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Bezig met laden... The City & The City (Random House Reader's Circle) (origineel 2009; editie 2010)door China Mieville
Informatie over het werkThe City & The City door China Miéville (2009)
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This is a propulsive noir detective story above all else, but the dual-city setting is fascinating, highlighting as it does social constructs (almost literal) and how we can choose not to see what’s right in front of us. Like a good noir, greed and corruption are at the heart of the story, in this case it’s Story: 6 / 10 Characters: 7 Setting: 10 Prose: 7 A brilliant setting that doesn't quite compensate for the mediocre story. In the end, the story is a simple murder mystery. However, the unusual spacial duality of the cities is so captivating that you can almost forget that this plot has been told too many times before.
Subtly, almost casually, Miéville constructs a metaphor for modern life in which our habits of "unseeing" allow us to ignore that which does not directly affect our familiar lives. Yet he doesn't encourage us to understand his novel as a parable, rather as a police mystery dealing with extraordinary circumstances. The book is a fine, page-turning murder investigation in the tradition of Philip K Dick, gradually opening up to become something bigger and more significant than we originally suspected. Readers should shed their preconceptions and treat themselves to a highly original and gripping experience.The City & The City is still Urban Fantasy, yes, but don't look for elves on motorcycles or spell-casting cops. China Miéville has done something very different, new, and — oh yeah — weird. The novel works best when Miéville trusts his storytelling instincts. I was immediately entranced by the premise of doppel cities and didn't need it explained at every turn. At times, I appreciated the intellectual brilliance of "The City" more than I lost myself in it. Borlú seemed an archetype more than a fleshed-out character. That's OK. The real protagonists here are the mirror cities themselves, and the strange inner workings that make them, and their residents, tick. Miéville’s achievement is at once remarkable and subtle. His overlapping cities take in an aspect of our own world—social conventions—wholesale. But by describing those conventions using conceptual tools borrowed from traditional “worldbuilding” fantasy, he heightens awareness of the unnoticed in our own lives. He doesn’t give us symbols. He gives us real life rendered with all the more clarity for its apparent weirdness. Onderdeel van de uitgeversreeks(en)Bastei Science Fiction-Special (24393) PrijzenOnderscheidingenErelijsten
NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY "THE LOS ANGELES TIMES, THE SEATTLE TIMES," AND "PUBLISHERS WEEKLY" When a murdered woman is found in the city of Beszel, somewhere at the edge of Europe, it looks to be a routine case for Inspector Tyador Borlu of the Extreme Crime Squad. To investigate, Borlu must travel from the decaying Beszel to its equal, rival, and intimate neighbor, the vibrant city of Ul Qoma. But this is a border crossing like no other, a journey as psychic as it is physical, a seeing of the unseen. With Ul Qoman detective Qussim Dhatt, Borlu is enmeshed in a sordid underworld of nationalists intent on destroying their neighboring city, and unificationists who dream of dissolving the two into one. As the detectives uncover the dead woman's secrets, they begin to suspect a truth that could cost them more than their lives. What stands against them are murderous powers in Beszel and in Ul Qoma: and, most terrifying of all, that which lies between these two cities. Geen bibliotheekbeschrijvingen gevonden. |
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Google Books — Bezig met laden... GenresDewey Decimale Classificatie (DDC)823.914Literature English English fiction Modern Period 1901-1999 1945-1999LC-classificatieWaarderingGemiddelde:
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