Its many years since I have read on my own behalf a book clearly designed for those under 15. I am reminded by Un Lun Dun why this is so. Hidden in all the verbiage is a story and possibly even a message. Both are well hidden and the concocted voice of the Un Lun Duners hides both even more. If I were asked for an opinion I would have to say that the book is an insult to the intelligence of readers in its target market. ( )

Un Lun Dun is a very entertaining, delightfully self-aware YA fantasy novel, set in an Alice-through-the-Looking-Glass version of London, a city where forests grow inside buildings, ghosts inhabit their own suburbs and the iconic red Roadmaster buses sail through the air. While it does have its faults as a book—that level of self-awareness can become a little too hipster at times, the climax is a little bombastic, the characterisation isn't emphasised, and Miéville could have edited it down quite substantially—I still found it immensely enjoyable.

It's inventive and imaginative enough to have made me smile at several points, and I think if I'd read this as a nine or ten-year-old, it would have eaten my brain for weeks. Reading it now, I think the part I appreciated most was how Miéville subverts some well-worn tropes of YA fantasy novels, especially in light of recent discussions I've been following on race and gender: in Un Lun Dun, the heroine is not, as we have been led to believe, the tall, blonde Zanna, the Chosen One of the Prophecy. Instead, it's her short, resourceful, slightly-cranky British-Pakistani friend Deeba who decides herself that she will have to step in and lead the fight to save Un Lun Dun—and does so with aplomb. ( )

Un Lun Dun, beneath or perhaps above but definately in the vicinity of London is its parallel twin, one of many ab-cities. Things and people can cross between the 2. Deeba & her friend Zanna find themselves in un lun dun, where Zanna appears to be the predicted saviour in the war against the smog, which would be fine, only she knows nothing about it. Fortunately a whole cast of characters is willing to help from Hemi the half ghost to the binja guardians of the bridge.

It has a fair bit in common with Mieville's books for an adult audience, so if you are used to that (or enjoy it) then the book won't hold to many suprises, but it does introduce a cast of interesting beings and some cute ideas ( )

disappointing. it's adequate, but not inspired. ( )

In present-day London, strange things start happening to teenaged Zanna. When she and her best friend Deeba open a strange door in their housing development they end up in a strange alternate London, "Un Lun Dun" which is in great danger. Will Zanna, "the chosen one" be able to save them, or will it fall to scrappy, blunt Deeba?

Un Lun Dun is a cute and at times funny tale of succeeding even where others think you will fail, and a light-handed environmental allegory. Mieville's language play will delight nerds of all ages, and is in the spirit of Juster's 'The Phantom Tollbooth'. The plot was not terribly surprising, nor the message original, but a fun, quick read with some good laughs. ( )