mythago

I would have read it eventually since it’s by China Miéville, but since Bryan recommended it I moved it up the stack – even though I was a little concerned it would be even more baroque than The Iron Council.

Miéville, darn him and his talent, has written a police procedural, set in a city that lies alongside another city. Beszel and Ul Qoma are interlinked in places, sometimes even overlap, but they are separate nations – calls between them are mentioned as “international calls” – and the separation is enforced by Breach. Crossing over, or even perceiving, the “topolganger” city next door invites terrible punishment, and the citizens of both cities have developed an entire, almost subconscious culture of mannerisms, dress, colors and styles to tip the other off to “unsee” or “unhear” what is going on next door.

And he does this while hitting on many of the familiar tropes of police procedurals: a body found in a park, a police inspector pushing an investigation past mysterious and sudden bureacratic resistance, traveling to another country to team up with his foreign counterpart, and even a (rather pulse-pounding, actually) chase scene – which are all different, and fresh, because of the way they intersect with the separate doppelcities.

Highly recommended.