The City and the City

The British writer China Mieville is one of the most inventive speculative fiction writers currently working. I loved his three Bas-Lag books, as well as his children's book "Un Lun Dun." He specializes in ignoring all of the storytelling baggage of others, which often make the twists and turns of his plots genuinely surprising.

His latest, "The City And the City," is a good example of this. Although much less fantastical than his previous books (except for it's setting it's largely a straight mystery book), it has the unmistakable Mieville traits of an unpredictable plot and a few twists you'd never expect.

It is these same traits that unfortunately occasionally cause some problems. Because there are so many plot twists, the final reveal of who the murderer is seems like it's been sprung on the reader, and there' not enough setup to make it feel like it grew from the rest of the book. This also affects the pacing, as it seems there's too much exposition at the beginning and too much action at the end.

Not that the exposition is a bad thing, as Mieville has given us both an interesting setting to describe and an interesting character to deliver said description. The setting is the cities of Beszel and Ul Qoma, somewhere in southeastern Europe, and the main character is inspector Tyador Borlu of the Beszel Extreme Crimes Squad. The main thing distinguishing the two cities is that they exist in the same place: a street in Beszel can also be a street in Ul Qoma. The two cities have been forced apart, and it is illegal to interact with people or places in the other city except via checkpoints in the very center of both cities. This makes things complicated for Borlu when it is revealed that a Jane Doe found in Beszel was murdered in Ul Qoma.

As Borlu looks into the murder, assisted by a Constable Lizbyet Corwi in Beszel and, about halfway in, his opposite number Qussim Dhatt in Ul Qoma. All three are interesting and multilayered characters. Borlu is cynical and somewhat contemptuous of authority, but he's no stereotypical antihero rebel cop: he merely cares nothing for politics or bureaucracy. Corwi is a cool character, very intelligent and very independant, and I liked that a lot of the accomplishments of the first third of the book were because of her. She's a strong, independant female character that it is not necessary to announce is a strong, independant female character. Really, most of the female characters who appear in the book are like that: capable characters we don't need to be told are capable. Corwi does disappear for about the middle third of the book, though, which is a little weird and kinda annoying. Her replacement, Dhatt, is interesting, as a character who has Borlu's temperament but not his personality. While Borlu is a somewhat introverted and thoughtful character, Dhatt is boisterous, a litle bit of a ham, and likable almost from his first appearance in the book by the sheer force of his charisma. The other characters in the book are all well done, as each seems to be a well-flushed out character who does what they do for reasons that make sense, although the character eventually revealed as the "villain" is a bit confusingly portrayed. A special favorite of mine is Borlu's boss, Comissar Gadlem, who appears for one scene in the entire book and completely stole it from Borlu with his sarcastic, no-BS manner. I liked all of the characters in the book immensely, and I think they're easily the best part of it.

The setting of Ul Qoma and Beszel allows for Mieville to play around a lot. Because it's a setting that often times characters can't acknoledge they can see, more often than not Mieville frames it so that the important part is happening in the part of the city they cannot acknoledge. And the concept that, in some neighborhoods at least, the part in Ul Qoma can be an upscale residential area and the part in Beszel can be a slum creates an interesting mindscape to picture. It's also great when Borlu remarks on the cultural influence the US has had on the youth of his city, or the immigrants to one city or another from the Balkans or north Africa, or the background detail that Ul Qoma (which is significantly less democratic than Beszel) is under sanctions by the US so the main international presence in that city is Canadian. These are lived-in cities, and feel like real places almost.

All in all, "The City and The City" is a whole lot of fun. An interesting story set in a fascinating location with interesting characters, I enthusiastically recommend it to all.