China Miéville: Iron Council

Iron Council is the third book Miéville has written in his Bas-Lag world and its biggest city New Crobuzon. In this book, New Crobuzon is in trouble: outside it's tangled up in a war with the distant Tesh and their magic, inside it's tormented by various insurrectionists and rebels.

The book follows mostly three characters. Cutter is a small-scale rebel, who leaves New Crobuzon to find Judah Low. Judah is a somaturge, a golem-maker, who's seeking the Iron Council, which is important and hard to find. Ori is another insurrectionist, a small player who wants to make a difference.

It's an interesting world and once again Miéville has written an interesting book in it. Of all the Bas-Lag books, I still rank The Scar highest, but Iron Council is a very good book, full of curious detail and interesting magic. Miéville's mixture of magic and fantasy with a grim early industrial society is delightful. This is highly recommended, though to aid understanding, I recommend starting with the Perdido Street Station. [ Iron Council at Amazon.co.uk ] [ Iron Council at LibraryThing ]