The City & The City

By: China Mieville

Narrated by: John Lee

Length: 10 hrs and 16 mins

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

©2009 China Mieville (P)2009 Random House

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)

Wow! Intelligent Story

The overlaying of City’s! Where, when and how? The mystery of a secret place that is right before us, but unseen.
Seeing is believing.

Loved my time in this world

Amazing book. The world created is a genuine escape. If you are looking for something that will take you away this is it. Not an easy light read. Full immersion

My new favorite book

The twists and turns, and the in-between, and both sides. Crime story, but more.

China at his best

He blends multiple genres of storytelling into one enthralling story. I’ve read it multiple times over the years.

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.

One of those books that stays with you forever.

This is one of the best books of any genre I have read in years - lucky, as it is nigh-on unclassifiable. It mixes tropes from alt-history, sci-fi, fantasy and crime, without being rooted in any of them.
Saying too much would spoil the surprise; suffice it to say that the central conceit is so carefully introduced and handled that it made me gasp the first time I saw it in its entirety, and it is a testament to Mieville's skill as a writer that he keeps building on that premise without ever making the edifice crumble. It is a powerful allegory for the life of any city-dweller.

The narration by John Lee is also flawless, an after listening to Kraken and Perdido Street Station by the same author and narrator, I can't imagine anyone else as the voice of Mievilles fiction.

Unusual

The story was unusual and I really enjoyed listening to this excellent performance. I have listened to close to a hundred audio books and this was one of the very enjoyable ones.

City and the City was outstanding

I really enjoyed this book. It was well written, the plot was original, the characters compelling and the end was satisfying. The author did such an excellent job building the unique landscape of the story. The story itself is a little complex and not for someone looking for a light plot. I also love the parallels that can be drawn with other border and immigration issues that we encounter around the world.
This book would make a great movie!

Brilliant police procedural...with a twist

An excellent reading of an excellent book. A police procedural set in two fictional Central European city-states that share one strangeness. It’s a brilliant, beautiful novel that examines in detail the human capacity to not notice things one is motivated not to notice. Don’t read a description before reading or listening. You don’t want the strangeness spoiled.

interesting ideas about the social construction of

very interesting subtext and high concept. our society is no less socially constructed. I also like that there is no silly tech