Embassytown

By: China Mieville

Narrated by: Susan Duerden

Length: 12 hrs and 23 mins

Publisher's summary

China Miéville doesn’t follow trends, he sets them. Relentlessly pushing his own boundaries as a writer - and in the process expanding the boundaries of the entire field - with Embassytown, Miéville has crafted an extraordinary novel that is not only a moving personal drama but a gripping adventure of alien contact and war.

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.

©2011 China Mieville (P)2011 Random House

Critic reviews

“A breakneck tale of suspense...disturbing and beautiful by turns. I cannot emphasize enough how terrific this novel is. It's definitely one of the best books I've read in the past year, perfectly balanced between escapism and otherworldly philosophizing.” (io9)

“Embassytown is a fully achieved work of art…Works on every level, providing compulsive narrative, splendid intellectual rigour and risk, moral sophistication, fine verbal fireworks and sideshows, and even the old-fashioned satisfaction of watching a protagonist become more of a person than she gave promise of being.” (Ursula K. Le Guin)

“Brilliant storytelling... The result is a world masterfully wrecked and rebuilt.” (Publishers Weekly [starred review])

interesting

China Mieville is best when being inventive without getting steam-punk and stupid or anything else so typical.

Its Like the story you wanted mixed with the story you needed.

Another excellent mental exercise by China Mieville, this time on the power of similes and the complications of interspecies contact.

Enough Said

If this is the future of science fiction authors, I hope that I live long enough to see the next next millennium. "Embassytown" is the best sci fi book that I've read all year. I cannot thank my friend enough for introducing me to this author. China Mieville is one the best upcoming authors that I've ever read. I dug every minute of Embassytown. Finished the book over the weekend and I couldn't wait to listen to more. Excellent sci-fi. It could not be much better. I'm hook at Mieville's madness. Like an addict, walking the streets to get another fixed, I cannot get enough of Mieville.

His style of storytelling is a cross between of Neal Stephenson and the Japanese author, Haruki Murakami. They write straight to the point and present themselves at being bizarre, which always been the norm.

This was one of the best credits that I've spent in a long time on Audible.

Enough said.

A must listen for the Sci Fi genre

Very engaging and challenging. The way the author kept the reader in the dark with the use of Language and language. Similes versus metaphors. It's like a puzzle for the reader to solve while being immersed in a story about a human colony on a alien planet. I listened to this as an audiobook. I can't imagine reading this because of terms. After a slow start, it picked up speed because I wanted to learn about the terms that drove the plot. This was a true production for an audiobook and the narrator was superb.

Science fiction for nerdy linguists.

I was skeptical walking into this, but then it turned out to be linguistic science fiction, which is my favorite kind. Full points for playing with semantics and writing an interesting story to boot.

Good Sci-fi, but lacking ... that something.

Great sci-fi, but it lacks some thing that pulls you in. This book felt like a slow roll into a conclusion. There was none of the bang and zip, that I expect from the AAA titles out there.

Narration was crisp and good, and the dual voices gave place and meaning in ways that a paper book might have stumbled though.

Not a fan - but not entirely disappointed

I am glad I listened to this as an audiobook. I would never have survived the paperback. This story takes a long time to get going and requires you to learn a new set of coloquialisms including a double speech ability. The story does become more interesting, but it hard to get into it at the beginning.

There are some interesting ideas - the houses, vehicles, weapons are all organic plants/animals that are taught to form certain objects. The idea that the native creatures can never lie is also intriguing. I was never sold on the "addiction" to a particular human pair of speakers - humans that communicate with the natives must talk at the same time which requires special brain communication.

But overall, this was work. The performance is great and made the book bareable.

Jaw dropping

This listen is truly amazing on several different levels. The mind expanding sci fi imagery is accessible and believable. It is an achievement because there is none of the explanation of the technology like most hard sci fi fans demand, but is well integrated in the plot, above and is satisfying.
The exploration of language as a main theme would generally not draw me in when I want to listen to sci-fi, but in this novel, it is brilliantly done.
Finally, it is almost an evolution of the literary sci-fi of Dan Simmons, but not as dependant on reworking older styles and themes, although there are plenty of allusions.
Before I listened to this I liked but didn't love China Mieville, but after this ....wow!
And don't get the impression the this will be an ethereal, high brow, listen. It's not. But the fact that it is so multi layered is what makes what will be a sci-fi classic.

Best of Audible SFF, May 2011

Narrated by Susan Duerden, whose previous titles include Android Karenina, China Mieville???s Embassytown is my pick for the best science fiction and fantasy title to be released at Audible.com in May 2011. Duerden ably pilots us through the dense linguistic plot, and nice production touches give listeners a flavor of the Ariekei tongue of which readers can only be jealous, mashing words on top of each other to create a truly alien effect. (Here is a short, low-fi clip of me saying ???Jeff??? and ???Chi??? overtop each other in a similar way to give ???JeffChi???.) Meanwhile the book never devolves into pointless and expansive background and detail, without leaving us truly in the dark. In short, Mieville creates an alien world and lets it breathe, with the sometimes horrific suffocation this can imply. That said, the book opens with an intimidating series of undefined terminology, and alternates chronology from ???formerly??? to the present, and is a challenging book to unravel ??? to the point of, at times, an exasperated ???what is going on???? Sticking it out, however, is plenty rewarding.

A Conceptual Story of Inter-Species Communication

Genre: Sci-Fi

Rated: PG13 for violence, strong despairing situations

Static or Dynamic: Relatively static story; there are strong plot arcs but for the most part the story has a localized concept; it's not an adventure book.

1st or 3rd Person: 1st person female

Abstract or Concrete: Leans more towards abstract. Most of the intrigue of the book is what is hypothesized about the actions that happen. The content is intellectually challenging and thrilling. You really have to think about some of the events to get a real appreciation for the book. large chunks of it are hard science but it's not the purpose of the story.

Linear or Non-Linear: Linear; the story progresses firmly down a timeline and tells a story.

Narrator: The story telling is done quite well. At parts I was a little out of touch with the reader but it's a long book and so that should be expected. Her inflections can become emotional though a lot of the story is her internal dialogue which is "cool".

Plot Outline: In a distant space port on the edge of known hyper-space, a race of creatures has a very unique way of communicating that has shaped the culture and epistemology of the local earthen colony. The story progresses as the unique barriers of the communication become more and more complicated.