Review: The Scar
I just finished reading The Scar by China Mieville this weekend.
It was quite as satisfying as his last book, Perdido Street Station. Quite different in character, though. In fact, The Scar, despite its name, was a bit more upbeat than Perdido Street Station. One odd thing, though… The cover mentioned a character from Perdido Street Station, namely Issac Grimnebulin, but he never shows up in the book at all, except as on off-hand reference. But, that aside, it was quite good. And, now, with spoilers in place, here’s a run down of the plot.
The Scar opens with one Bellis Coldwine, a linguist, waiting for her ship to dock. She’s a linguist in the sense of being a polyglot as well as someone who studies languages. In fact, she uses a kind of trance and magic to learn languages much more quickly than a normal person would. This, actually, was one of many interesting concepts thrown out.
Very quickly, though, our heroine is thrown into turmoil as her ship is hijacked by pirates and she, and her fellow crewmates, are press-ganged into a floating, pirate city called Armada. Then, the plot takes a definate turn. It gets ever more fantastic from here on. Abandon all hope, ye who enter here.
Our heroine is not very pleased at being assimilated into this free-booter’s city, especially since her only other option is death. There is no going home for her. And, in part as rebellion against that death sentence, she gets involved in a plot. A plot, she thinks, that is meant to save her city, the New Crobuzon of Perdido Street Station, from terrible water demons, the near-mythical grindylow. Along the way, her linguistic talents are used to summon up a mythical sea-beast which is meant to pull Armada through the sea. Of course, things don’t work out like anyone plans.
It’s a rolling, rollicking fun-filled adventure with pirates on the high-seas! Okay, not really. It’s dark, morose and about illusions shattered by soulless agents of the government in their merciless quest for a little more power and money. Very gritty. Very realistic. Very good.
