Perdido Street Station / The Scar

So I just finished reading this and I have mixed feelings about it.  On one hand, it truly is some excellent writing (even if Mieville appears to have a serious fetish for describing every thing ever) and the science/magic stuff is awesome.  On the other, the ending had to have been one of the most unsatisfying and depressing things I've ever read.  I mean, what happened with Yag, I could live with that on its own, but that coupled with Lin's condition, the lack of explanation behind Jack Half-a-Prayer and his involvement, and the lacking of Motley even getting so much as scratched left a sour taste at the end.

So now I'm debating whether or not to read The Scar.  Without any of you spoiling any of it for me, I need to know: is anything from Perdido Street Station resolved in it?  Is the ending at least someone satisfying?  Is it worth my time to read?

1. No, because The Scar does not take place in New Crobuzon. It follows the adventures of a friend of Isaac's, Bellis Coldwine, after she figures out that the government is arresting everyone who ever knew Isaac, so she flees the city on a boat.

2. Yes. Although the satisfaction has more to do with the heroine growing as a person than it has with great climaxes.

3. Yes. The Scar is probably the best of the three Bas Lag novels.

perdido street station is a much better book than the scar

>>2
>>3

Who to believe?!

>>4
You should believe me, Number 2, because I start my sentences with capital letters and end them with punctuation.

you could read Iron Council instead it mostly deals with New Crobuzon but I don't think you would be any happier with the ending. I thought Perdido was better then The Scar but thats mainly because I really dislike the main character in it but there are definitely some interesting story elements in it.

Indeed, Iron Council is closer to being a sequel to Perdido Street Station, but it is also somewhat more...experimental in regards to storytelling technique. I mean, I like all the Bas-Lag novels, but I am aware that some people don't like the way Mieville did Iron Council.

But if you liked his writing in PPS, then Iron Council should be up your street.

I think the major weakness of the Iron Council was that in previous books, Mieville's success was largely due to cultivating a sense of place. In PSS, we got a really good feel for New Crobuzon: it was gritty and realistic enough to be absorbing, detailed enough to be continually interesting whenever new details get thrown in, and most importantly, never demystified. The strongest impression you get of New Crobuzon is that nobody knows it all, or can control it all. In a city full of vampires in disguise, people controlled by hands that dominate your mind and let you fly around and spit fire, various beast-races, and where university degrees are actually worth getting because they let you do stuff like reshape the flesh of people you don't like, there are too many rogue elements for it to be contained, even within a novel as sprawling as Perdido Street Station. The government, while impressive flexing its police-state muscles and cracking down on indie rags and rioters, needs to call in favours from less than reliable allies, including demons and extraplanar spiders in order to get something done. Intel is unreliable, and despite all the talk about it being monolithic and mighty and scary, during the novel we actually encounter people who make a living off working their way through the cracks.

>>8
cont'd

The same thing happens in The Scar. Through Bellis' confusion, we are allowed to learn about her new home at the same rate as she does. The 'stranger in a strange land' feel allows a greater identification between reader and protagonist, as, unlike Isaac who springs to life fully formed, complete with coterie of friends and hangers-on, Bellis seems, as an above Anonymous has mentioned, to be still in a process of growth and development, and so is her understanding of the world. From the moment the book opens, Bellis never encounters one single character she knew from before deciding to flee New Crobuzon. Everyone is new. Everything is new. Even for a well-educated scholar from a large metropolis, the world is full of strangeness, mythical whispers and walking legends. The patchwork presentation of Armada sums up its patchwork nature: it is a jerry-rigged place, a whole cloth kept in one piece by the tensions of many different strings, pulled by an entire array of characters, all of whom have their own agendas and personalities. When Armada becomes saddled to a single purpose, it shows its weakness: it CANNOT be unified, and the dissension amongst the rulers mirrors the tensions which threaten to tear the city apart. Only an outside threat, the encroaching of a foreign power, unites them in a common cause. Armada develops character, flavour, and although Bellis travels to several locations, she does so in a way aboard the city-ship, and there's a sense of continuity.

>>9
cont'd again

The Iron Council is a vastly different kettle of fish probably most of all because it deviates from Mieville's winning formula of building up on a single location and showing it from several angles. Instead of focusing on WHERE, Mieville chooses to focus on WHO, presenting the narrative via several viewpoint characters whose paths never coincide till the finale. We are introduced to a dizzying array of locations, none of which are ever fleshed-out enough to satisfy those who read the books in order to sink their teeth into Bas-Lag's intriguing details. Although this approach does reflect the novel's emphasis on moving/not-moving, as epitomised by the eponymous Iron Council, a perpetual train of massive proportions, it only means that the novel may be THEMATICALLY sound but still questionable with regard to its STYLISTIC execution. Why did Mieville choose to depart from a winning formula? I suppose I do respect his desire for experimentation, and do respect that he's not turning Bas-Lag into a franchise like Harry Potter's "Wizarding World" or something, but I still think that if Iron Council was to have been the final book, it was disappointing solely if it put an end to many potentialities that were never allowed to be realised.

If tl;dr, SCAR AND PERDIDO STREET STATION ARE SIMILAR, IRON COUNCIL IS STAND ALONE. I suspect most people who liked either PSS or the Scar will like the other one, but not Iron Council.

So if you liked PSS, the Scar is a must, but Iron Council is a maybe, and read it with an open mind.