The Scar

[avram]

Did I mention that I finished Declare a few days back? Really good, but not as full of clever stuff as Last Call. Powers did an amazing job building a fantasy novel around the odd details of Kim Philby’s life, but parts of it felt a bit arbitrary. Reading the Arabian Nights beforehand paid off, though; lots of references.

So now I’m in China Miéville’s The Scar, which is set in the same world as Perdido Street Station. So far I like The Scar better than Perdido; the scene-setting italic section at the beginning was actually interesting. And I just have to like a setting where cryptogeography is a formal field of study. (It’s just a throw-away reference, so far, but still.)

Comments

[cattitude.livejournal.com]

Is it any better paced than Perdido Street Station? My basic take on that was that there were several very cool ideas, but the whole thing was far too repetitive. I remember what I read three chapters ago; it needn't be repeated here; is there an editor in the house?

[avram]

Hard to say; I'm not far into it.

I was a little annoyed at how overdetermined Declare was, as if Powers didn't trust me to remember the meanings of the code phrases (and there were only two or three of them) that the characters had used several times before. I think Gene Wolfe and Mike Ford have spoiled me.