The City and The City

China Mieville's The City and The City is a classic example of an excellent idea with mediocre execution. The book follows Tyador Borlu, a detective assigned to solve a murder case. The twist is that the book takes place in a unique setting. The cities of Beszel (run-down metropolis) and Ul Qoma (booming modern metropolis) occupy the same physical space but have different social and political systems and are completely different in character. To find the murderer, Borlu has to go back and forth from one city to the next, a task more difficult than you might imagine.

This idea sounds wickedly awesome. I can already imagine it as a graphic novel or movie. It's a unique fantasy world that presents areas as of yet unexplored in most peoples' minds.

However, Mieville's creation is flat and uninspired. The characters are perhaps the most uninteresting and bland characters I have ever come across in a serious work of fiction (as opposed to throwaway pop-fiction). I could not connect to any of the characters in the book, and I actually didn't even care if I did or didn't. Auxiliary characters all blended into one generic character in my mind.

Additionally, the crime investigation, which plays a large role early on, fades to the background at the halfway point in the text while the fantasy world comes to the forefront. This was perhaps Mieville's biggest mistake. He really ought to have focused on one thing or the other: the mystery or the fantasy. If he had focused on the mystery, the fantasy element would have made things intriguing and would make one want to read on to find out more about this mysterious and odd city within a city setting. If he had focused on the fantasy, he could have developed the world to its full extent, teasing with various issues and problems that arise with two places sharing one physical space.

Instead, you get a half-developed fantasy and a half-developed mystery. When the murderer is revealed, it didn't seem to matter very much because the mystery was mostly ignored in the second half.

Mieville seems to want to return to this premise, and it's likely, given this book's generally very favorable critical reviews. I'm not sure why the critics liked it so much - perhaps its novelty alone was enough to give it merit to critics weary of the same story told again and again. However, if he returns, I hope he dives in all the way.

Rating: 2 out of 5 stars

17 books, 69 days...at this rate I'll read 90 books.