Review: The Scar by China Miéville

Blurb:

A mythmaker of the highest order, China Miéville has emblazoned the fantasy novel with fresh language, startling images, and stunning originality. Set in the same sprawling world of Miéville’s Arthur C. Clarke Award-winning novel, Perdido Street Station, this latest epic introduces a whole new cast of intriguing characters and dazzling creations.

Aboard a vast seafaring vessel, a band of prisoners and slaves, their bodies remade into grotesque biological oddities, is being transported to the fledgling colony of New Crobuzon. But the journey is not theirs alone. They are joined by a handful of travelers, each with a reason for fleeing the city. Among them is Bellis Coldwine, a renowned linguist whose services as an interpreter grant her passage—and escape from horrific punishment. For she is linked to Isaac Dan der Grimnebulin, the brilliant renegade scientist who has unwittingly unleashed a nightmare upon New Crobuzon.

For Bellis, the plan is clear: live among the new frontiersmen of the colony until it is safe to return home. But when the ship is besieged by pirates on the Swollen Ocean, the senior officers are summarily executed. The surviving passengers are brought to Armada, a city constructed from the hulls of pirated ships, a floating, landless mass ruled by the bizarre duality called the Lovers. On Armada, everyone is given work, and even Remades live as equals to humans, Cactae, and Cray. Yet no one may ever leave.

Lonely and embittered in her captivity, Bellis knows that to show dissent is a death sentence. Instead, she must furtively seek information about Armada’s agenda. The answer lies in the dark, amorphous shapes that float undetected miles below the waters—terrifying entities with a singular, chilling mission. . . .

China Miéville is a writer for a new era—and The Scar is a luminous, brilliantly imagined novel that is nothing short of spectacular.

Review:

Alright, let’s see here. Completely bonkers setting with cactus people and giant nightmare-inducing insect creatures? Check. A deep and rich world built unlike anything else I’ve ever read? Check. A social uprising snuck in there somewhere? Check, check, check. Aw yeah, I’ve got me another China Miéville book. And with The Scar, Miéville adds another feather to the cap of the Bas-Lag setting, crafting an enticing narrative that is at times dense, but no less enjoyable for it. Unless you have a phobia of bugs because…sweet Jesus, at this point, Iron Council probably has giant literate spiders or some weird shit like that, doesn’t it?

On a ship departing the colony of New Crobuzon is a group of prisoners and slaves, and accompanying them is a wide menagerie of characters, all with reasons of their own for leaving the city. Bellis Coldwine, a linguist and interpreter, looks for a temporary new start until it is safe for her to return to New Crobuzon due to her close associate having unleashed horrors upon the city. But, when pirates besiege the ship, Bellis is taken to the maritime city of Armada, where all are put to equal work, and the enslaved Remade are treated to the same standards as all others. Despite the utopian ideals of the city, however, Bellis is embittered in her captivity, wanting nothing less than to return to New Crobuzon. But as the bizarre rulers of the Armada known as the Lovers lurk throughout all corners, Bellis finds herself intrigued by Armada’s agenda, and the secrets the Lovers hope to uncover, buried deep in the uncharted waters of the Swollen Ocean.

The strength of any Miéville book is in its world, and The Scar is no exception to that. Much like the preceding book Perdido Street Station, the world of Bas-Lag in which The Scar is set is one brimming with impossible imagination, where humanoid creatures of all descriptions live together while science and magic coalesce together to create a wholly unique steampunk setting. Each species, whether the beetle-like Khepri or the cactus-like Cactae, has their own culture and histories, all expertly woven into this brilliant tapestry. After reading The Scar—and Perdido before it—it’s not even a matter of “Wow, I wish I thought of something like this;” it’s instead a matter of “Holy shit, how is anyone capable of thinking of something like this?” Miéville’s worlds are a masterclass of the depths of human imagination, and The Scar keeps in line with that.

As a central character in this strange world, Bellis Coldwine stands out really well. She is not a hero who’s accepting a call to adventure, or even someone trying to make the best of a bad situation. She is simply someone who runs—first from her home of New Crobuzon to avoid punishment for events that took place in Perdido Street Station, and then from her new situation in Armada, despite being in more favorable standing to others who were taken from her ship. She is a deeply flawed character who undergoes a great deal of growth. Where Miéville succeeds, especially in the Bas-Lag setting, is that he does not build toward an uplifting and happy ending, but neither does he put his main characters through the wringer simply to have them suffer. The Scar is a heavy story, and Bellis is a character who reacts in the moment as any of us would when faced with the scenarios she finds herself in, which helps to ground the world around her—no small feat, given the…everything about a China Miéville world.

Elsewhere on the character front, Tanner stands just as tall as Bellis, and perhaps even more so. A Remade, he was destined to be whatever the New Crobuzon slavers wished him to be, but when new opportunity arises in Armada, and he finds freedom he never thought possible, we are introduced to an inverse of Bellis’s story. Tanner acts as a perfect foil to her, wanting never to leave Armada and, for the first time, feeling accepted instead of being viewed as a monstrosity. It’s an exploration of the idea of a world with no discrimination that lands extremely well and adds even greater dimension to the characters.

Settings and characters are always a hit for me in a Miéville book, but plots have always been a bit hit-or-miss. The Scar lands somewhere on the higher end of that scale for me, with a core focus on raising a long-sunken sea monster from the ocean’s depths. Conspiracies run rampant throughout The Scar, misdirection and betrayals abound, and the mystery surrounding the Lovers and the power they seek make for a thought-provoking page turner about the darkness that lies beneath a supposed paradise. It’s dense and over-descriptive at times, oppressive at others, and I didn’t think Miéville could create another creature as unsettling as Perdido’s slakemoths (and yet he did), but it’s a testament to the depths of Miéville’s talents and imagination of how enthralling the story remained in spite of some of its shortcomings.

There are few worldbuilders better than China Miéville, and The Scar is but another bullet point to prove that fact—and it helps that the book itself is pretty dang good too. Buckle up for some thought-provoking themes, gripping mysteries, and a stellar and memorable cast, and stay away from that giant mosquito island while you’re at it.

Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m never going to leave the house without bug spray again, and I’ve never been more unsettled by mosquitos as I am right now.