Customer Reviews

Iron Council

5 star:		(23)
4 star:		(24)
3 star:		(17)
2 star:		(12)
1 star:		(6)

 

 

First off, for those of you new to China Mieville, I would recommend that you begin with "Perdido Street Station" (or "King Rat"), followed up by "The Scar", and only then tackle "Iron Council". While the three books don't form a trilogy in the traditional sense, they nonetheless draw on shared themes and a common setting and history. As such, while "Iron Council" can certainly be read and appreciated by a newcomer to Mieville's writing, there are numerous small references and commonalities that will be missed.

Fans of Mieville, however, will find in "Iron Council" perhaps his most nuanced and sophisticated writing to date. As usual, the author defies genres, and has produced what would best be described (if one was forced to use labels) as a gothic-western-political-thriller. At the same time, he continues to subvert traditional fantasy elements as well as co-opting elements from other traditions and grounding them in his reality. However, Mieville has also tackled a more challenging structural approach in this novel, as he uses three different voices and two time periods that, while connected by plot threads are separated by decades. Furthermore, the chronologically earlier section comes 130 pages into the book, which in the hands of a less gifted writer would be horribly jarring, but which Mieville pulls of with style.

The primary story (which is elaborated upon by the flashback) is set some twenty years after the events of Perdido Street Station, and finds New Crobuzon at war with distant Tesh, with discontent at home mounting as the casualties mount and the economy falters. It is a time of turmoil and political dissent bordering on civil war; as options are weighed, one man, Judah Low, goes in search of a near mythical construct whose time may be at hand, Iron Council. To say more would risk severe spoilers, but the real joy of "Iron Council" is that the plot is served so deftly by the underlying themes, and vice versa.

And those themes are legion, the most obvious one being New Crobuzon's war with Tesh as a parallel with the Iraq war. Likewise, there are economic factors that are akin to the bursting of the .com bubble of the late 1990's. However, Mieville has made it abundantly clear in numerous interviews that he has no interest in spreading his political views (he is a Socialist who has run for Parliament) through his writing, and that holds true here. Rather, these elements serve to ground the story in a believable reality, which allows the reader to accept at face value the fantastic elements. Moreover, even as he subverts everything that is a "norm" of fantasy, Mieville also casts his own views in a realisitic light. For example, the political activists (with whom he obviously sympathizes) frequently make capricious, even brutal decisions, and display very un-liberal traits such as disdain for homosexuals.

However, as I said, these groundings are mere jumping off points for a much more intriguing exploration, for at its heart "Iron Council" is an exploration of change/history. The groundwork for this is laid in Judah's ability to create golems, which Mieville describes as an intervention, a decision to change the un-living to living. Once the reader recognizes this metaphor, Mieville's intent becomes clear as he considers industry, politics and war (among other things) as interventions into the status quo, as forces for change. In so doing, Mieville quite rightly takes a long view of history in which right and wrong become blurred by the law of unintended consequences. There is a symmetry in his world, almost karmic in its nature, in which actions in the past rebound in unexpected ways in the present. The driving force of history for Mieville is the individual, but as such, he recognizes the fundamental instability this introduces into his novel. People change, there motivations change, and as such, tipping points can never be quite predicted, and will often radically diverge from the expected path.

Which brings me to one of the most intriguing structures in the book, that of the quest. In traditional fantasy, characters will generally band together for a come purpose, and face adversity from outside of the group. Their internal dynamic is largely fixed, and their motivations are common. Mieville, on the other hand, has described two quests in which each character's motivations are different, are often hidden, and sometimes at odds within the group. This far more realistic approach allows him not only to paint a more reasonable view of historical change as described above, but also to consider the power of "truth" as a motivation for said change. Mieville argues that sometimes a myth or a symbol can be more powerful than the truth. However, there is a danger in myths because they can be twisted to mask one's real motivations. Movements for revolutionary change, and one need look no further than the French Revolution, often become dressing for personal vendettas.

Finally, Mieville takes these two intertwined threads, intervention and truth, to ask an ultimate question: can one work for change even as one despises the mechanism of said change. For example, is murder acceptable if it serves a greater good? Or does change always pervert the purest motivations and draw them closer to that which is being rebelled against, in form if not in ideology? Does hating war mean wanting your country to lose?

In conclusion, if I have created the impression that "Iron Council" is nothing by dry philosophizing, I must apologize as nothing could be further from truth. First and foremost, "Iron Council" is an adventure story set in a world that for all it's bizarre and beautifully realized detail is nonetheless disturbingly familiar. However, Mieville is such a gifted writer, who pours so many ideas into his work, even the most literal reader will find themselves drawn into the undercurrents which suffuse the novel. "Iron Council" is another brilliant contribution from a remarkable talent, and I strongly recommend reveling in it.

Jake Mohlman

The Iron Council is not quite as good as The Scar or Perdido Street Station. There, it's been said. But that is a fairly meaningless statement due to the colossal heights Mieville's first two Bas-Lag books climbed. The Iron Council is a marvelous book, with all the imagination, the rich social commentary, the wildly creative monsters, and the textured characters we've come to expect. The plot rips along at high speed, with converging storylines and the "I wonder what happens next?" anticipation that really good, really fun books share in common. The Iron Council is probably the best structured of the three Bas-Lag novels, and there is a real confidence in the writing. Is familiarity breeding contempt for me with Mieville? It must be, because I think he's a better writer and storyteller than Tolkein, who I like. Only time will tell if Mieville is as great a world builder and fantasy architect as Tolkien. But it's time we start thinking of Mieville in terms of how great he is among all fantasy writers in history, not just how good is this or that book.

So with this adulatory review, what is wrong? Nothing really, it is just not quite as amazing as his first two in this world. I'm willing to write this off to knowing Bas-Lag and not being blown away by the sheer audacity as I had before. Some readers will be annoyed by Mieville's overt socialism, but that's a matter of personal taste. Personally I enjoy the change from - well, every other fantasy book I read. There are great ideas (smokestone, the whispersmith), creatures (Inchmen, Handlingers) and characters (Toro, Cutter), but Bas-Lag is becoming an eccentric old friend, rather than that wild guy you had a blast with once at a party. But no matter how wild Mieville got, I was expecting him to top himself at every corner, and he did. Maybe it's the comfort of knowing the book is going to be fantastic that was a slight let down. With Perdido Street Station, I kept thinking "I can't believe how good this is, he can't keep this up." With The Scar it was "Oh my God! It's actually better than Perdido Street Station!" Since I was expecting perfection, there could be no match to my hopes, but I adore this book. There are rich veins of fantasy storytelling here and you would be foolish to pass up reading The Iron Council. I guarantee nothing in your "to read" pile is as good.

If you like Mieville's other work, you will enjoy The Iron council. If you have not liked Mieville before, then you won't like this either. Perdido Street Station was a wonder, The Scar a miracle and The Iron Council a proclamation that Mieville has arrived as a truly great fantasy writer. His career will be fascinating to track starting about now.

I really enjoyed this book, as I enjoyed the author's previous efforts. From both an entertainment and SF literary quality perspective, I would consider this to be a solid "4.5" in the inflated Amazon ratings universe (but a "3" if you compare it to its closest progenitor, Gene Wolfe -- more on this later).

This score comes with two warnings, however. China Mieville is deeply original, with more throw-away great ideas per page than almost any other speculative fiction author. The flip side is that his novels are not incredibly tight; they meander from subplot to subplot, with many of the excursions and discursions of little relevance to the main plotline. Indeed, an entire plot at the begining of the book proves of little relevance to the later development of the story. Mr. Mieville's books have always been like this, but the use of flashbacks only heightens the effect. If you like travelogues of the exotic and original purely for their own sake, as I do, this won't bother you. Otherwise, this might be very frustrating.

The second caveat is the language. This book is written in a style that will either delight you or make you shake your head at its pretention. A sample of a description (from a much longer sentence): "[he]... felt the incoming of whatever the thing was, the purveyor of the coming hecatomb; the massacre spirit, the messenmordist, the unswarm...."* Once again, I like this kind of thing, but if you don't, your enjoyment of the book may suffer.

Warnings aside, I would also suggest that, as original as this book is, it has a near precedent in Gene Wolfe's the Urth of the New Sun series. Similar strangeness of language, similar travelogue nature, and similar originality. Wolfe's book holds its own from a non-science fiction literary perspective, developing important and coherent themes and deep characters, while I don't necessarily think that Iron Council does the same. This is not of ultimate importance if you are looking for a good read, which Iron Council is, but suggests that Mieville still has a way to come in living up to some of his most strongly glowing reviews.

* Note: the fact that quoting a dire description like this gives away nothing of the book is a good indicator of the rambling nature of the plotlines in Iron Council -- you won't know what this describes until it is suddenly introduced.

China Mieville's first two novels set in the world of Bas-Lag gave him a well-deserved reputation as the most important young writer working in the sci fi/fantasy genres today. In Perdido Street Station and The Scar, Mieville created a neo-Dickensian milieu of bizarre, terrible, but deeply compelling grotequeries inhabited by complex, often-conflicted characters. Both narratives gained momentum over hundreds of pages, even as each sprawled further into and then away from the teeming city of New Crubozon, and all of it was illuminated by Mieville's powerfully intelligent, pleasingly baroque prose style.

So, what happened with Iron Council? Mieville's third Bas-Lag book is confusing, meandering, and populated by shallow, underdeveloped, highly unlikeable characters. His writing style is choppy throughout and routinely defies the most basic rules of grammar and usage; perhaps he was aiming for profundity (think David Foster Wallace), but he achieved only preciousness at best, and tedium more often. The narrative-such as it was, given his penchant herein for flashbacks, deus ex machinas, and withheld information-had holes in it one could (pardon the pun) drive a train through. The plot progressed as if he didn't know where it was going when he was writing it. Above all, Iron Council was agonizingly dull-I could hardly wait for the book to be over with and finished.

Many have correctly noted that this is Mieville's most explicitly political novel. Since his politics are Euro-socialist in character, perhaps you might think I was put off by that-but no. I am myself that rara avis, an American social-democrat of long standing, and I have little but sympathy for tales of community-level collectives (a la the Paris Commune) or worker oppression (a la the transcontinental railroad)-and both themes and their thinly veiled historical antecedents are prominent in Iron Council. But largely because of Mieville's failure to draw fuller, more sympathetic characters (Cutter is a whiny jackass; Judah Low is a cipher) or to sustain a believable and interesting narrative (the Council itself is an irritating community prone to sudden, inexplicable shifts of opinion as to its raison d'etre-but never mind, as it doesn't finally appear until hundreds of pointless pages have passed following the interminable wanderings of Cutter & Co. and the similarly unlikeable Ori back in New Crobuzon), and with it all undermined by his annoying staccato voice and sometimes incoherent descriptions of events, whatever merits Mieville's radically politicized story may have had get thoroughly lost in the shuffle.

In his previous novels, nothing felt like a "set piece"; everything that happened usually played a crucial role in why subsequent events turned out as they did. In Iron Council, by contrast, one senses more a rote succession of staged novelty acts, as if Mieville were making use of every half-developed idea he'd ever had. (Take the attack of the "inchmen," for one instance.) In a similar vein, the major characters in his earlier Bas-Lag were sometimes morally ambiguous, but that just made them consistently interesting and complicated. As many have commented, the most noteworthy thing about two of the major characters in Iron Council is their homo- or bisexuality, and yet while this is a promising and perhaps vaguely daring premise in the usually hyper-heterosexual world of fantasy fiction, it seems a choice made more for shock effect than anything essential to them or the plot. Their sexuality is clearly intended to be-but is very poorly realized as-vital to these characters' "being-ness," and thus it contributes almost nothing to our understanding of them. In fact, Cutter's passionate possessiveness toward Low makes him seem, more than anything, one-dimensional and frequently grating-hence, Cutter's sexuality becomes more of a negative trait, which seems rather incongruous with Mieville's anti-intolerance politics.

SPOILER ALERT-Just a few plot objections concerning the end of the book (though there were plenty of others throughout): Why wouldn't the militia have destroyed or booby-trapped the tracks just outside of New Crobuzon? Why hadn't they sought out and found their cohorts and the Council in the weeks prior to the train's approach, just as Cutter had? Why can't any of the refugees from the city give the Council a reasonably straight answer as to whether or not the Collective had already been vanquished? (It had.) And most of all, how does the "time golem" manage to continue in existence even after Judah Low has been killed? Finally, and in a completely different vein, why does Mieville use the word "career" as a verb over and over again?

But enough already. I have never before had my expectations so shattered by an author. I am astounded that anyone would think that this book is on a par with-or even better than-Mieville's previous Bas-Lag novels (though the wider consensus seems to be one of disappointment, more or less). Unfortunately, though, Mieville received some of the best and widest mainsteam-media reviews of his career with Iron Council, and if he believes his clippings, I'm afraid we may in for more outings like this. But his earlier works provide a far better indication of his prodigious talents, and so I will fervently hope that he can still return to that form with his next novel.

There are several stories woven together in this novel - another on the New Crobuzon series (if you would call that a series). The very first is an expedition of New Crobuzon 'rebels' let by Cutter, setting out to find Judah Low and the Iron Council. The second theme is Judah's own tale - an observer and prospector for a new cross-country railroad, then a mage, and then a revolutionary. This is inextricably bound up with the tale of the train itself - slowly moving across the face of the world as the track is built, finally revolting from its overlords, workers and train taking off on their own. The strange ecology that comes into being as a feral train and those that keep it independent and moving it the Iron Council. Now something of a legend back in New Crobuzon, and hated by those it rebelled against.

Back in the city itself, the themes of oppression and revolution play themselves out. Ori, a young man, is drawn into the mild sedition or an organization (perhaps it is a 'dys'organization) called the Caucus. These meet secretively, engage in mild guerilla politics, but are mostly a discussion forum. Finally dissatisfied, he shifts to a more violent form of protest, let by the bull-headed Toro on a quest to kill New Crobuzon's mayor and bring down the current regime. New Crobuzon itself returns as a major theme, much like the one it played in Perdido Street Station. But while that book saw the city as something vitally and sometimes fearfully alive with both horrors and delights, Iron Council presents a picture of a degenerating social class struggle, a collapsing economy, and an increasing oppressive government.

The stories are sometimes disjoint, but inevitably intertwined, as the Iron Council becomes less a group of angry train builders and more a symbol for what is happening in the city. The great, peripatetic path of the Iron Council leads inevitably back to the city. The war with the Tesh rides on the insurgency. Judah, Cutter, and Ori are the players that tie these threads together into an unnerving tapestry straight out of Hieronymus Bosch.

When an author who has been consistently excellent falls short of his previous efforts, there is a tendency for the reviewer to be excessively critical in response. While I intend to avoid that extreme, Iron Council has some very real flaws that deserve some attention. The first is the extremely slow start of the story lines. Most of the first half of the book is the history of Judah and the train. While the core facts of this history are vital to an understanding of the story to come, Mieville seizes on the opportunity to show off his control of language. Scenery is described in almost excruciating detail and the writing style, full or portent and metaphor is florid, even to the point of invented words. By the time the story became more than historical narrative this reader was feeling a bit dazed, and I had a great deal of trouble re-establishing my reading momentum.

On top of considerable linguistic skills, Mieville is an extremely inventive author. But in Iron Council he, like the city itself, becomes too dependent on mechanism. Judah is a golem master, and these creations play dues ex machine roles in moving the story forward. Just as the city makes monsters out of human, machine, and animal parts, Mieville constructs his own version of the English language, with its own occasional horrors. The reader is often undecided if he is reading a work of fiction, a metaphoric autobiography, or something written purely for display.

If not as readable as Mieville's previous books, this is still a landmark effort and should be accorded respect. It isn't a 'reader friendly' book - none of the New Crobuzon novels are really that - but it is one that generates both thought and new ideas in the reader. If you are new to the series, start with Perdido Street Station, since this story is very much embedded in that one. If you are looking for stylistic parallels then you will find Mieville's facility with language quite similar to Umberto Eco's, and can make your decision accordingly.

Only about 1/4 of the way through, so mabybe this is premature, but jeez, Perdido was so amazing (5 stars) and Scar was nearly as good (4 stars).

The incredible prose from the prior novels seems watered down here. And the obsession with the sexual proclivities of Cutter don't add to much of anything [to the story] that I can tell. I'm no prude and not biased; just seemed overdone.

I'll finish it, but unlike the other books it's not a story that I just can't wait to continue reading.

Perhaps it's time for Mieville to drop New Crobuzon and start afresh.

For those that would say I'm missing the point (yes, I know about the socialism and my political leanings are likely close to Mieville's), I don't care about that if it's not a good story. I bought this to be entertained, not for socio-political lessons. I buy different books for that.

Difficult review to write.

I think that how you respond to Iron Council is going to be in large part determined by what you expect and why you have picked it up in the first place. As I said in the title of this review, I admired it. I am not sure that one can help but admire it. I wish that it had moved me. I wish that I had liked it more.

Miéville is one of my favorite working writers. This book is not a clunker in the sense that it makes me doubt his larger body of work. Of all the typical mistakes that a speculative fiction writer can make, Iron Council makes none of them. It does not rely too much on established tropes. It is not predictable. It is not hackneyed.

Still, it is not (to my mind) a success. There is something of heart missing. I have always read his works with absorption, but I had a very difficult time engaging with Iron Council. I got the theory part-- I think he nails the dynamic of revolution (good & bad). I cared much less about the characters and even though I kind of get that caring less about the people is part of point, I often found it difficult to keep reading. He takes big structural risks (the extended flashback that tells the story of Judah and the council) and although I am glad he took them, I never really bought them as a reader.

Kind of absurdly, I struggled with myself over whether to give this book three stars or four. It might be a failure as a book, but I am very curious where this failure is going to take him next. I wish there were more failures like this written in the world. It takes big chances. I really have to respect that.

Do not begin here with the New Crobuzon books, no matter how self-contained it is. Start with Perdido Street Station and go from there. In case you haven't figured it out, Miéville may write speculative fiction but he is a million miles away from Swords & Sorcery. Do not read if you are looking for a Tolkien clone, or something light to pass the time. His books are thoughtful and violent and concerned with issues of class, conflict and consequences.

I was a little skeptical reading this book because the premise didn't seem too promising (I eventually gave in because I was a little skeptical of The Scar and that turned out to be great). At first I thought that I was right. The writing was stilted and slow, leaving the read not as fluid. After two hundred pages nothing had still happened and the storyline wasn't interesting.

But then we meet the Iron Council after two hundred or so pages and the book begins to become interesting. It still was a little difficult to get into because he would break the book into parts that were so far apart that you had to reaquaint yourself with the characters in order to pick up with where they are.

Eventually, though, everything melds together and you remember why you enjoyed Mieville's Perdido Street Station and The Scar. His characters are certainly unique, captivating your imagination enough to evoke lasting images. More importantly, though, is story and how he tells it. He doesn't sit in the mold that most genre authors fall into, always trying to achieve the typical happy ending. Mieville does this as well, but in his own way, a way that distinguishes itself and makes you think deeply on other subjects, on other ideas. There is no better way to end a book than to make your reader think more deeply upon it after than you did while reading it. A way to retain your readers for your next book.

I wish I could give it five stars, or even four, but a poor start prevents this. No book should take two hundred pages to captivate your interest and draw you into the book. Be that as it may, it ended great and I will certainly look forward to his next book.

I loved PSS and Scar but just could not get into this book. I figured after I kept reading it would start to gel, maybe after a couple hundred pages. But I never got absorbed, never got into the characters' heads. I kept hoping it would make me feel the way the first 2 books did but unfortunately it never did. Disappointing.

I was disappointed with this book as compared to Perdido Street Station and the incredible The Scar, but it took me a long time to figure out why. Essentially, I realized that this is two small books masquerading as one longer novel. First we have the story involving Judah Low, Cutter and the Iron Council. Second, we have the story of Ori, Spiral Jacobs and the summoning of the urbomach (gods, I love Mieville's wordsmithing). The two stories have very little to do with one another, and I found the first story to be flat and dull. In a word, it was boring. It dragged down the other story which was driving and exciting. If we could excise the Iron Council throughline and everything having to do with it, this would be a really exciting novella. The revolt was less interesting than it could have been, given the social unrest present in Perdido Street Station. It had kind of a rehashed feel. If he had removed the Iron Council plotline, he might have had more time to concentrate on the revolt line. I found the whole Toro bit to be a ridiculous piece of fan service. In the end, I don't think it should have been "Iron Council" at all, but that's just me. The Ori throughline proves that Mieville still has some good stuff up his sleeve.