Iron Council: A Bas-Lag Novel 3
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4.4 • 15 Ratings
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- $9.99
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- $9.99
Publisher Description
WINNER OF THE 2005 ARTHUR C CLARKE AWARD
"Mieville moves effortlessly into the first division of those who use the tools and weapons of the fantastic to define and create the fiction of the coming century." Neil Gaiman
The third novel in China Mieville's amazing imaginative sequence focused on the fabulous city of New Crobuzon.
With economic slump and growing social unrest, New Crobuzon has become a fraught and dangerous place. The militia patrol in uniform, there is tension between its myriad races, there are even rumours of war.
In an attempt to spur trade, a major company is building a railway across the continent, but the project involves brutal suppression of both the workers and the native inhabitants they pass. As mutiny grows among the slave labourers, one train is hijacked on the half-finished line. They tear up the track for a few miles behind them, then begin to rebuild it in front of the train -- diverging from the original route and disappearing into the desert.
This renegade train, 'The Iron Council', soon becomes an icon of freedom to the repressed urban population, till the city government has no choice but to hunt it down and destroy it. Whatever happens, they cannot allow it to escape-and so begins a desperate pursuit across alien wild lands filled with bizarre populations, monsters and hazards.
PRAISE FOR CHINA MIEVILLE
"[Mieville's] wit dazzles, his humour is lively, and the pure vitality of his imagination is astonishing." Ursula K. Le Guin, The Guardian (on Three Moments of an Explosion)
"Dark and thought-provoking." The San Diego Union-Tribune (on The City & The City)
"Richly conceived." The New York Times Book Review (on Embassytown)
"Mieville more than delivers." San Francisco Chronicle (on Kraken)
"Compulsively readable." The Washington Post Book World (on Perdido Street Station)
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
In this stunning new novel set mainly in the decadent and magical city of New Crobuzon, British author Mi ville (The Scar) charts the course of a proletarian revolution like no other. The capitalists of New Crobuzon are pushing hard. More and more people are being arrested on petty charges and "Remade" into monstrous slaves, some half animal, others half machine. Uniformed militia are patrolling the streets and watching the city from their dirigibles. They turn a blind eye when racists stage pogroms in neighborhoods inhabited by non-humans. An overseas war is going badly, and horrific, seemingly meaningless terrorist acts occur with increasing frequency. Radical groups are springing up across the city. The spark that will ignite the revolution, however, is the Perpetual Train. Workers building the first transcontinental railroad, badly mistreated by their overseers, have literally stolen a train, laying track into the wild back-country west of the great city, tearing up track behind them, fighting off the militia sent to arrest them, even daring to enter the catotopic zone, that transdimensional continental scar where anything is possible. Full of warped and memorable characters, this violent and intensely political novel smoothly combines elements of fantasy, science fiction, horror, even the western. Mi ville represents much of what is new and good in contemporary dark fantasy, and his work is must reading for devotees of that genre. FYI: Mi ville has won Arthur C. Clarke, British Science Fiction and British Fantasy awards.
