The Scar by China Mielville

Rating: 4.5 out of 5


There is something to be said about scars. They are signs that someone got wounded. They are signs that the wounds have healed. They are also signs that some wounds cannot ever truly and completely heal. They will always be reminders of the pain that someone went through. Scars are a sign of something being severed and its attempt to reattach itself, although unable to return to the way it was before. Scars feature prominently on The Scar, the third novel by China Mielville, probably the most imaginative writer in speculative fiction of this time. Most of the story’s characters carry scars on them, either physically or mentally.

The Scar may also be a statement by the author on traditional epic fantasy trends where characters always strive to bring the world back to what it once was before the great evil emerged. In most of those stories, after the dark enemy is defeated, everything goes back to normal, the world turns as it once did, even slightly better, a little bit brighter. For Mielville, a world going through great, terrible and calamitous events never reverts back to what it was before. There will always be something severed, something lost. Some things will never completely heal. There will always be scars, in the bodies and minds of the people who went through them. And it shows in Mielville’s works, more so in The Scar.

The Scar takes the readers back to the world of Bas-lag, introduced first in Mielville’s second novel, Perdido Street Station. But this time, he takes us away from the remarkable city of New Crobuzon into the vast incredible world outside it. (Incidentally, The Scar is a standalone book where the reading of Perdido Street Station is not a requirement. Although yours truly recommends reading Perdido… first to be able to properly appreciate the events of both books.) Anyone familiar with the author’s dark and quirky style knows by now that Bas-lag is a world unlike any other worlds of fantasy. There are no elves, dwarves or orcs. Instead Bas-lag contains khepri, cactacae, anophelii, cray, scabmettler, and vampir. And then there are the Remade, those whose bodies have been transformed in different ways, either as punishment for a crime or as a requirement for a profession. One Remade in the story is a woman, whose lower part of the body is attached to a mechanical steam contraption that allows her to travel through caterpillar tracks that replaced her legs.

In the story, we glimpse Bas-lag mostly through the eyes of Bellis Coldwine, a fugitive from New Crobuzon escaping the authorities because of her perceived connection to some calamitous event which had happened in the city (an event chronicled in Perdido Street Station). She hires out herself as a translator aboard the New Crobuzon ship, Terpsichoria, whose passenger manifest include people looking for a new life away from New Crobuzon and a cargo of criminal Remades destined for a prison colony, including one Tanner Sack, who had tentacles attached to his torso as a punishment for some crime (and from whose point-of-view are some parts of the story also told).

They reach Salkrikaltor, a cray city with whom New Crobuzon has business with concerning the operation of three deep-sea mining rigs nearby. And now, one of them is missing. Here they also pickup a new passenger, Silas Fennec, who without any explanation, forces it to return back to New Crobuzon. It never reaches there. Pirates attack the Terpsichoria and take all the survivors to a new destination: the Armada.

To say that the Armada is a floating city is an understatement. It is built upon a vast number of ships, steamers, boats, all kinds of ocean-going vessels (even the husk of a dead whale) collected, hijacked or stolen throughout the centuries by pirates who created their own home and a fully-functioning self-sufficient society with semi-autonomous districts, currently ruled by a scar-faced couple known only as The Lovers and protected by the formidable and enigmatic warrior, Uther Doul. And contrary to expectations, the captives of the Terpsichoria are offered citizenship, jobs, equal status aboard the Armada. And for some, especially the Remade prisoners like Tanner Sack, it means a new life and a new chance for respect, and a reason to embrace being a Remade (so much so that he had himself further remade.) But for Bellis, who discovered that the price of acceptance is to never leave the city, the Armada becomes a prison and yearns, ironically, for the home she has been fleeing from.

But all is not as it seems. The capture of the Terpsichoria has not been an unfortunate twist of fate. They have come at a time when plans are in motion - plans which are unknown to other schemers. Information suggests that New Crobuzon is coming under attack from an unknown and terrifying force. Something is searching the oceans for an important object. An impossible mythical creature is being summoned. A legend is being sought. The future of the Armada is being contested. Manipulations and schemes abound.

Such are the multi-layered complexities found in The Scar yet the reader isn’t overwhelmed by them. Mielville creates such a subtle weave of the plot that one never realizes how complex a story this is. Written in a more linear form that Perdido Street Station but still proceeding in an easy pace, at least for more than half of the story, until everything shifts into higher gear in the final part including getting involved in the most exciting and epic naval engagement in fiction this side of George R. R. Martin.

Mielville being a true great writer explores a number of themes within his story. As stated earlier, and being true to its title, he explores the motif of scars. Like physical scarring as a result of physical wounds or the weird and exotic sexual expression of the Lovers deliberate scarring of their faces. Or the emotional scars that one obtains after being exiled from one home, or after experiencing the loss of a loved one.

Another important theme raised is the importance of writing in society – the profound meaning of the simple act of a person writing his name on an object he owns; or as a tool to control information to an isolated society one wants to control; or the knowledge preserved and obtained by the ability to pass important information from one generation to another in books, or the power to undermine an empire by the putting in pages the weaknesses and strengths of a city.

All these are just a small part of the things that come out of the mind-boggling imagination of China Mielville. One has to read his works in order to comprehend his brilliance. He even managed to write a compelling story with a lead character that is cold, relatively uninteresting, unsympathetic and a little bit whiny. With The Scar, he solidifies his place in his genre (Sci-fi? Fantasy? Horror? All of the above? Who cares! As long as we enjoy them.), and proves that the accolades he received with Perdido Street Station was not a fluke. This guy is for real.

He comes at a time when speculative fiction is starting to break away from the chains it imposed on itself, trying to find a fresh new identity. It is no secret that he has made himself a critic of J.R.R. Tolkien and for some fans of fantasy, this may be sacrilegious. Still, as no one could ever deny the place of Tolkien as the father of today’s form of epic fantasy, he challenges the Tolkenesque idea that fantasy should be the place of ideals and hierarchy and standards. For Mielville, fantasy should be much more. It should be a genre that challenges every writer to create wonder, to create fantasies with no limitations in mind. And with The Scar as with Perdido Street Station, Mielville has given the genre just that, making him probably the most important speculative fiction writer of his generation.

Perdido Street Station by China Mielville

Rating: 4.5 out of 5

For the past 30 years or so, the fantasy genre has, with the exception of a few great works from a few great authors, mired itself in a situation where it has become unimaginative and unoriginal where works have become practically clones of each other. In recent years though, a few inspired souls have gradually tried to take the genre out of its familiar and commercially safe elements hoping to take fantasy back to an environment when it was wide-open in terms of storyline, setting, characterizations, etc., where every other author wasn’t trying to be the Second Coming of J.R.R. Tolkien. Daring and creative authors have emerged who have taken their work away from the accepted formulaic approach and looked for inspirations outside of the established works of the genre, instead of keeping on repeating its own successes.

Perdido Street Station takes the reader in a totally different world from that of your typical fantasy fare. Take a look at these:

• The story isn’t set in a quasi-medieval or feudalistic society. Instead it takes place in an industrial city that seems to invoke images of Victorian-era London that is ruled by a government with an iron fist.


• Magic (or thaumaturgy) co-exists with science and both are “systemized” in their usage.


• There are no elves, dwarves, orcs or some other typical fantasy race. Instead there are races never seen in before. Among others, there are the frog-like vodyanoi; the khepri females with human bodies and insects for heads; winged, bird-like garuda; and humanoid cacti, the cactacae.


• There are bio-engineered beings, called the Remade, who have humanoid or animal parts, or even machine parts grafted onto the body to serve as a tool for a profession, or a punishment for a crime. (One punishment has a mother who murdered her own baby have the child’s limbs permanently attached to her face, a constant reminder of her sin.)


• There are monsters including a giant spider that phases in and out of each plane of reality, constantly maintaining the web of existence; and slake-moths who prey on the unwary feeding on their thoughts and dreams.


• There is a machine-intelligence living in a junkyard who thinks it is a god.


• Hell has established diplomatic relations with the government and actually has an embassy.

And all these only on just one city, which is the setting of the story: New Crobuzon. We get the hint that there are lots more to see in the world called Bas-Lag.

China Mielville, who describes his work as “weird fiction” and influenced by early fantasy authors like H.P. Lovecraft and Mervyn Peake, deliberately stayed away from Tolkienesque formulas in order create his work. He incorporated fantasy, science fiction, horror, and steampunk to create this highly imaginative, complex and downright amazing masterpiece that breaks the established boundaries taking the genre to heights unexplored for a very long time.

The story revolves around Isaac Dan der Grimnebulin, an outcast scientist who dabbles in scientific experiments in a warehouse and has an existing sexual inter-species relationship with a Khepri named Lin, who herself is an artist who creates sculptures by using her own insect spit. One day, as Lin was being commissioned for a job by someone who turned out to be the biggest crime boss of the city, Isaac receives a visitor. He is approached by a garuda, Yagharek, who has his wings cut off as a punishment for some terrible crime. Yagharek wants to fly again, and he asks Isaac to make it so.

Challenged by this, Isaac agrees and this leads to horrible consequences that ultimately threaten the safety of everyone in the city. The danger is so great and so terrifying that even the Ambassador of Hell, who is offered anything in return, refuses to send demons to help. Why? Because they are afraid.

Isaac, feeling responsible, takes a quickly-banded motley group of companions, including Yagharek, to try to stop the nightmare. A task which he would risk his life... and others', as well (a dilemma which emerges deep into the story). Along the way, he is hunted by the government, the mob, a machine-intelligence, and a giant (and possibly demented) spider.

Perdido Street Station may be a little difficult for some to read as the story takes time and requires focus. He takes the reader into a tour of New Crobuzon and explores a city in decay through some rich and descriptive passages that define the cities structures, societies, creeds, history and its various races and creatures. In doing so, he also explores a little on themes like, crime, and racial intolerance, government control, poverty, merchantilism, freedom of expression, drugs, and religious societies. But as one takes the time to immerse in the writing of Mielville, one is taken to a city that is amazing at the same time dark. It is dark, vile, dirty, ragged, ill, decaying but also mesmerizing and amazing, and one which seems to impose itself on its inhabitants. No other city has come this alive with character in the pages of fiction since the establishment of Gotham City.

Such is the way the author writes. Each major character is well-rounded and fully dimensional. They have strengths and they have faults. Isaac isn’t a handsome and cool physical specimen. He is an overweight person, who makes love to an insect and probably caused the death of one of his friends. He will also make morally ambiguous decisions.

And through him, Mielville makes his readers think about the ethics of some issues. In the story, Isaac makes two decisions that could be subjects of a great moral debate about what is right and what is wrong. Does the end justify the means? How much is one life worth? Do our moral obligations supersede our morality?

And herein lies the reason why Perdido Street Station is a masterpiece. It is a manifestation of the wonderful imagination of a great mind. It dares to break standards and pushes and challenges its peers to reach for new heights in a genre that supposedly has very few limitations. It has a wonderful story and characters, even the non-humanoid types, feel down-to-earth-real that readers can sympathize with them. And most of all, it makes one think about ourselves as human beings.

And the good news is that China Mielville would return to the world of Bas-Lag for more stories.