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The City & The City
- Narrated by: John Lee
- Length: 10 hrs and 16 mins
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Publisher's summary
New York Times best-selling author China Miéville delivers his most accomplished novel yet, an existential thriller set in a city unlike any other, real or imagined.
When a murdered woman is found in the city of Beszel, somewhere at the edge of Europe, it looks to be a routine case for Inspector Tyador Borlú of the Extreme Crime Squad. But as he investigates, the evidence points to conspiracies far stranger and more deadly than anything he could have imagined.
Borlú must travel from the decaying Beszel to the only metropolis on Earth as strange as his own. This is a border crossing like no other, a journey as psychic as it is physical, a shift in perception, a seeing of the unseen. His destination is Beszel's equal, rival, and intimate neighbor, the rich and vibrant city of Ul Qoma.
With Ul Qoman detective Qussim Dhatt, and struggling with his own transition, Borlú is enmeshed in a sordid underworld of rabid nationalists intent on destroying their neighboring city, and unificationists who dream of dissolving the two into one. As the detectives uncover the dead woman's secrets, they begin to suspect a truth that could cost them and those they care about more than their lives.
What stands against them are murderous powers in Beszel and in Ul Qoma: and, most terrifying of all, that which lies between these two cities.
Casting shades of Kafka and Philip K. Dick, Raymond Chandler and 1984, The City & The City is a murder mystery taken to dazzling metaphysical and artistic heights.
- Hugo Award, Best Novel, 2010
Critic reviews
"Daring and disturbing...Miéville illuminates fundamental and unsettling questions about culture, governance and the shadowy differences that keep us apart." (Walter Mosley, author of Devil in a Blue Dress)
"Lots of books dabble in several genres but few manage to weld them together as seamlessly and as originally as The City and The City. In a tale set in a series of cities vertiginously layered in the same space, Miéville offers the detective novel re-envisioned through the prism of the fantastic. The result is a stunning piece of artistry that has both all the satisfactions of a good mystery and all the delight and wonder of the best fantasy.” (Brian Evenson, author of Last Days)
"Mr. Miéville's novels - seven so far - have been showered with prizes; three have won the Arthur C. Clarke award, given annually to the best science fiction novel published in Britain…. [H]e stands out from the crowd for the quality, mischievousness and erudition of his writing…. Among the many topics that bubble beneath the wild imagination at play are millennial anxiety, religious cults, the relationship between the citizen and the state and the role of fate and free will." (The New York Times)
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- Narrated by: Graham Roberts
- Length: 14 hrs and 12 mins
- Unabridged
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The bodies of four men have been discovered in the town of Bradfield. Enlisted to investigate is criminal psychologist Tony Hill. Even for a seasoned professional, the series of mutilation sex murders is unlike anything he's encountered before. But profiling the psychopath is not beyond him. Hill's own past has made him the perfect man to comprehend the killer's motives. It's also made him the perfect victim. A game has begun for the hunter and the hunted.
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The First of a Superior Series
- By Nancy J on 04-08-13
By: Val McDermid
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Babylon Berlin
- Gereon Rath, Book 1
- By: Volker Kutscher
- Narrated by: Mark Meadows
- Length: 18 hrs and 2 mins
- Unabridged
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Berlin, 1929. Detective Inspector Rath was a successful career officer in the Cologne Homicide Division before a shooting incident in which he inadvertently killed a man. He has been transferred to the vice squad in Berlin, a job he detests even though he finds a new friend in his boss, Chief Inspector Wolter. There is seething unrest in the city, and the Commissioner of Police has ordered the vice squad to ruthlessly enforce the ban on May Day demonstrations.
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It's no Bernie Gunther Mystery ...
- By Brian English on 01-28-18
By: Volker Kutscher
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The Blood Strand
- Foroyar Triology, Book 1
- By: Chris Ould
- Narrated by: Matt Addis
- Length: 11 hrs and 8 mins
- Unabridged
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Jan Reyna is a murder squad detective, British by adoption and choice, Faroese by birth and history. Called back to the remote Danish Faroe Islands when his father suffers a paralysing stroke, Reyna is forced to reexamine his decades-long rejection of the past and of his father in particular. But in this now-foreign country, whose language and customs he no longer understands, Reyna is also drawn into a rare Faroese murder case.
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excellent first book
- By Dr. William J. Kass on 03-22-16
By: Chris Ould
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Sleepyhead
- Thomas Thorne, Book 1
- By: Mark Billingham
- Narrated by: Simon Prebble
- Length: 10 hrs and 32 mins
- Unabridged
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Alison Willetts is unlucky to be alive. She has survived a stroke, deliberately induced by a skilful manipulation of pressure points on the head and neck. She can see, hear and feel and is aware of everything going on around her, but is completely unable to move or communicate. Her condition is called Locked-In Syndrome.
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Sort of a dark tale
- By Kathi on 02-13-14
By: Mark Billingham
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The Best of Our Spies
- Spy Masters, Book 1
- By: Alex Gerlis
- Narrated by: John Lee
- Length: 15 hrs and 56 mins
- Unabridged
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France, July 1944: a month after the Allied landings in Normandy, and the liberation of Europe is under way. In the Pas-de-Calais, Nathalie Mercier, a young British Special Operations executive secret agent working with the French Resistance, disappears. In London, her husband, Owen Quinn, an officer with Royal Navy Intelligence, discovers the truth about her role in the Allies' sophisticated deception at the heart of D-Day.
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The Best Kind of Spy Story
- By Linda Hanson on 01-11-16
By: Alex Gerlis
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Killing the Shadows
- By: Val McDermid
- Narrated by: Vari Sylvester
- Length: 16 hrs and 23 mins
- Unabridged
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Performance
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A killer is on the loose, blurring the line between fact and fiction. His prey - the writers of crime novels who have turned psychological profilers into the heroes of the nineties. But this killer is like no other. His bloodlust shatters all the conventional wisdom surrounding the motives and mechanics of how serial killers operate. And for one woman, the desperate hunt to uncover his identity becomes a matter of life and death.
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Too much
- By RITTAM! on 04-02-10
By: Val McDermid
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A Feast of Carrion
- By: Keith McCarthy
- Narrated by: Sean Barrett
- Length: 13 hrs and 26 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
St Benjamin's Medical School is the greatest of its kind, any death occurring within its walls would have created ripples within the academic world, but the death of Nikki Exner is far from being ordinary. Raped, and then grotesquely executed, her theatrical murder horrifies everyone. John Eisenmenger, a former forensic pathologist, finds himself dragged unwillingly into the case. Teaming up with solicitor Helena Flemming, Eisenmenger sets out to discover what really did happen to Nikki Exner.
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excellent book
- By Yves on 06-27-09
By: Keith McCarthy
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Reconstruction
- By: Mick Herron
- Narrated by: Julia Franklin
- Length: 12 hrs and 55 mins
- Unabridged
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Story
When a young man breaks into South Oxford Nursery School with a gun and takes a group of hostages, teacher Louise Kennedy is fearful. But Jaime Segura isn’t there on a homicidal mission. Bad Sam Chapman - head of the intelligence service’s internal security force, the Dogs - tries to find out what Jaime is after. But the only person Jaime will talk to is Ben Whistler, an MI6 colleague of Jaime’s lover, Miro - who has gone missing with a quarter of a billion pounds....
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worst reader ever
- By mimz on 06-25-21
By: Mick Herron
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Going Grey
- Ringer, Book 1
- By: Karen Traviss
- Narrated by: Euan Morton
- Length: 22 hrs and 16 mins
- Unabridged
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Performance
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Story
Ian isn't crazy. Life would be a lot simpler if he was. He's eighteen, on the run, and scared - the shape-shifting delusions he's had since childhood have turned out to be real. He's the result of a dynamic mimicry project intended to help undercover agents "go grey" and blend in unnoticed. Now the biotech company wants its property back, and the only people he can trust are two private military contractors sent to find him...
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Oddly wonderful
- By Barbara Kindle Customer on 08-24-15
By: Karen Traviss
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Unwanted
- By: Kristina Ohlsson
- Narrated by: Justine Eyre
- Length: 11 hrs and 8 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
In the middle of a rainy Swedish summer, a little girl is abducted from a crowded train. Her distraught mother was left behind at the previous station in what seemed to be a coincidence. The train crew was alerted and kept a watchful eye on the sleeping child. But when the train pulled into Stockholm Central Station, the little girl had vanished. Inspector Alex Recht, assisted by the investigative analyst Fredrika Bergman, are assigned to what at first appears to be a classic custody fight. But then the child is found dead....
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Don't Judge by Previous Reviews
- By Georgeanne Mcilveene on 01-12-15
By: Kristina Ohlsson
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Zoo Station
- John Russell WWII Spy, Book 1
- By: David Downing
- Narrated by: Simon Prebble
- Length: 10 hrs and 1 min
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
By 1939, Anglo-American journalist John Russell has spent over a decade in Berlin, where his son lives with his mother. He writes human-interest pieces for British and American papers, avoiding the investigative journalism that could get him deported. But as World War II approaches, he faces having to leave his son as well as his girlfriend of several years, a beautiful German starlet. When an acquaintance from his old communist days approaches him to do some work for the Soviets, Russell is reluctant, but he is unable to resist the offer.
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Overall great listen!
- By Patricia on 02-28-24
By: David Downing
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Dangerous Games
- Sinclair & McCallum, Book 1
- By: Michael Prescott
- Narrated by: Suehyla El Attar
- Length: 10 hrs and 59 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
A killer is using labyrinthine storm drains to dispose of his victims, who are found handcuffed and drowned, washed out of the rain-filled drainage lines like garbage. The crimes compel FBI Agent Tess McCallum to crack the case, but they're touching a nerve in Personal Security Consultant Abby Sinclair. She fears it's the same madman who invaded her nightmares once before. As the two women work with each other to solve the case, tensions rise and tempers flare. And as sure as the rain, a new killing season begins.
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A thrilling ride with great characters!
- By Aaron P. Lazar on 08-20-12
By: Michael Prescott
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By: Keanu Reeves, and others
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In a remote house on a hilltop, a lonely boy witnesses a profoundly traumatic event. He tries - and fails - to flee. Left alone with his increasingly deranged parent, he dreams of safety, of joining the other children in the town below, of escape. When at last a stranger knocks at his door, the boy senses that his days of isolation might be over. But by what authority does this man keep the meticulous records he carries? What is the purpose behind his questions? Is he friend? Enemy? Or something else altogether?
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Only Feeding the Darkness
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It was not common to awaken in a cloning vat streaked with drying blood. At least Maria Arena had never experienced it. She had no memory of how she died. That was also new; before, when she had awakened as a new clone, her first memory was of how she died. Maria's vat was in the front of six vats, each one holding the clone of a crew member of the starship Dormire, each clone waiting for its previous incarnation to die so it could awaken. And Maria wasn't the only one to die recently....
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I can't listen to this.
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Can living artwork die?
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Sanda and Biran Greeve were siblings destined for greatness. A high-flying sergeant, Sanda has the skills to take down any enemy combatant. Biran is a savvy politician who aims to use his new political position to prevent conflict from escalating to total destruction. However, on a routine maneuver, Sanda loses consciousness when her gunship is blown out of the sky. Instead of finding herself in friendly hands, she awakens 230 years later on a deserted enemy warship controlled by an AI who calls himself Bero. The war is lost.
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Romance Novel with a Science Fiction Setting
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Three Moments of an Explosion
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London awakes one morning to find itself besieged by a sky full of floating icebergs. Destroyed oil rigs, mysteriously reborn, clamber from the sea and onto the land, driven by an obscure purpose. An anatomy student cuts open a cadaver to discover impossibly intricate designs carved into a corpse’s bones—designs clearly present from birth, bearing mute testimony to . . . what?
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Reading Miéville is both Delicious AND Disturbing
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Looking for Jake
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What William Gibson did for science fiction, China Miéville has done for fantasy, shattering old paradigms with fiercely imaginative works of startling, often shocking, intensity. Now from this brilliant writer comes a groundbreaking collection of stories, many of them previously unavailable in the United States, and including four never-before-published tales - one set in Miéville’s signature fantasy world of New Crobuzon.
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Graze Into It
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By: China Miéville
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Do You Dream of Terra-Two?
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A century ago, scientists theorised that a habitable planet existed in a nearby solar system. Today, 10 astronauts will leave a dying Earth to find it. Four are decorated veterans of the 20th century’s space race. And six are teenagers, graduates of the exclusive Dalton Academy, who’ve been in training for this mission for most of their lives. It will take the team 23 years to reach Terra-Two. Twenty-three years spent in close quarters. Twenty-three years with no-one to rely on but each other. Twenty-three years with no rescue possible, should something go wrong.
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Terrible
- By Stephen on 01-12-19
By: Temi Oh
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The Scourge Between Stars
- By: Ness Brown
- Narrated by: Bahni Turpin
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Performance
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As acting captain of the starship Calypso, Jacklyn Albright is responsible for keeping the last of humanity alive as they limp back to Earth from their forebears’ failed colony on a distant planet. Faced with constant threats of starvation and destruction in the treacherous minefield of interstellar space, Jacklyn's crew has reached their breaking point. As unrest begins to spread throughout the ship’s Wards, a new threat emerges, picking off crew members in grim, bloody fashion.
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Great job!
- By Anonymous User on 04-19-23
By: Ness Brown
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Among Others
- By: Jo Walton
- Narrated by: Katherine Kellgren
- Length: 10 hrs and 36 mins
- Unabridged
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Startling, unusual, and yet irresistably readable, Among Others is at once the compelling story of a young woman struggling to escape a troubled childhood, a brilliant diary of first encounters with the great novels of modern fantasy and SF, and a spellbinding tale of escape from ancient enchantment.
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Subtle Character Piece
- By Eoin on 09-15-11
By: Jo Walton
What listeners say about The City & The City
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- Robert
- 01-27-13
Reviews, Dishonesty and The Emperor's New Clothes
From time to time, I have felt the urge to bump up a book’s rating for the wrong reasons. In fact, I now feel guilty, the urge to come clean and say a little more about it.
There were those innocent occasions when I felt that a book deserved better than I wanted to give it because I just didn’t care for the book though I recognized that others might have and it deserved “a nod.” However, there were also those other times, admittedly fewer times but times nonetheless, when I kicked a rating or two up a notch because I thought I might otherwise appear unlettered, unread or unsophisticated. Reviewers, who not only I but many others respected, might have had nothing but praise for a particular book and I knew I would appear foolish if I did not enthusiastically or passionately praise a particular book; I could not do that but I had to at least award it a decent number of stars.
It cannot compare to how foolish the feeling is now admitting to that deceit and dishonesty.
I am probably guilty of little harm or foul of significance in this forum. There are so many reviewers / reviews and I’m surprised when anyone even reads one of mine. But I also write reviews for myself. I write them in an attempt to improve my writing skills. I sometimes gain additional insight into a book by writing a review. I sometimes gain insight into myself: If I am not honest about a book, I am not being honest with myself.
My feeling about China Mieville’s The City and The City is lukewarm at best. The premise of two cities occupying virtually the same space but “unseen” by each other sounds intriguing enough but the “unseeing,” “unhearing” and yes, especially the “unsmelling” gets a tad old after awhile. Actually, it didn’t work much for me at all.
What premise that has worked for me is the one proposed by Michio Kaku in Parallel Worlds of actual parallel universes. Here is a thrilling journey into multidimensional space that requires no suspension of “unbelief.” These are cities, nay universes that might exist everywhere within centimeters of each other. And the most intriguing premise is that it might just all be true.
What I also particularly appreciated about Kaku’s work was the cosmological and even religious implications, a discussion of which by the author has the ability to bend the reader’s mind. We get little of that from Mieville. Instead, for me, the piece comes across as shallow, pulp fiction with a noir device that was not always brilliantly executed. It seems a bit smelly to me when the detective has a Columbo-esque moment and has to explain and summarize the whole crime to the audience; when all the details don’t just naturally unfold to the reader within the storyline itself. And I’m sure there were a few, maybe even several memorable quotes from the book but for the life of me, I cannot remember one.
But dang, there were all those awards the book received. What am I to do with them? Could I possibly give this book only a couple of stars? Shoot, let’s just round it up, give the damn thing 3 stars and call it good. Now that wouldn’t be dishonest, would it? I told you what I did! Yeah it would be dishonest. I really didn’t care much for this book. I read Perdido Street Station (2000) and this (tC&tC 2009) is no Perdido Street Station. Is it fair to always compare back in time to an author’s earlier work? I think that it is when much later works don’t seem to tread water, let alone get better. Sorry folks and sorry China. I just haven’t been impressed with the emperor’s newer clothes.
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- James
- 11-22-09
Interesting Premise
This is a very creative book. It doesn't really fit into any genre easily. It is a detective story, it is a political thriller, it is a bit of science fiction. It is actually none of those things and all of them at the same time. Imagine two peoples sharing the same physical space (a former eastern bloc city) yet living entirely apart - ignoring each other, pretending that the other does not exist. Then imagine a murder that seems to cross these carefully defended boundaries. That is the premise of The City & The City and it is extremely well-executed.
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Overall
- Jennifer
- 06-05-09
Fascinating
Brilliant -- indeed an urban fantasy. Mieville creates an utterly plausible (sur)reality which is grounded in ordinary details. The landscape and the lexicon are fascinating, and that makes an intriguing backdrop to an otherwise fairly standard police procedural. At times the setting takes precedence, and at times the action takes precedence. There's a fine balance here which Mieville masters.
The narration is excellent. John Lee does a great job with the fictitious language and the cast of characters.
It's a book that needs a second listen in order to catch all the nuances that one misses the first time around. Well worth the listen at however many credits.
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- Carl
- 09-11-12
Genre defying conspiracy fiction
Genre: Fiction,, mystery, semi-real world (On earth in a fictional geographically nonspecific European country)
Rated: PG13: A lot of cussing, no sex, some violence
Static or Dynamic: Dynamic; this is an active mystery in a society with very strange social rules that enhance and complicate the story.
1st or 3rd Person: 1st person: our chief male detective of the extreme crime squad
Abstract or Concrete: Abstract heavy. The book is placed in two countries that border each other. The citizens in each country must ignore the happenings of the other country, literally, even if they are feet away or they get black bagged by a power called Breach. The book centralizes on the theme of selective ignorance and how it has shaped the two countries that the concept revolves around. The concept is heavily present and thoroughly intriguing. I've never felt so intrigued about a story before. This is right up there with the Matrix, and V for Vendetta though it's got a much more classy feel than either of those.
Linear or Non-Linear: Linear, it's a complexly straightforward murder mystery.
Narrator: John Lee is my favorite voice actor and he did a wonderful performance reading this book. His voice captures the rich character behind our protagonist and he successfully makes the anxious moments of the story feel that way.
Plot Outline: The book might be characterized as what a cold war would physically look like in a cultural sense. Each country has vastly different politics, both reminiscent of a communist and capitalist system though that's not heavily stressed. The residents of the two cities live right next to one another but must pretend that anyone they see on the other side doesn't exist. The illustration of this is wonderfully employed when a murder in one city, has results in the other. The quest becomes tenuous as our inspector has to navigate the jurisdictional hooplah involved in the alien governments. I loved this book and have listened to it twice now. I'm sure that I will listen to it again with the same amount of entertainment. Parts of it are simply too intriguing not to poor over and other parts of it are spooky in the way that well contrived conspiracy theories can be.
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- Ryan
- 10-15-11
A well-realized allegory on division
The City and the City is built around a surreal but interesting premise. Somewhere in eastern Europe is a country called Beszel. Occupying the same physical space, but existing in some sort of overlapping alternate reality is another country called Ul Quma. Citizens of both lands take great pains to avoid interacting across the boundary, to the point of stopping themselves from even seeing each other. If anyone does, a shadowy, powerful organization known as Breach will take that person into custody, with dark, unknown consequences. Some people, including the graduate student whose slaying begins the book, believe in a mythical "third city", but this isn't discussed too loudly.
Within this scenario, Mieville crafts a skillful murder mystery, whose trail of clues soon leads his middle-aged detective narrator towards what appears a larger cross-border conspiracy. Mieville does a fine job of giving his two cities individual personalities, and the various factions and characters within them a gritty, urban realism. Through his careful attention to detail, it becomes easy to imagine two places (or not) where there's a colossal elephant in the room that affects everything, but no one can agree what to do about it, or even that the room would be better off without the elephant, so people find ways to unsee it. As with Orwell's Big Brother, it's unclear how much of Breach's power resides in the real world and how much of it is in citizens' minds. Sound like anything you're familiar with?
I ask that question because this is a work that requires a certain investment from readers. Without a doubt, those attempting to take this novel as straight-up science fiction or fantasy are going to be baffled and disappointed. It???s much more of a metaphorical work, akin to Kafka, whose odd alternate reality is a distorted mirror of the real world. If literary symbolism is your thing, this would be a fun one to share and ponder with a like-minded friend or two (I don???t believe the message is as straightforward as ???rich versus poor???, as some reviewers seem to think)
That said, I was a bit disappointed by the ending. It felt rushed, as though the author had decided to move on to other things, and to write the most efficient conclusion. I would have liked a little more tidying up of loose ends. Also, in comparison to Perdido Street Station, I found the tone and manner of the City and the City a bit restrained. While this is undoubtedly the more mature work, the writing and characters simply aren???t as colorful, and I missed that a little.
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- Charlene
- 07-29-09
not for the casual listener
I'm sure this is a great book, as the reviews suggest, but I tend to listen to audiobooks while doing other things and I found that it was very easy to miss things in this recording. It seems like a dense 'read' that you need to pay attention to in order to appreciate. I usually like urban fantasy and mysteries (I love the Dresden files, for example) but I just couldn't get into this.
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- J
- 10-31-09
Incredible, great stuff, complex
It took me a while to figure out what was going on but once you get the hang of it and hour or two in this is a wonderful, imaginative complex sci-fi detective story with great characters and superb narration. recommended
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- Elizabeth Mcalister
- 05-10-10
What a wonderful book!
This book's main character would be right at home in a Henning Mankell or Elizabeth George noir detective novel, intense, brooding, and intelligent, it is clear that his work is the focus of his life. The book however, is very different from a classic detective novel because of the wonderful, intensely strange cities in which it is set. Without going into too much detail, which would spoil the lovely sense of discovery the reader experiences as initial confusion changes to awestruck fascination with this amazing imaginary city. The book is literate, exciting, and so amazingly creativeI I was sad to see it come to an end. and I immediately looked for everything else China Mieville has written. The reader, John Lee, also deserves kudos for bringing the book so vividly to life. First rate.
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- Jack Q W
- 08-10-09
Enthralling
Very well read by John Lee, this audiobook will not only keep you interested through brilliant suspense, but will also tickle your intellect with its fascinating forays into anthropology and the power of human beings to shape themselves to fit their environment -- even when they've made that environment themselves.
Way more fun than reading Foucault, but much more interesting than your average suspense novel.
It's so full of interesting words, however, I really wish I could see how they were spelled...
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- LeeAnn
- 04-13-10
Very disappointing
I was so disappointed in this book. Its hard to believe that it was written by the same person as "Perdido Street Station" and "The Scar"! Those were both amazingly creative and imaginative books. This one really fell short.
The basic idea is that there are groups of people living right beside us who we don't see or we "un-see". Think, for example, of the homeless, or people of different colour or culture. Mr. Mieville takes this observation of human nature and tries to build a whole book around it about two different countries that live enmeshed together. They're not in different dimensions or anything like that, just that you're not allowed to look at the other guy. Maybe it would have worked for a short story, but the observation is too thin to support a whole book.
Too much of the book is taken up with describing the efforts of characters to "un-see" or "un-know" the other country. He seems to be so caught up in the the un-seeing that it seems to overwhelm the whole book and got very tiring.
The policing of this separation is "The Breach" which is a shadowing presence. There is some potential here, but he never really develops it. Everyone is terrified of Breach, but this fear seems to hang in the middle of nothing: unexplained and unbelievable. Breach turns out to be as unremarkable as the rest of the world he has created. Neither the history nor the rationale for the separation are explained.
The nominal plot is a murder mystery, but even there it falls short. The ending is abrupt and ultimately unfulfilling. Even the ending is consumed with descriptions of "un-seeing" and scandalously walking from one side of the street to the other side!
I finished the book, but I'm so very disappointed!! China Mieville was really one of my favorites, but I don't think I'll buy any more of his books.
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