I don't know enough about linguistics to know whether the fact that the language breakthrough seemed to be achieved by shouting is accurate or not, but it felt arbitrary. ( )

Even great genre fiction can often feel derivative. Characters or concepts that feel familiar. And fair enough, the idea space is only so big. Not so this author. When he writes a sci fi, it's like nothing else I've ever read. Hats off, sir. ( )

This is a very ambitious novel and gets high marks for aiming high. On the other hand, it's not very reader-friendly. I mark it down for not doing its job of engaging the reader and drawing them into what seems to be a very interesting world. The reader's appreciation of this book will depend on their tolerance for befuddlement.

The first third is the most frustrating. Since a major theme of the book is language (or, in the case of the Hosts, Language with a capital L), the author dumps the user into an alien landscape using futuristic language with only a few reference points. This would not have been so bad if the reader were also given a story. Instead, we are given a memoir. Or rather, we are given a hodge podge of a bits of memoir by a narrator that we can't quite identify with.

When things finally start happening in the immediate, the book gets a bit more interesting and engaging. Yet I could never quite shake the feeling that I wasn't quite there, in the moment, in the place. Description is fleeting. Dialog is circumspect. Events happen in a jumble.

Is this a literary novel masquerading as a science fiction novel? Or vice versa? It's definitely not a light summertime read. ( )

I think this is my favourite Miéville book. I just listened to it in audio format, a few years after reading it for the first time. There's something special about hearing the alien language, I think.

A lot longer than I remember it, and a lot more detailed. Miéville is one of my favourite authors for casually hinting at a world that is bigger than he has directly described, although this does mean a lot of mumbo-jumbo invented vocabulary.

It's also been long enough that I don't remember some of the twists, which is nice, although knowing the ending as I did, it was great to look back and see the structure and foreshadowing. ( )

Language is something that can define how we think and to an extent, who we are. Having the correct language and knowing how to use it can be key in understanding many a concept, especially as things become more complex. So what happens when language is limiting in much more fundamental ways? Changing your language and what it is capable of changes the speaker as well. This is a novel that examines the questions raised by how such changes and differences might manifest themselves. It will lead you deep into thought on this subject, whilst intriguing you with a richly inventive setting and an expertly told plot.

The start felt slow at first, but I was rapidly drawn in and fascinated by the themes and ideas presented that I had to know more about, and I was suddenly half way through. The thought that it might be a novel that bogs down in minutiae crossed my mind at first, but it picks up very well. Mieville does something that I actually love in SF which is to avoid labouring explanations, letting context and need define things and allowing the reader to figure them out. I found myself often thinking on the ideas presented, ruminating on the what-ifs the novel threw up whilst going about my days. This to me is a hallmark of great SF.

I have only very minor gripes at first Avice did not seem overly bothered about some fairly intense personal emotional things that happened to her, or at least there was little reason given for the lack of effect upon her. As the character develops through the middle of the book, it does become clearer, however. The only other thing that bothered me worth mentioning is to ask: why raise the idea of a self-worshipping god / self-addicted drug, just to skim over it and forge ahead with the rest of the plot? I felt that this was almost a teasing inclusion without further development, but can understand that it’s obviously too interesting an idea to leave out, however frustrating. ( )