Fiona Cook (back and catching up!)'s Reviews > Iron Council

What an absolute trip this series is! As usual with the Bas-Lag books, Iron Council stands alone; but I'd strongly recommend starting with the other two. There's details of the world that come into play, and context that it would be a shame to miss.

Perdido Street Station concentrated on New Crobuzon - The Scar took us completely outside of it. Iron Council merges the two approaches, alternating between groups and locales, even times. Mieville's always taken the tantalising approach with Bas-Lag - what I wouldn't give for a David Attenborough or Steve Irwin style documentary somehow set there - and though we get to see a lot more this time, I still feel the sense of getting exactly as much of the picture as he wants.

Whenever, wherever the setting took us, though, was almost immaterial, because this book heroes its characters even more than the previous entries did. Not just the main characters either, but the people(/beings) who make up the communities of whichever setting was being visited at the time. There's one particularly memorable scene of sound demons feeding on the newly-discovered rhythm of a train, only to have the railway crew feed them with a dance; it's just so inventive and so vivid in my mind's eye.

I'm so pleased I finally read this series. Mieville has created something completely unique and important, writing the flaws of our own world large on his fantasy screen - letting his characters come together and show that it's the fight that matters more than the winning.