he neo-Gothic, steampunkish city of New Crobuzon is in turmoil, following the events of China Miéville's's earlier award-winning book, Perdido Street Station (2000). Our protagonist, Bellis Coldwine, is fleeing political repression. Bellis is a professional linguist, enlisted on a long sea-mission to one of New Crobuzon's colonies. On the way, she is supposed to serve as translator in Salkrikaltor City, home to a race of merpeople. Once there, Bellis' ship is forced to take onboard one of New Crobuzon's freelance political operatives, a shifty fellow named Silas Fennec. With a letter of command, Fennec requisitions the ship and turns it around for its home port, much to the dismay of Bellis and the outbound colonists. But before they can return, they are attacked by a pirate vessel. This ship, commanded by the notorious Uther Doul, a pirate of fearsome mystical prowess, hails from Armada, an immense floating base fashioned of hundreds of hulks lashed together. Bellis and her companions are taken prisoner, and transported to this bricolaged artificial island redoubt.
On the huge raft, which resembles a floating city more than any mere watercraft, Bellis and Fennec are granted their liberty, as are most of the other captives, forcibly enlisted as new Armada citizens. Bellis gets a job in Armada's library, while Fennec slips underground to become a criminal/agitator. Bellis' one dream is to get back home, and she allows Fennec to convince her to stage an elaborate scheme toward this end. One of Armada's ruling factions is a duo known as the Lovers. The Lovers wish to conjure up a leviathan known as the avanc. But they are missing some crucial information, a book which has fallen into Bellis' hands, and which only she can translate.
Bellis gains entrance into the Lovers' inner circle on the basis of surrendering this book. She begins to learn more of Uther Doul's esoteric past. On a dangerous mission to a nearby island, Bellis slips a message from Fennec to a third party who will deliver it to New Crobuzon. But the implications of her actions escape her. Fennec has tricked her, and his message brings the navy of New Crobuzon down on Armada. The warships arrive shortly after the avanc is successfully summoned and harnessed, providing Armada with a new source of power.
Armada survives this violent encounter, albeit with much damage. The Lovers then reveal that capturing the avanc was merely step one in their plans. They are heading for The Scar, a nexus of shifting probabilities where they will gain much puissance over the affairs of the world. With Fennec's treachery now known, the hunt for him is on, led by Uther Doul. But as Armada zips toward the Scar, another threat awaits. Fennec has stolen something important from the race known as the grindylow, and these superhuman monsters are fast approaching.
Watery worlds of wonder
Instead of producing a direct sequel to Perdido Street Station, Miéville has chosen to go off at an angle to his established path, opening up broader vistas of his entrancing, unique world of Bas-Lag. Whereas the previous book never ventured outside the confines of New Crobuzon, this book ranges across the map of Bas-Lag, revealing to us more history, more geography, more cultures. It's a bold, expansive move, and much is gained by this tactic. Miéville's subcreation becomes more extensive, more of a whole organic quilt rather than a single intensely embroidered patch. But something is lost, as well, and the myriad pleasures afforded by this book do not exactly replicate those of the first.
Earlier, by sticking to his single microcosm—the densely rendered city of New Crobuzon—Miéville managed to render a venue so tangibly and so deeply that the reader felt he could map the neighborhoods and walk their streets and explore the buildings practically in person. The intensity of the subcreation was great, because of the tight focus. In the new novel, the more diffuse focus brings more into sight, but at a sacrifice of depth.
Miéville is a master of elegant, poetic description, layering a rich patina of prose upon his places and people. But the venues he is working with are just not as full of potential as the mighty city of New Crobuzon. Miéville works hard to invest the "neighborhoods" of Armada with distinctive characters, but the critical mass he achieved in the earlier book just never accumulates. There's too much of a backwater feel (pun intended) to Armada. It's the sticks, whereas the urbanity and cosmopolitanism of New Crobuzon are undeniable. That's what makes Bellis so homesick.
Moreover, the humor and intricacy of plotting evident in the first book are missing here. Despite Fennec's elaborate treachery, the plot of The Scar is essentially linear, one clear step after another. There's no multiplicity of stories here, as in the first book. And finally, Bellis is not a dynamic protagonist of the type that populated Perdido. As she herself admits at the novel's end, she has been but a "game-piece" throughout. Oh, she's resourceful and intelligent and fully rounded, but she is too much a pawn to inspire the kind of empathetic identification that Isaac Dan der Grimnebulin raised. Bellis evokes more sympathy and pity than admiration.
All this said, there's still a plethora of wonders here. Miéville's fecund imagination conjures up vivid images on every page. His alien races are truly alien, and his humans are exotically colored. Uther Doul, an Elric-style outcast, has to be one of the best literary pirate figures ever written. And the supporting character named Tanner Sack emerges as one of the most sympathetic. Set-piece by set-piece, Miéville knocks you on your butt. Whether presenting us with giant mosquito women or undead vampires, Miéville knows how to ratchet up the suspense.
