Recent Books
A couple of re-reads.
Amberlough, Lara Elena Donnelly
I had intended to save this for later. After I finished another book, Vertigo, about the Weimar Republic. After I finished watching Andor. I am still reading Vertigo and I'm morally torn about Disney and the BDS movement. So fuck it, I just read it.
I guess I see the Le Carre a little bit more this time. I persuaded Kris Howard to read it and she feels the Le Carrieness, so ¯_(ツ)_/¯
I sympathise with Cyril much more this time through. Is it because the Trumpists and MAGA crew are destroying the US as I read this? Last time I read this I thought he was just a coward. This time he is still a coward but what were his choices? We're presented with a bunch of them: Malcolm gives in to despair; Aristide leaves it all behind; Mueller collaborates to get what he wants; Cordelia spits in their eye. Cyril's tries to have a bit of everything, doesn't achieve any of them. That's his real sin.
I first read this book in 2016. I had no recollection of 99% of its contents when I started re-reading. Humans, living in an enclave on an alien world. Aliens who have a unique communication method/style/mode (the Big Idea of the book). Something to do with tearing off their auditory organ.
Still a good book, although I never acturally revel in Miéville's artistry and playing with language. Some of it stands out a bit. Some pages where he starts really trotting out the alliteration. When the representation of Language is used to make irony and internal conflict super-textual. ("I regret nothing/I regret" for example). But mostly I am just too caught up in plot to take the time to wallow in the cleverness.
My review from 2016 is basically peak mid-2010s me and I find it annoying. But it basically holds up. I talked smack a bit about Kraken and that's another book I barely remember. But still... the progression of Miévilles books is on a discernable arc away from the flamboyantly weird of Bas Lag to the intricately weird, the weird you need to turn around to see at different angles. The book after this was Railsea; I strongly suspect my four star rating of that wasn't based on actual appreciation of it and more feeling like I had to because it was China Miéville pastiching an Important Book.
His current book is a novel using a comic book character Keane Reeves is the creator of. The comic sounds like not my thing, but it perhaps gives China an excuse to slum it a bit more.