Review: Embassytown by China Miéville

Embassytown by China Mieville

Published: Del Rey/ Macmillan UK, 2011

Awards Nominated: Hugo, Nebula, Arthur C. Clarke, John W. Campbell, and British Science Fiction Association Awards
Awards Won: Locus SF Award

The Book:

“In the far future, humans have colonized a distant planet, home to the enigmatic Ariekei, sentient beings famed for a language unique in the universe, one that only a few altered human ambassadors can speak.

Avice Benner Cho, a human colonist, has returned to Embassytown after years of deep-space adventure. She cannot speak the Ariekei tongue, but she is an indelible part of it, having long ago been made a figure of speech, a living simile in their language.

When distant political machinations deliver a new ambassador to Arieka, the fragile equilibrium between humans and aliens is violently upset. Catastrophe looms, and Avice is torn between competing loyalties-to a husband she no longer loves, to a system she no longer trusts, and to her place in a language she cannot speak yet speaks through her.” ~from WWend.com

It looks like Embassytown is going to end up being this year’s most nominated book, in terms of speculative fiction awards.  I’ve only ever read one Miéville book before, The City & The City, which I liked fairly well, and I have a copy of Perdido Street Station waiting to be read on my bookshelf.  Of the two I’ve read, I would say Embassytown is my favorite Miéville novel. 

My Thoughts:

The science fictional universe of Embassytown was intriguing, though most of it was pretty standard science fiction fare.  In Miéville’s universe, faster-than-light travel revolves around a state known as ‘immer’, and ‘lighthouses’ that were left behind by some older, vanished space-faring species guide their space routes.  The “Embassytown” is the point of contact between humans and an alien species, known locally as “Hosts”, on the planet Arieka.  While the state of the wider universe does play a role in the story, most of the action takes place on Arieka, in Embassytown.  The plot is driven by conflict arising from the fundamental differences between the Hosts’ and the humans’ way of perceiving the world.  Perhaps because many of these building blocks (vanished superior alien races, space politics, FTL travel, alien contact) are so familiar, they aren’t explored very thoroughly here.  Instead, the novel focuses on the eventual source of conflict between the Hosts and the humans, their differences in language.

Like the details of the wider universe, most of the characters also didn’t seem to be explored very thoroughly.  The most developed character is the narrator, Avice Benner Cho.  As a woman who left her rural home to have a career and travel, and who returned to find her hometown the same and yet somehow different than she left it, I think that Avice’s basic state of mind is one that many people would find it easy to understand. However, the way the story was told instilled a feeling of distance from all of the characters, Avice included.  Relationships were generally not developed ‘on-screen’, but the reader was instead told how various people felt about one another.  For instance, we’re shown very little of how Avice and Scile’s marriage collapsed, we are just told that it happened in the usual way.  I think I would have preferred to see the characters develop in a more organic fashion, rather than simply being told about their current opinions.

While details of the physical environment, technology, and characters sometimes feel a bit hazy, much thought has clearly gone into the Hosts’ Language and it’s implications.  Even the mechanics of speaking Language is a complication between Hosts and humans.  Hosts have two voices that speak in unison, and they only understand a speaker whose words are produced in a similar fashion (i.e. one person with two mouths).  This has resulted in the production of the social class of Ambassadors, twins who attempt to emulate being a single person.  There are also conceptual differences between the languages.  For the Hosts, Language is synonymous with reality, so attempting to lie is something of an extreme sport.  More than scene or character, the story follows and explores the results of these and the other ways humans and Hosts perceive or mis-perceive each other.  The end result is a story that is intelligent and creative, and one that requires a fair amount of thought on the part of the reader to appreciate.

My Rating: 4/5

Embassytown is a creative, intelligent novel about the clash of two very different ways of thought, that of the Hosts on Arieka and the humans of the outpost.  I loved reading about the Hosts’ Language, and seeing how complicated the implications of their way of thought could eventually become.  While the story was very engrossing, I could never shake a feeling of detachment from the characters.  I think most of this came from the manner in which the reader was directly told about the characters’ relationships or attitudes, rather than seeing these things revealed about them in a more natural fashion.  I wonder if Miéville is planning on returning to this universe in future novels.

Read-Along: Red Seas Under Red Skies by Scott Lynch, Part 5

This is the fifth and final post for my participation in a read-along of Scott Lynch's Red Seas Under Red Skies, hosted by Dark Cargo, @ohthatashley at SF Signal, My Awful Reviews, Lynn’s Book Blog and the Little Red Reviewer.  What this means is...

Read-Along posts discuss a specific portion of Red Seas Under Red Skies and are therefore full of spoilers!  This is also a sequel of The Lies of Locke Lamora, so this post may be filled with spoilers from that book as well!  I will do a usual review post once the book is complete.

This week’s questions include through the end of Red Seas Under Red Skies by Scott Lynch.  I’m surprised that everything came together so well in the end.  I was wondering how Lynch was going to be able to wrap everything up in so little time.  We even got closure on the Salon Corbeau situation!

1.       Oh my god, such a lot going on I thought the showdown between the Poison Orchid and the Sovereign was brilliantly written and they were holding their own until Utgar and his nasty device turned up.  Well a lot of you had kind of predicted it, and I suppose we’d been let off too easy so far in terms of deaths of well-liked characters  – but come on,  did you expect something like that?  And how on earth will Jean ever recover?

 Well, as was said quite a lot in the past few weeks, Ezri was Lynch’s prime choice for a dramatic death in this novel.  After the device was activated and Ezri charged after it, I felt like it was pretty clear she was going to sacrifice herself for the ship.  I would have been much more surprised (and delighted) if something like that had not happened.  This always happens when one has a romance with a main character in an adventure story… it’s the kiss of death…

2.       The deceit, the betrayal, first Rodanov and then Colvard.  Even now I’m not entirely sure I understand Colvard – Rodanov was never keen on the oath but Colvard seemed okay with it all and yet in this final deceit she was more devious than Rodanov – what do you think was her motive?

I guess the pirates aren’t really Jean and Locke’s ‘people’.  They don’t follow either of the strictures of the Crooked Warden.  They stab each other in the back and make sure not to bother the rich folks too much.  I suppose Cpt. Drakasha was different!

3.       Merrain – such a puzzle, no real answer, the mysterious tattoo, the determination to kill everyone to keep her identity and that of her master a secret.  Does anybody have any ideas where she’s from and what she’s up to exactly and who the hell is she working for??

The only idea I’ve got so far is the Bondsmagi.  I don’t know any other organization that would be involved.  Honestly, I’m expecting it to be some secret society that just hasn’t been mentioned yet.  I’m sure we’ll find out when book 3 comes out.

4.       Finally we get to the point of the GB’s latest scheme, all that elaborate planning for two years, fancy chairs, gambling, dust covered cards, abseiling lessons – all for one gigantic bluff. I loved the diversionary tactic here but having finally reached the end of the story and, more to the point, the end result – do you think the GB’s are as clever as they think they are?

I still think they’re pretty clever.  They made one mistake, where there would have been room for so many more.  It just happened to be a mistake that cut their payoff by about 90%.

5.       I must admit that I liked Requin and Selendri – particularly at the end – I don’t think Requin will go after Locke and Jean, he was even sort of cool and composed about it all, in fact he came across as a bit pleased with himself because he had the last laugh.  Plenty of good characters this time which did you enjoy reading most about this time?

Locke and Jean?  Okay, I guess you probably meant besides the two of them.  I suppose I would pick Captain Drakasha.  She was a very interesting pirate.

6.       Finally, a triple barrel question, I know I shouldn’t ask this BUT, on reflection do you have a favourite between LoLL or RSURS??  And why?  Are you going to pick up Republic of Thieves?  And, where do you think Lynch will take us to next??

At this point, I think I have a slight preference for LoLL.  I enjoyed both of them, but LoLL felt more like a self-contained story.  I was also more interested in reading about Camorr than I was about the Poison Orchid.  Maybe I’m just not a strongly nautically inclined person.  Anyhow, I will definitely pick up Republic of Thieves.  My predictions are that Lynch will take us to a faraway land where we will a) finally meet Sabetha, b) learn who’s behind Merrain, c) see Locke and Jean find a cure for the poison, and d) possibly get some more insight into the magical system of Lynch’s world. 

Read-Along: Red Seas Under Red Skies by Scott Lynch, 4

This is the fourth post for my participation in a read-along of Scott Lynch's Red Seas Under Red Skies, hosted by Dark Cargo, @ohthatashley at SF Signal, My Awful Reviews, Lynn’s Book Blog and the Little Red Reviewer.  What this means is...

Read-Along posts discuss a specific portion of Red Seas Under Red Skies and are therefore full of spoilers!  This is also a sequel of The Lies of Locke Lamora, so this post may be filled with spoilers from that book as well!  I will do a usual review post once the book is complete.

This week’s questions include through Chapter 13 of Red Seas Under Red Skies by Scott Lynch. The cliffhanger at the end of Chapter 13 was painful!  It took quite a bit of willpower to set the novel aside for reading after this week’s discussion.  There are so many secret agendas and betrayals, I can hardly keep them all straight!

1) I was much relieved when Jean and Locke made up, which started with Locke's gesture of a cup full of honesty with Cpt. Drakasha. Do you think that was hard for Locke? Or was he using this bit of honesty like any other weapon in his arsenal to get what he wants in the end? 

I didn’t think it seemed too terribly hard for Locke.  After all, he only told the truth up to a point, so he is still using the withholding and providing of information as a tool.  However, he could have just let Cpt. Drakasha make up his motivations for him.  I think Locke would have been more comfortable lying to the pirates, but he deferred to Jean’s judgment.  I think that was a very decent thing to do for his friend.

2) The Parlor Passage: We still don't know Locke's true name, but whatever was in that mist does. What do you think it is? 

It appears to be some other form of magic in Lynch’s world!  I’m wondering if the voices have anything to do with the Eldren.  Or perhaps they could be spirits?

3) There was an interesting section of the book that started about where Locke assisted Drakasha in selling the Red Messenger; he put on the persona of Leocanto Kosta and used the alias Tavras Callas and then Drakasha was still thinking of him as Ravelle..... Did using all those various aliases in such a short amount of time have your mind spinning a little? Do you think Lynch did this on purpose to give the reader a sense of Locke's mind? 

I thought it was really cool that Jean and Locke had established various characters that they could slip into at need.  Maybe Lynch is hinting towards a future identity crisis on Locke’s part.  It puts another spin on why he might not have told Cpt. Drakasha the name ‘Locke Lamora’.  After all, it’s just another alias—one of a young thief in Camorr who grew up to be a master con artist J.  We don’t even know Locke’s real name, though he’s worn ‘Locke Lamora’ for most of his life.

4) That was a sweet little kiss between Cpt. Zamira and Cpt. Jaffrim at the end of the Captains' Council. Do you think they have some history, or is it just innocent flirting that's been going on for some time? 

Maybe it’s just me, but I didn’t read that as flirting.  Somehow, I got the impression that he was much older than the other captains (maybe in his 60s?), so I saw it more as affectionate teasing.  It seems like they’ve been friends for a long time, but I didn’t feel any sparks of romantic chemistry between them. 

5) Jean and Ezri. Cue dove-cooing and little winged hearts with sparkles. Do you think Jean will stay with the Poison Orchid or that Ezri will leave her ship to pal around with Jean and Locke? 

I’m guessing the series is following Locke, so I would hate for Jean to stay with Ezri.  We would never see them again!  I think Ezri could be quite a decent Gentleman Bastard if she set her mind to it.

6) What is Utgar up to? What are his motivations? 

I hadn’t paid any attention to him at all, until that scene with Cpt. Rodanov.  From what I can gather, he’s been in Rodanov’s employ for a while.  It seems like Rodanov was very unhappy with the pirate’s actions that led to their thrashing by the navy of Tal Verrar.  I assumed that he had spies on each ship to make sure such a thing didn’t happen again. 

With Cpt. Drakasha backing Locke and Jean’s plan, Rodanov must be caught between his affection for her and his desire to protect the Ghostwinds.  I’m guessing Utgar is tasked with making sure Cpt. Drakasha doesn’t start a war, and with killing Locke and Jean if they seem to be taking too many risks.

As for Utgar’s motivations?  Probably money.

7) So last week we hashed over that Merrain killed some of Stragos's guards on Windward Rock. But when Jean and Locke visit him, he doesn't mention it. What is up with that? 

No idea.  I don’t feel like I have enough information to make any realistic predictions about this subplot.  Maybe Merrain killed the guards and had them replace with Bondsmagi doppelgangers, so the archon hadn’t noticed that they were dead?  Maybe she’s planning a coup d’etat with her mages embedded invisibly in the hierarchy of Tal Verrar?  I really don’t know. 

8) This week's section left us where the book began - Jean pointing a crossbow at Locke's throat. Do you think Jean knows who sent these crossbowers? Is he on their side? Is it a clever ploy to get him and Locke out of this predicament? Did you find it excruciatingly hard to stop here?

Considering Jean and Locke’s conversations just previous, and the fact that Jean killed one of their pursuers, I think it's a clever ploy.  However, I don’t know if it’s a trick or not!  It was very, very hard to stop reading here.  I can’t even decide who I think the crossbowers might represent.  The list of people screwing with Locke and Jean is so long!