Iron Council (Bas-Lag, #3)

by China Mieville

[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.