This is one novel that leaves me undecided. Do I like it or do I not? The answer is I don't know. I think the reason is that this novel defies genre. It is wholly fantasy, part science fiction, part horror and part general fiction. China Mieville moves seamlessly from one to another, and writes a story that captures one's imagination. For people who are tired of heroes, elves, dragons, dwarfs and Stephen King here's a fantasy they might like.
Here is an excerpt from the editorial review at Barnes and Noble: All manner of aliens and humans coexist in the strange, world-spanning city of New Crobuzon. Here, dark magic and advanced science flourish amid an atmosphere of mysticism and madness, under a government that uses cruel military repression to enforce its laws. Independent cultures and civilizations exist side by side, occasionally overlapping and breeding increasingly grotesque oddities. Mutants and hybrids of every order can be found: those with extra limbs grafted to their bodies or with their heads joined to arcane machinery.
Some scenes are too repetitive, after all there are only so many times a city can be described over and over again. It provides for great visual imagery, though. The story is unremarkable with regards to the plot.
Good teen reading, especially if the teenager is someone who likes Michael Moorcock.
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