I Love China Mieville. I'll admit, in my eyes, he can't go wrong. So I'm a little biased here. I've been waiting for this book since 2 days after I finished the last China Mieville book.
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About Me
- Johnny Panic
- I'm just a guy... pretty boring over all. Nothing all that special. Frustrated and growing older (I've hit 30, but i think i'm in denial). I work a job, middle management I guess. We are always broke though. Got a wife, and a daughter, love them both more than i've ever found the words to express. I go to church, sometimes. I bike to work, if i get up on time. I like the rain, always. But I have this nagging feeling that there should be more to life than this...
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Un Lun Dun by China Meiville
I finished the book this morning. I'm a little mixed on it. I think it CHina Mieville would have written an instruction manual for toasters I would have enjoyed it. ...and i hate toasters.
But if I was going to try to turn someone on the Mieville, I wouldn't start with this book (It'd be a toss up between Perdido Street Station, and The Scar).
There were some VERY strong parallels between Neil Gaiman's Coraling, and Neverwhere. And some throwbacks to China's earlier book King Rat. I think there's almost an emerging sub-genre. The "Alternate London" genre. I don't think it has to be limitted to London. Infact, both Neverwhere and Un Lun Dun reference other "alternate" cities. But London seems to be the city of choice.
There's a familiar feel to all of these books. I probably should have thought about it a bit more before trying to write it out.... The trick seems to be, taking real world landmarks and turning them inside out. Meiville for instance has a place called "Webminster" abbey. And Gaiman had a bridge.... oh crap, I wish I knew my London geography.... if you know London at all, and I could remember the name of the place you'd say "oh ya! I know where that is!" Nightsbridge! Thank the google-gods. Taking those real places, putting them in the Alternate-World, and then making them very memorable (Even though I forgot the name of the bridge, I can very-very clearly remember the portion of the book where we had to cross it).
Gaiman and Mieville both do that very well. The main difference... or what the main difference should have been... is that Un Lun Dun is aimed at a younger audience. And that the only real weakness that I found in the book.
I'm going to digress a little... and then remind me in a bit to get back to this sub-genre that I just made up 5 minutes ago.
Mieville just never seems comfortable wearing the Young Adult hat. Some things are perfect. The Slaterunners for instance. They hit it just right I think (They were one of my favorite creations in the book too). Or the forest in a house. That passage easily brought back memories of turning our living room into an endless jungle, our blue carpeted stairs a raging waterfall. Spending an entire afternoon trekking across the living room, up the stairs and into the dark caves of my bedroom.
But there are concepts under the book that are maybe a bit too much for that category. Maybe I'm judging too harshly, because it was the hook that got me excited about the book in the first place. There's a chosen one (called the Schwazzy) - isn't there always - who is destined to save UnLondon. I'm so sick of chosen ones. I'm so sick of books that follow the cookie cutter "chosen one" formula. They are just stale... beyond stale... they are starting to rot. So here somes a chosen one book where the chosen one is taken out of the picture fairly early, and all the prophesies are wrong. Not misunderstood. It's not that they got the wrong chosen one, and all the prophesies are still correct when viewed from the right angle. They're just wrong, and the chosen one isn't going to save anyone. There's a sidekick, (no, not the real chosen one, just an honest to goodness sidekick) who decides that someone has to at least try, and it might as well be her. And that is a new and beautiful approach. But I wonder if most of that isn't going to slide right by the "young adult" reader. Maybe not, maybe those "young adults" are a lot more advanced than I remember being.
...anyway....
The Young Adult angle feels forced. Sorry China... I love you dude.... but it feels forced. Maybe if it hadn't aimed for a different target audience it would have been perceived as a re-writing of King Rat.
back to the new sub-genre that I just made up....
You need mirror images of real life places. (see above).
You also need good monsters that are different than, or a new play upon, existing myths. And here is where China freakin' shines. Gaiman nails the characters, the Marquis de Carabas was a great character, but China Mieville does monsters like nobodies business. **gesturing vaguely trying to stir to mind the image of the Avanc from The Scar**
Anyone can write slobbering viscious fanged and hungry monsters. But like the chosen ones, it's hard not to make them cliche. China makes them memorable. The giraffes (yes... I said giraffes) are great. But Black-Window Spiders were perfect. It's not jsut what they are, it's what they do....
Okay... my rambling has lead me astray, and I can't remember if I had a thread I was trying to follow.
Good book. Not Mievilles best, but I think he had to try something not placed in the Bas-Lag universe.
If you haven't red Mieville, start with Perdido Street Station. If you loved Coraline, and you've read the other Mieville books, get yourself some Un Lun Dun.
Oh... and worthy of mention...
This page has a good interview, and you can send in for a teacher's guide.
http://www.randomhouse.com/delrey/unlundun/index.html
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