Iron Council

New Crobuzon, Book 3

By: China Mieville

Narrated by: Gildart Jackson

Length: 21 hrs and 4 mins

Publisher's summary

Following Perdido Street Station and The Scar, acclaimed author China Miéville returns with his hugely anticipated Del Rey debut. With a fresh and fantastical band of characters, he carries us back to the decadent squalor of New Crobuzon - this time, decades later.

It is a time of wars and revolutions, conflict and intrigue. New Crobuzon is being ripped apart from without and within. War with the shadowy city-state of Tesh and rioting on the streets at home are pushing the teeming city to the brink. A mysterious masked figure spurs strange rebellion, while treachery and violence incubate in unexpected places.

In desperation, a small group of renegades escapes from the city and crosses strange and alien continents in the search for a lost hope.

In the blood and violence of New Crobuzon’s most dangerous hour, there are whispers. It is the time of the iron council…

The bold originality that broke Miéville out as a new force of the genre is here once more in Iron Council: the voluminous, lyrical novel that is destined to seal his reputation as perhaps the edgiest mythmaker of the day.

©2004 China Mieville (P)2014 Random House Audio

Critic reviews

"Continuously fascinating.... Miéville creates a world of outrageous inventiveness." ( The Denver Post)

Amazing work

A bit tangled up in the politics at times, this is still an engaging and enjoyable read/listen. Juda Low and Cutter are great characters, depth and development. This is a Mieville novel, so it is full of creative imagery and concepts. There are gems in the writing and the word play- this is well worth your time. The narrator was marvelous.

Mieville is brilliant

This is an extension of the authors’ New Crobazon universe ala Perdido Street Station or The Scar.

In general, I could do with a little less of his metaphysics and *thaumaturgy*. But his originality and brilliance are undeniable.

This title may actually encompass two or three substantial novellas linked together.

Excellent narrator.

excellent work! a great end to a great series.

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Difficult to connect to

China’s work is difficult to connect to on this one. I do realize that he takes us on a journey of the dark, strange, uncomfortable and abstract with all of his works so it might seem odd to expect to connect. However, I do find that I am normally invested in the outcome of the story for his characters and fascinated by their journeys. I made it all of the way through this book without being able to rally anything more than a mild curiosity about the story arc (which I ultimately found utterly blah) and no particular interest in any of the characters. The narration is well done if not stellar or compelling.

Very Close to the First

The first book in this trilogy was my very first introduction to China Mieville. I dug "Perdido Street Station" and read almost every book from this author after that. It took me a few years to finish New Crobuzon Trilogy because I didn't believe that he could beat "Perdido Street Station." I thought that "The Scar" was well done, but not better than the first.

After starting this series three years ago, I finally wanted to finish the train saga with "Iron Council." The last book is my favorite in this series. I think that the "Iron Council" is far better than the second and very close to the first. I liked the drama from the council,more monsters, remade, the train and realism of each characters.

Mr. Mieville has a special talent of approaching science fiction and fantasy in a different way. It's almost addicting to read any of his books.

loved the first two-- this one was a struggle

Iron Council has some clever new ideas, but its characters have less depth and less quirk than the previous two books.

Heavy hitting but ultimately a storyline miss

Written in his classic way - this story aims for lofty narrative ambitions but falls well short of China's other great works (thinking of The Scar & Perdido Street Station).

Still full with the awe and magic that runs through his work, here I found myself uncaring about the plot, lives, motivations and ultimately the fates of the characters we encounter.

While a nice addition to Bas Lag's world-building, this is a read for fans of the series, but a pass for others not initiated in the world

Quite good

I loved this book, more than Perdido St Station but much less than The Scar. It did seem like a bit of a reuse of the idea of The Scar, a mobile renegade utopia of quasi-criminals constantly on the run through the wilderness, instead of the sea. However I found this to be compelling because of Judah. His relationships and talents and demeanor seemed very real and I thought his bisexuality was well handled. We need more representation in fiction as real people, it wasn't the only character point for him as queerness sometimes can be.

Apocalypse fiction

I have a thing for apocalypses, and have wallowed in the Fallout games and the Mad Max movies as much as anybody. But I think we should rethink the genre of post-apocalypse fiction, which the afore mentioned examples tend to be classified under. I think it might be more accurate to view post-apocalypse as a sub-genre of apocalypse fiction. Stories in which The Apocalypse is the true protagonist. Iron Council with its two forerunners is a great example of this. While they are actually written as a trilogy, the concluding novel stands perfectly on its own with the two other novels as great world-building companions. Iron Council is the true master piece of the trilogy. It rubs shoulders with other great works of apocalypse fiction such as The Cage of Souls by Adrian Tchaikovsky and the Book of the New Sun series by Gene Wolfe. It is carried by melancholy and beauty and poetry and comments also on History and how we read it, with a stern look at the Great Men of History fallacy. It also gives voice to the disenfranchised and outcast and voiceless with heartbreaking consequence. This is no doubt my best read this year.

Can someone tell China to please please make more?

I can't believe China did me like that. The emotional toll on all of that betrayal. I'm mostly upset because no other series will ever be as good as the Bas Lag Trilogy and I'm beyond upset that there is no more to read (aside from a few side shorts).