Iron Council (original 2004; edition 2005)

Iron Council is the concluding work in Miéville's trilogy of novels set on a world named Bas-Lag. It is a world where the technology of our 19th century coexists with magic (called "thaumaturgy") and where humans coexist with a number of other intelligent and semi-intelligent species. Iron Council takes place perhaps decades after the two preceding novels in the series. While there is no direct connection in plot or characters with the other two novels, the setting is so elaborate that a reader would likely be bewildered without having first read at least Perdido Street Station for the necessary background.

Iron Council has three main protagonists, but they all come from the working classes in the city of New Crobuzon. They are all involved at some point in the conflict between that city's poor and its autocratic rulers. Affairs progress from strikes and protests, to mutiny, and to outright civil war. In flashbacks we also follow the construction of a transcontinental railroad. The atmosphere here is strongly reminiscent of the Old West, and the theme is the exploitation of labor by big business.

I didn't find Iron Council nearly as engrossing or entertaining as Perdido Street Station and The Scar. The characters aren't as engaging, and the fictional universe is too complex and unstable. It seems that a new creature or magical phenomenon is introduced every page or two, right up to the very end. It's hard to care about what's going on once you begin to realize that the outcome of every conflict will be decided by some previously unrevealed and therefore unpredictable factor. On the other hand, with its portrayal of the eternal conflict between the oppressed and the privileged, this is a novel with some social relevance. The prose is beautiful and inventive, and the author deserves some kudos for the fact that of his three protagonists, albeit all male, one is gay and one is bisexual. ( )

I didn't enjoy Iron Council anywhere near as much as I did Miéville's other books. I'm not sure quite why, to be honest. Parts of it irritated me stylistically -- the large section which follows Judah in the middle, mainly -- but that wouldn't automatically lower my enjoyment of the whole book. I didn't find the writing as descriptive, although there were some very interesting descriptions, mostly the parts where the train goes through the stain. Whyever it was, I just didn't get into this book that much. I did enjoy it, and if you enjoy the other Bas-Lag books and know what to expect from Miéville's writing, then I'm sure you'd get a lot out of it. I just didn't.

Part of it is that it isn't as focused. It's not just one city, but two. The train-city is built up and described, but I don't feel as strongly connected and rooted to it as I do to New Crobuzon in Perdido Street Station and Armada in The Scar. If the cities are characters, Iron Council falls a little flat. There are interesting characters, mostly Cutter and Judah, who I think I got more attached to than other characters of similar importance in the other two Bas-Lag books. I think Cutter was the character I got most attached to. Judah being all saint-like all the time kind of made me want to hit him sometimes, but Cutter's feelings were so honest and open in the narrative.

In terms of plot, I spent a lot of time wondering where it was actually going. It never came together as strongly as I expected it to, and the climax wasn't much of a climax. The end is appropriate, and makes sense, but I think the book could have been edited/reordered for better effect. ( )

I can't get in to this book. A hundred pages in and I don't care about any of them or what they're doing. Miéville's prose is unusually hard work here.

This is the only Bas-Lag book I've read by Mieville but would happily read more. Essentially a dissection of a political idea more than a novel, it's nevertheless wildly imaginative and compulsive reading. And it has some great monsters in it... ( )

Like all of China Mieville's books, full of tasty tasty surrealism, but I felt that the political commentary was getting a little too heavy-handed in this one. ( )