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I’m not sure that I would call China Miéville’s writing “good”, but I would definitely say it’s worth reading. Since I doubt that makes any sense at all, allow me to explain.
The Fantasy genre has diverged a lot since Tolkien cemented the genre with The Lord of the Rings. Getting labeled as “weird fantasy” for a while meant that the story didn’t include Dwarves, Elves, or Dragons. Which is all well and good. However, the fantasy genre should have room within for, well, the most fantastical, wild stories that authors can come up with- not just Tolkien deviants, which are what just what random online casinos are to SlotoCash Casino. Hardly comparable.
I have read a lot of fantasy in my life. Harry Potter, which can safely be called “Urban Fantasy”, basically defined my childhood. Percy Jackson, Game of Thrones, The Stormlight Archive, and god-knows how many others have established identities for both me, personally, and the genre at large.
However, a story that came as a complete surprise to me when I encountered it was Perdido Street Station– the first of China Miéville’s work I had ever encountered. It’s a massive tome, spanning hundreds of pages, that will leave you gripped through one of the most creative pieces of worldbuilding I have ever had the pleasure of reading.
At the same time, it easily felt like the novel could have been in half without losing much substance. There are so many tangents and descriptions that don’t add much, if anything, to the plot- yet if they weren’t there, it wouldn’t be Perdido Street Station. In spite of China Miéville’s dense prose and overeager worldbuilding, the story stuck around in my head in a way that a lot of the random novels I read don’t.
At any rate, Perdido Street Station turned out to be the first in a trilogy of novels set in China Miéville’s fantasy world of Bas-Lag. The second novel, “The Scar”, ended up being an improvement on the first in many ways. By having a far more scaled-down world (by the nature of its plot basically taking place on a giant boat), the novel felt far streamlined and polished in comparison to its predecessor.
So when I finally grabbed a copy of “Iron Council”, the third and final installment in the trilogy, I was surprised, to say the least, when I ended up… not liking it all that much.
Plot Summary (Without Major Spoilers)
Unlike “The Scar”, “Iron Council” returns us to the sprawling city of New Crobuzon- which is still as awesome and horrible as ever.
For about, eh, half the novel.
A massive chunk of the story instead takes place far outside the city, in random biomes as a party of main characters hunt for a certain Judas Low, who himself hunts for the enigmatic “Iron Council”.
Now, prior to having read this book, I had a hunch as to what the Iron Council would be. In Perdido Street Station (which I assume you’ll have read if you’re reading this), there was this subplot about constructs (magical robots) gaining sentience and gathering together to form a sort of super AI cult. I had guessed that the “Iron Council” would have something to do with that.
The answer turns out to be a resounding “no”. The robots to which I refer were all completely obliterated “off-camera” between novels in something dubbed “The Construct Wars”, and that was the end of that. Which is a bit of a disappointment- and it’s sad to say that this disappointment sort of becomes a trend throughout this book, but I’ll get back to that later.
That said, I can’t really reveal what it is without spoiling a major chunk of the plot- so I won’t. Not in this section, at least.
First, for about the first third of the novel, I wasn’t even sure who was going to be the protagonist of the story. The plot begins following a character named Cutter- the man who’s looking for Judas. Cutter is obsessed with Judas and is gay. Very, very, gay. Gay, gay, gay. You will never not be reminded just how gay this man is, as he is constantly looking for kisses, hugs, handjobs, and ol’ fashioned buggery from just about every man he comes across (no pun intended) but most especially Judas.
Judas is a somne- somen- socra- he’s a golem wizard. He learned from frog lizard people in a swamp how to create magical golems before their village was destroyed so that a train line could be installed in its place. Judas is not only a golem wizard but a golem wizard prodigy that can make golems out of just about anything. And I mean anything.
Why does Cutter love Judas so much to the point that he’ll risk life and limb traveling across the dangerous world of Bas-Lag to search for him? No idea. Their relationship is constantly shown to be completely one-sided, with Judas being shown as a bisexual opportunist who doesn’t even think about Cutter during his POV chapters.
Once they unite, the group travels together to find the “Iron Council”, a target that the government of New Crobuzon is determined to find and exterminate. Our heroes risk their lives to traverse the horrendous world of Bas-Lag to find it first before monsters or the New Crobuzon Milita get to it first.
Speaking of New Crobuzon, the city is a powder keg ready to blow. Ori is a young dissident who is constantly pushing to take more direct action against the oppressive government. He actively fights racist, loyal government groups like “The New Quillers” and promotes inflammatory puppet plays featuring illegal stories and demonstrations. But he wants more. To do more. He’s willing to do anything to take down the government and the militia…
The Worldbuilding
As ever, “Iron Council” features China Miéville’s off-the-walls worldbuilding. It’s still full of the crazy monsters, magics, and settings that really define the Bas-Lag trilogy.
That said, at the same time, there’s something lacking to it all.
All the monsters and places that come into play are mostly relegated to backdrops. Everything new that’s introduced to the plot is either mostly tangential to the story or is left unexplained.
For instance, there are these horrifying “Inchmen”- massive, caterpillar monsters with a pseudo-person on one end, like a centaur-caterpillar monster. They’re introduced to the plot, kill a character, and then never mentioned again.
Meanwhile, Judas keeps pulling random-ass magical powers out of his ass, to the point where it started to annoy me. Now, I’m not going to pretend like I understand how the magic system in this universe works. However, I would like some explanation for how the character does some things he does. He just kind of tries things, and they end up working. It really makes me wonder, “did nobody try this before?”
Meanwhile, there are things that leave me completely baffled. There are these mirrors that come up out of nowhere and are apparently super-duper powerful, and they probably did something in the one battle they were pulled out it, but for the life of me, I can’t remember what they actually did. Then they were smashed.
There are all sorts of other little magics too peppered throughout the story that leaves me confused. What is that, how can they do this, was this explained in a previous novel, and why aren’t they doing this all the time?
I remember in Perdido Street Station that there was this massive section explaining precisely why they weren’t using one kind of magic to solve the plot and why they were using a different kind. I remember that in my review of that book, I was annoyed by the info-dumping.
Surely there’s some kind of middle ground, though, between info-dumping and zero explanations? I’m sure I missed things (like the mirrors), and that’s on me, but come on. Give something.
There’s also the Tesh- a city/race/place that New Crobuzon is at war with. There’s no explanation as to why they’re at war, though, or who the Tesh even are. I didn’t even realize that the mysterious Tesh were human until some of the very last chapters.
The Characters
Cutter, Judas, and Ori. I don’t really have much to say about this trio. If you can, call them that. Cutter spends the entire novel moping after Judas and gets nothing for his efforts. Judas’ motivations or desires are hard to discern. Does he care about the little guy? He’s not brave. He’s not wise. He’s not power-hungry. He’s involved in multiple, toxic relationships- both with Cutter and a gold-digging farm-girl-turned-prostitute-turned-leader named Ann-Hari.
Ori, by contrast, is easily the most compelling character. His pursuit to bring about some real change in New Crobuzon gets him involved in a plot to assassinate the mayor. He joins a gang run by a mysterious character named “Toro” and gains many secrets and mysteries from a hobo named “Spiral Jacobs,” who seems to know far more than he should.
It’s a shame then that we spend so little time with Ori, and his plot ends up becoming irrelevant in the end to the overall story.
Contrast this to the previous protagonists of this trilogy, and I’m left disappointed. Issac and Lin’s relationship in Perdido Street Station was genuinely compelling. Yagharek’s desire to regain the ability to fly after his wings was understandable and sympathetic. Even Bellis, the b*tchy protagonist of “The Scar,” was at least enjoyable to read about, as she tried her damnedest to escape an unfair and inescapable position.
I just don’t get that connection with Cutter, Judas, Ori, or any of the other characters in this novel.
The Politics
All of the Bas-Lag novels are heavily political, and their political messages are hardly subtle. That’s not a problem when the story is good. “Iron Council” is perhaps the most political of all the novels, covering themes of homosexuality, racism/specism, corporatism/colonialism, and anti-fascism. It’s hard to tell if “Iron Council” is supposed to be an analogy of a communist revolution or if it’s just anti-authoritarian.
Maybe this novel hit differently when it was published back in 2004, but without any other connective plot threads and a frankly unappealing cast of main characters, the message falls kind of flat in 2022. It reeks of what would now be labeled as “woke” politics, and even within the setting where the activism is justified… I dunno. I don’t know much about “gay culture”, but if Judas and Cutter are representative of real gay relationships, then yikes.
Conclusion
As I said from the get-go, China Miéville’s stories are hard to label as “good”. Nevertheless, there is something so unique about them that I think they’re worth a read regardless. That said, “Iron Council” is easily my least favorite of the trilogy, and its ending is so anticlimactic.
