Iron Council spoiler thread

[Liminal Syzygy]

Hi all,

I'm finishing Iron Council, have 30 more pages but should be done by the time that I check out this thread again.

I thought it was slow to start, even more so than PSS and The Scar, but wow did it ever build momentum and pull me in by the end. The turning point for me was definitely the middle section in which the history of Judah and the Iron Council was revealed.

Speaking of that, I was unsure through the whole start of the book exactly where Cutter and crowd were running from -- they only mentioned "the militia". I suspected New Crobuzon but I'm not sure if Mieville was purposely meaning to obscure this info from the reader, or if I just missed a clear reference.

In fact, speaking of information obfuscation, not being filled in on so many aspects of what was going on, what the Iron Council was, etc. is what really hurt my immersion through the beginning.

I think a few others have said they've finished as well. Let's discuss!

 

[Olive]

thought it was slow to start, even more so than PSS and The Scar, but wow did it ever build momentum and pull me in by the end. The turning point for me was definitely the middle section in which the history of Judah and the Iron Council was revealed.

Really? Wow, I found this the easiest of his books to get into. I think it's his best written by some considerable degree.

Speaking of that, I was unsure through the whole start of the book exactly where Cutter and crowd were running from -- they only mentioned "the militia". I suspected New Crobuzon but I'm not sure if Mieville was purposely meaning to obscure this info from the reader, or if I just missed a clear reference.

To be honest, I don't think it ever says specifically that they are NC att he begining, but it was never goig to be anywhere else. I mean, you really needed to have read the previous two books to understand the torque, the handlingers etc. and the only group that has ever been referred to as the militia is the NC militia.

In fact, speaking of information obfuscation, not being filled in on so many aspects of what was going on, what the Iron Council was, etc. is what really hurt my immersion through the beginning.

That was the whole point - only the one character knew. It was crucial to the way the story was writen that no one really understood what the iron council was. It was a mythical thing, lost in legend.

 

[Pielorinho]

I still kind of like Perdido Street the best of the three, but that may be because it was so new to me at that point.

It's been a good half-dozen books or so since I read it, so I'll try to gather my thoughts on it: certainly it was a great book. And the last thirty pages contain perhaps the most interesting event in the entire three books; finish it up, and then let's talk!

Daniel

 

[Liminal Syzygy]

I'm finished! Bittersweet... not that I expected any different. Sad to be done with it but I still have The Tain from Cities , Familiar from New Conjuctions: 39 , and his short story in Thackery T. Lambshead to read when I need a Mieville fix.

Olive -- Yes I suspected that er, growth, might be a handlinger but it was described as more cancerous than a hand, so I thought it was similar but perhaps something even more bizzare. And militia is a fairly general term, so I don't think one can be certain that just because they are using that term that Cutter and co. are fleeing from NC. (But I also may not have picked up on the significance because it's been so long since I read PSS, a month or two after it's first North American release.) As for the IC, the other characters definitely had an idea what it was, just not if it actually still existed. There were the famous heliotypes circulating around, the news coverage back in NC during the actual events.

 

[Olive]

I'm finished! Bittersweet... not that I expected any different. Sad to be done with it but I still have The Tain from Cities , Familiar from New Conjuctions: 39 , and his short story in Thackery T. Lambshead to read when I need a Mieville fix.

Hmmm... got full bibliographic details for those?

 

[Liminal Syzygy]

Sure...

Cities
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/t...104-6038887-9756762?v=glance&s=books&n=507846

Conjuctions 39: New Wave Fabulists
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/t...f=sr_1_1/104-6038887-9756762?v=glance&s=books

The Thackery T. Lambshead Pocket Guide to Eccentric and Discredited Diseases
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/A...36720/sr=ka-1/ref=pd_ka_1/104-6038887-9756762

 

[Liminal Syzygy]

I'm giving this thread one more chance at life... Pielorinho, Olive, what did you think of IC?

 

[Olive]

I loved it. I thought it was excelently written, well paced and represented the politics of the situation in a way that rang extremely true to me (and I have some experience in these areas).

I wasn't as overawed by it as I was with PSS, but that was the shock of the new as much as anything, and he's not going to be able to replicate that.

Pelhorino told me that he had read that Meiville was going to move away from Bas Lag for his next work. I'm a little scared as I really didn't like King Rat , but I think he's developed enough as a writer to make it work...

Anyone feel liek doing a run down of the different races? I'm always a little confused by soem of them.

Humans - as we know them
Khepri - bug headed women with human bodies (the male of the species is just a mindless bug)
Crays - Human torsoed, crayfish bottomed.
Garuda - Bird men. (What do these guys look like. Like the bird men from Flash Gordon?)
Vodonyi - frogy people.
Scabmettlers - human like but who's blood colagulates very quickly into armour.

I know there are more, but thse are the ones I remember.

 

[Liminal Syzygy]

Yeah I was lucky enough to go to one of his events in Seattle, which was a reading, a QA session, and a signing rolled into one. Not sure if that's fairly standard as I don't get to many of them living over here.

He did mention that he was giving Bas Lag a rest. His main reason seemed to be that he didn't want it to lose that special sense, either to him or to his readers. He does this thing where he drops into a fakey American-accented TV announcer type voice, and at that point in the discussion dropped into that voice and said "Bas Lag 4! Now it's thaumaturgical!"

He's clearly a gamer, or used to game, when people asked him about how he did his worldbuilding he said it all started as a D&D setting, and that he has hundreds of notebooks full of stuff.

 

[Pielorinho]

I agree with Olive: beautiful writing, very complex.

And fair. I was kind of afraid that it'd be an absolute polemic, and surely it did have politics, but it wasn't polemic. The good guys were flawed, and had violent disagreements; one of the major bad guys nonetheless had such a breathtaking vision (the transcontinental railroad) that I was partly sympathetic to him even though I hated him.

Other races, off the top of my head:
-The Grimlocks. Not really what they were called, but I can't remember their real name. Scary enemies in The Scar that we only see near the very end of the book.
-The Cactaceae. Big plant-guys, with bonuses to Str and Con, penalties to Cha, and DR 5/slashing .
-The Anophelia or something, the mosquito folks, with insane nonsentient wimminfolk and sphincter-faced menfolk.
-The handlings, freaky parasites. The Dexters give their users crazy magic powers (including firebreathing), and the Sinisters give their users super warrior abilities. Or vice versa. They clamp onto the necks of humans or other creatures, killing their hosts but taking over the bodies.

Daniel