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Iron Council (2004)

by China Miéville

Other authors: See the other authors section.

Series: Bas-Lag (3)

MembersReviewsPopularityAverage ratingMentions
3,439813,704 (3.62)149
Following Perdido Street Station and The Scar, acclaimed author China Miéville returns with his hugely anticipated Del Rey hardcover debut. With a fresh and fantastical band of characters, he carries us back to the decadent squalor of New Crobuzon--this time, decades later. It is a time of wars and revolutions, conflict and intrigue. New Crobuzon is being ripped apart from without and within. War with the shadowy city-state of Tesh and rioting on the streets at home are pushing the teeming city to the brink. A mysterious masked figure spurs strange rebellion, while treachery and violence incubate in unexpected places. In desperation, a small group of renegades escapes from the city and crosses strange and alien continents in the search for a lost hope. In the blood and violence of New Crobuzon's most dangerous hour, there are whispers. It is the time of the iron council. . . . The bold originality that broke Miéville out as a new force of the genre is here once more in Iron Council: the voluminous, lyrical novel that is destined to seal his reputation as perhaps the edgiest mythmaker of the day.… (more)
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» See also 149 mentions

English (77)  Spanish (1)  Dutch (1)  French (1)  All languages (80)
Showing 1-5 of 77 (next | show all)
Much, much better than Perdido Street Station--very interesting and compelling, but also very confusing. I had to go back and reread long passages in the beginning after finally putting everything together towards the end of the book. Mieville's astonishing imagination is hard to keep up with, especially when he invents vocabulary terms that he only uses once and never defines.

The City and the City is by far superior though, ( )
  lschiff | Sep 24, 2023 |
Ohhhh well. I remain interested in this world and the world-building, the whirlwind of ideas and stories, the writing style even when it irritates me. This particular book is just a lot of battle. Preparing for battle, fighting battles, recovering from battle, anticipating future battle... I find it exhausting. I blame a high school translation project of the Gallic wars for using up my lifetime tolerance for battle description.
I'm also realizing more and more differences in the way our minds work, and while that's not a reason to not enjoy an author, it affects my potential joy in these worlds and ideas. ( )
  Kiramke | Jun 27, 2023 |
The imagination on display here is amazing. I think I made a mistake not reading Perdido Street Station first, but it was still remarkable. ( )
  bookwrapt | Mar 31, 2023 |
i wish i hadn't read this book. there was so much time between my reading of the second book, the scar, and this one, the third in mieville's new crobuzon trilogy anyway, and then i started it once and couldn't get into it. i don't know. i feel like he lost the heart of it somewhere in the midst of this, and there is no hope to it, no light amidst the darkness, which is part of what i like him for. another thing i like him for is his complete uniformity of reality; he creates full environments that you cannot doubt exist. this book seemed to counteract some of what he had written in the past, and even, on occasion, itself. grrr. ( )
  J.Flux | Aug 13, 2022 |
This is the sixth Mièville book I have read and it turned out to be the weakest. The central conceit (the train) just didn't work for me. Lots of body-horror stuff also didn't help. The gross-out elements were there in both Perdido Street Station and The Scar as well but those books both had more compelling plots and more interesting characters. Central character motivation especially was much better developed in the earlier Bas-Lag books. This novel might have been more enjoyable if it were shorter; 550+ pages seemed to contain a lot of unnecessary descriptive passages and that bloat just became tiresome after a while. ( )
  ScoLgo | Apr 8, 2021 |
Showing 1-5 of 77 (next | show all)
Aside from his high-end prose style, Miéville’s characters, with their conceits and weaknesses abraded as moral choices play themselves out, secure their author’s place among the top-flight novelists of today.
 

» Add other authors (2 possible)

Author nameRoleType of authorWork?Status
China Miévilleprimary authorall editionscalculated
Bauche-Eppers, EvaTranslatorsecondary authorsome editionsconfirmed
Drechsler, ArndtCover artistsecondary authorsome editionsconfirmed
Giugliano, NelloTranslatorsecondary authorsome editionsconfirmed
Lynch, DamianNarratorsecondary authorsome editionsconfirmed
Miller, EdwardIllustratorsecondary authorsome editionsconfirmed
Miller, EdwardCover artistsecondary authorsome editionsconfirmed
Stevenson, DavidCover artistsecondary authorsome editionsconfirmed
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Epigraph
'Erect portable moving monuments on the platforms of trains.' Velimir Khlebnikov, Proposals
Dedication
To Jemima, my sister
First words
In years gone, women and men are cutting a line across the dirtland and dragging history with them.
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Wikipedia in English (1)

Following Perdido Street Station and The Scar, acclaimed author China Miéville returns with his hugely anticipated Del Rey hardcover debut. With a fresh and fantastical band of characters, he carries us back to the decadent squalor of New Crobuzon--this time, decades later. It is a time of wars and revolutions, conflict and intrigue. New Crobuzon is being ripped apart from without and within. War with the shadowy city-state of Tesh and rioting on the streets at home are pushing the teeming city to the brink. A mysterious masked figure spurs strange rebellion, while treachery and violence incubate in unexpected places. In desperation, a small group of renegades escapes from the city and crosses strange and alien continents in the search for a lost hope. In the blood and violence of New Crobuzon's most dangerous hour, there are whispers. It is the time of the iron council. . . . The bold originality that broke Miéville out as a new force of the genre is here once more in Iron Council: the voluminous, lyrical novel that is destined to seal his reputation as perhaps the edgiest mythmaker of the day.

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Haiku summary
Croubouzon at war \
talks of rebel paradise \
rumor mill alive
(lisa2)

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