsanguinated pigs do not look like that! ARGH!")

The main reason I give this book only three stars, (and considered giving it two stars) was because I found the characters to be dull and one-dimensional and the plot to be ludicrous, trite and ponderously slow-moving. Bellis Coldwater has to be the least likeable protagonist I have been faced with recently, and her entire story is one of incapability, manipulation and quite frankly, stupidity. She had absolutely no likeable qualities, so I never could connect with her in the slightest. The most likeable character was killed, for no good purpose, except to torture the second most likeable character a bit more; I felt that was a cheap shot for an author whose description leads me to believe that he is more emotionally sensitive than that.

Finally, the plot, which is full of senseless violence and gore, is one where, in the end, nothing really happens. No one really changes or is changed by this plot, no epiphanies are made, no life lessons learned. Just a quick jaunt to the end of the universe to turn around and go home again, and return to the status quo. What in the name of Theodore Sturgeon was that about?

Basically, this book is not about people, it is about themes, and a beautifully rendered setting. Which, as far as I am concerned, does not a fine novel make.

The masters of science fiction, such as Asimov, Bradbury, leGuin and Sturgeon, all stated (in one way or another) that the purpose of science fiction and fantasy literature isn't to tell stories about fantastical worlds, robots and crazy adventures. The purpose of this literature is to tell stories about people, real people, and to ask questions that cannot be asked in a historical or modern setting.

Unfortunately, "The Scar" tells no story, has no interesting people, and asks few fascinating questions.

I really hope the author keeps writing, though. Because when his prose is that gorgeous, I know that eventually he is going to tell me a magnificent story one day.

It's unfortunate that a writer with such obvious talent can write a novel with so many structural deficiencies. At it's base it's a novel about a woman, Bellis Coldwine, forced into a quest she wants no part of. Mieville puts all the ingredients of the fantasy thriller into the cauldron -- the quest, the dark heroine, conflicts, time constraints. But what we, as readers, end up with, is a lot of lost time. The quest turns into drivel, a journey to the edge of the world which is never satisfied or even really explained, and left so late in its explanation, we are never really engaged. The heroine as it turns out, never has a real say in the outcome. She's simply a pawn of one side, then the other, and at the end, expects to return to her previous life. The failures in this novel are structural and a waste of a lot of good writing. For a comparison of writing, perhaps not quite as masterful, but with a plot to blow your socks off, try Kushiel's Dart by Jaqueline Carey. In spite of the failure of this book, I would try him again.

the author's ability to describe still remains incredible; but the characters are people that, in the real world, you wouldn't hang around them anyway for even an hour. the main protagonist is a sour individual who gave me a stomachache after a few pages. i found perdido street station much more enjoyable. when i finished the book i was left wondering.."what now?"

When I finished Mieville's previous novel, "Perdido Street Station", I thought it couldn't get better. I was underestimating him. This takes place several months after the events of "Perdido", and tells the story of a woman from New Crobuson who is taken by a pirate ship-city. And this enormous flotilla has a unbelievably daring and dark agenda...

As usual for Mieville, the writing is fantastic; his mastery of words, symbolism and multiple meanings is impressive. The title alone could mean a half-dozen things! And like "Perdido", the strange, dirty, corrupt Universe of Bas-Lag is described in vivid and evocative details. His main character is a conflicted, complex woman, which he gets surprisingly well for a male author (not always obvious).

This is steampunk at it's best, and it is no light reading. Be prepared to be engulfed in deep, dark, cold waters... but you will love the journey!

Perdido was an excellent book in its own right, yet I was impressed by how much better The Scar was. Mieville has an excellent ability to make you want more by throwing out snippets of descriptions of people and places and civilizations inhabitaing bas-Lag that invariably made me want to learn more. One of the creepiest and most striking images from the book was Doul's description of his home city of High Chromlech, with its quiet streets full of shuffling high-caste dead, with their lips sewn together. Only a fine writer could pack so much imagination and imagery into a few short pages, and The Scar is full of this, It's part Dickensian (though less so than Perdido), part Lovecraftian, part Moorock, but transcends all those sources. As others have mentioned, the main character is a bit of a dud (the supporting characters are far more interesting), and the ending fizzles just a little, but the ride getting there justifies the trip. You'll enjoy the characters and places you visit on the way.

After reading China Miéville's novel Perdido Street Station last June, The Scar was quickly added to my Must Read list. Like the former, The Scar takes place on Miéville's intriguing and bizarre world of Bas-Lag. It's a world of vast oceans, many strange races, and a smattering of magic (or "thaumaturgy" in Miéville's prose). The protagonist this time around is Bellis Coldwine, a woman on the run from the New Crobuzon authorities. She boards a ship leaving New Crobuzon which is heading for a new colony. The ship hasn't traveled too far before it is captured by pirates from the floating city of Armada. There are some fascinating characters living on Armada and Bellis becomes embroiled in the strange plans of Armada's hideously scarred rulers known only as The Lovers. Miéville kept me continually in awe of the weird happenings and travels of the Armadans. His world of Bas-Lag is dense with peculiar people, landscapes, and customs. He's quickly become my new favorite science fiction writer. I was pleased to discover that his next novel, Iron Council, will also be set in Bas-Lag and is due out in July 2004. His novels are just wildly entertaining.