Iron Council (Bas-Lag, #3)

by China Mieville

Following Perdido Street Station and The Scar, acclaimed author China Miéville returns with his hugely anticipated Del Rey hardcover debut. With a fresh and fantastical band of characters, he carries us back to the decadent squalor of New Crobuzon—this time, decades later.

It is a time of wars and revolutions, conflict and intrigue. New Crobuzon is being ripped apart from without and within. War with the shadowy city-state of Tesh and rioting on the streets at home are pushing the teeming city to the brink. A mysterious masked figure spurs strange rebellion, while treachery and violence incubate in unexpected places.

In desperation, a small group of renegades escapes from the city and crosses strange and alien continents in the search for a lost hope.

In the blood and violence of New Crobuzon’s most dangerous hour, there are whispers. It is the time of the iron council. . . .

The bold originality that broke Miéville out as a new force of the genre is here once more in Iron Council: the voluminous, lyrical novel that is destined to seal his reputation as perhaps the edgiest mythmaker of the day.

• ISBN10: 0345458427
• ISBN13: 9780345458421
• Publish Date: 26 July 2005 (first published 1 January 2004)
• Publish Status: Active
• Publish Country: US
• Publisher: Random House USA Inc
• Imprint: Random House Inc
• Format: Paperback (US Trade)
• Pages: 576
• Language: English
• URL: https://penguinrandomhouse.com/books/isbn/9780345458421

Reviews

[empressbrooke]

I love [a:China Miéville|33918|China Miéville|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1243988363p2/33918.jpg]. I loved [b:Perdido Street Station|68494|Perdido Street Station (Bas-Lag, #1)|China Miéville|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1393537963s/68494.jpg|3221410] despite some of the complaints I had about it. I really loved [b:The Scar|68497|The Scar (Bas-Lag, #2)|China Miéville|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1320435192s/68497.jpg|731674]. [b:Embassytown|9265453|Embassytown|China Miéville|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1320470326s/9265453.jpg|14146240] was brilliant and [b:The City & the City|4703581|The City & the City|China Miéville|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1320475957s/4703581.jpg|4767909] received one of my rare 5-star ratings. So I probably should have loved this...but ugh. This was boring.

I kept pushing forward, bit by bit, waiting for something to be interesting. The first section focuses on a group of travelers setting out to find some long-lost council. I actually assumed the "Iron Council" was going to be made up of the Constructs from the earlier books in the trilogy - but no! They're all unceremoniously destroyed in between books. The second section flips to a character named Ori, a rebel/dissident in New Crobuzon who is itching to do something more radical than talk. This was interesting. I liked being in New Crobuzon much more than I liked being out traveling through the wild. Then section 3 flips back to the travelers. Ahha, there is a pattern here right? We'll get back to Ori next?

WRONG. All of a sudden there is a 200ish page long meandering jump back in time when we learn about the origins of the Iron Council, all which also involved traveling through the wilderness. The book's momentum screeched to a halt (or was trapped inside of Judah's time golem?) and became sooooo slooooooow. I almost wept with relief when this section was over.

Then there is just a bunch more traveling and lots of long, drawn out battles. Around the 75% mark there is an interesting twist with Spiral Jacobs, a doddering old man that Ori had been working with. I was intrigued - this seemed to be going somewhere! And then with another flick of the wrist it's just over and done with and never mentioned again. The whole war between New Crobuzon and Tesh, in fact, is all quite inconsequential.

Miéville's prose in the Bas-Lag trilogy has always been quite dense, but without the bones of a good story, it was just obnoxious. He throws things out randomly - during the middle of yet another battle scene, he builds up horror at something appearing out of nowhere....it's....it's...A MOON ELEMENTAL presented like it's really significant even though it's never been mentioned before. And then it's gone and it's never spoken of ever again.

Quite frankly it felt like this was written by a Miéville Prose Generator program and not the man himself.