The epigraph is from Benjamin - "The word must communicate something (other than itself)" - and the possibilities of that assertion are central to this typically brainy, intricately plotted and disorienting novel from Mieville, surprisingly his first out and out work of science fiction, and with a cracker of an idea at its centre - an alien race whose language operates in such a way that their words, rather than signifying anything outside of themselves, are instead pure referents, with no gap between language and meaning, and no concept of symbolic language...until, that is, an odd human infection takes hold.
Of his previous novels, it's probably closest to The City & The City, mostly in the careful, sinuous way that he works through the implications of his central premise, wrapping it up in equal measures of unexplained mystery and, crucially, story, with machinations, conspiracy and unexpected turns around every corner. The exotic is rendered almost graspable while still fundamentally opaque, the familiar strange; while it has a sort of detachment and weightlessness that prevents it from packing the same kind of punch as the Bas-Lag books with which he really came into his own, Embassytown is another piece of wonder from Mieville.
Of his previous novels, it's probably closest to The City & The City, mostly in the careful, sinuous way that he works through the implications of his central premise, wrapping it up in equal measures of unexplained mystery and, crucially, story, with machinations, conspiracy and unexpected turns around every corner. The exotic is rendered almost graspable while still fundamentally opaque, the familiar strange; while it has a sort of detachment and weightlessness that prevents it from packing the same kind of punch as the Bas-Lag books with which he really came into his own, Embassytown is another piece of wonder from Mieville.
