[trentdick2882]

The reason I'd say Isaac is that one, she seems to recall him pretty fondly in The Scar, maybe she regrets the break-up. And also she doesn't seem to mention anyone else from PSS more than him. Maybe she wanted the letter to go to Isaac, and the only reason she says it's not to a particular person is that she knows he probably won't get it. Unreliable narrator...

[Nimea]

Guess what. I finished The Scar. ;)

Just like Perdido Street Station, The Scar gets four out of five stars from me. Yet, in the end I did enjoy PSS just a tad more.
What I definitely liked about The Scar was the city. What a wonderful idea! And the possibility mining is just as interesting as the crisis theory discussed in PSS. And yes, I got into the book much quicker, the writing took me in more from the start on.

Yet . . . I liked the whole atmosphere of PSS better as well as the characters. Even if Bellis was done greatly (and in a tragic way that I really liked in the end), Tanner Sack and Shek were interesting as well and a lot of side characters gave the whole story a good flavour . . . it did not catch me that much. Hard to explain.

The end left me a bit wanting. Fortunately the last part of the letter made it easier on me, I somehow felt unsatisfied. What were Uther’s interests? What exactly did he do and – again – why?
Before Hedrigall left he talked to Silas . . . so? Not explained at all. Loose end.

I am glad to hear that people think that reading The Scar without reading PSS before does not really matter. I personally thought that it was much better with PSS first. This way I knew what cactacae and khepri and New Crobuzon really are. I felt that decent descriptions of the races were missing. And only when you have read PSS you can really understand all the talk about this big and great city, about its power, its rulers, its militia – at least IMHO.

And I was left somewhat irritated by the connection between Bellis and Isaac. First, I can’t really imagine those two as lovers. Second, I sometimes felt that this past relationship was only there to give Bellis a reason to flee New Crobuzon and to mention the crisis theory – that kind of felt . . . mmh, flat? I am not really sure whether or not I see it as a real flaw.

About the letter: I liked that a lot. Very well used, I think.
But as Bellis said and wrote herself, it was not addressed at someone specific – and see my ramblings above, I doubt that it would be for Isaac! – and this makes it even more fascinating. A ‘possible letter’! At first you wonder to whom she writes. Than you kind of pity her when she explains it to Uther. But in the end . . . well, those two last pages really got me hooked. ;)

Oh, and in the matter of Ghosthead and the Scar I am with Eventine and Erfael.

:)

[Erfael]

The Scar is my first Mieville. I have to say, I was a little concerned about going for The Scar before PSS, though I now feel that The Scar stands well enough on its own for my tastes, with a few exceptions. I still haven't read PSS; it will probably come a few months down the line now.

I think the world of Bas Lag is a very interesting mix of people and places. I can't really think of any inhabitants of the world that struck me as being very similar to other things I have read. I dealt very well with some of the inhabitants and less well with others.

I found the mosquito people and their implied history, the Malarial Queendom, very interesting as one of the races that seemed to get the most detail in The Scar. I also found the cray a good addition to a story set on the sea as a potential for giving perspective from both below the surface and as native water-dwellers. Though after their introduction, which i thought very good, Meiville doesn't use the cray in any way. Tanner eventually filled the role of the eyes below the water, but from an alien perspective, though perhaps that is what Mieville was going for in that regard. The khepri played a very small role.

I also thought the Remade, as presented as a slave race in NC society and as free workers in Armadan society were well portrayed. It said something about people living up to expectations and the role society casts for them. NC cast them as mutants and criminals to be subjugated, and that is what their role became there. Armada cast them as people with various abilities above and beyond those of their basic human comrades and as free workers, and I was left with the impression, mostly through Tanner, that they were the most loyal and hardworking of the bunch due to the chance and trust given to them by Armada.

The one race that I had a problem with were the cactus men. Perhas Mieville goes into more detail about them in PSS, but I found the descriptions a little lacking in The Scar. Throughout the book, I couldn't get over the vision of all of these fairly well-realized races wandering around with occasional Looney Tunes-esque Saguaro men walking around. There was never a very good description of them in The Scar, and regardless of what work I would do on my own to try to give myself an appropriate mental concept of them, every time one would come onto the scene, Mieville wouldn't give me anything in the text to allow me to hold onto that vision. The closest I ever came to getting the cactus people was when Hedrigall came back after his absence and seemed greyed out in the thorns and somehow old.


The characterization of Armada worked well for me, generally, as a city. The different factions and districts of the city seemed very well realized to me. I came away with a good idea of who was the power of the city and how it functioned. Something that I considered a bit of a letdown, though, was the almost complete absence of the sea as a character. So often it was as if the sea didn't even exist. I could understand that gradually the people on board Armada get to the point where they see it as matter of course, but to the recently press-ganged, those not used to it, the sea is a massive force that needs to be reckoned with.


I thought the story itself was acceptable. The POV characters seemed to work very well to bring everything together, though it left me with many questions at the end. I didn't have a problem with the questions that I had at the end because Mieville was very good about sticking to the same POV characters throughout. There was no reason different POV characters should be introduced at the end, and there's no reason the other characters would have explained themselves to either Bellis or Tanner. I think the questions I was left with would be the exact questions that Bellis and Tanner would be left with by the end of things.

As far as the letter was concerned, I fully believe Bellis when she says she has no idea who it would be going to. I don't know Isaac, so I can't make any calls from that perspective, but I see the letter as a way to keep that connection to NC that Bellis so deparately wants. She refuses initially to make any connection with anyone outside of her home town. By the end, I think she realizes what's important and is perfectly willing to consider that other people outside of NC could be considered friends and receive the letter.

Okay....I'll stop this thread and start another with some more of my thoughts on some particular topics. Erf.

[Erfael]

One thing that gave me quite a bit to think about as I read the book were people's names. There was such an interesting mix of different styles of names in The Scar. For me, this helped to give the world some extra depth. Regardless of what an author tries to do, many names will contain syllables that mean something or histories that mean something to readers. It seems to me that Mieville embraced this and used it to his advantage in his naming.

Some examples (some of this may be my own inventiveness, but it is how it came across to me):

Bellis Coldwine - For me, this name works very well for this character. Latin, belli means war. Cold at the beginning of the surname gives me the impression of an emotionally cold person. Both of these fit Bellis very well for me as it seems to completely encapsulte her personality in those two words. She is very standoffish and refuses to allow herself to get emotionally close to anyone around her.


Tanner Sack - Tanner reminds me of the tradition for tradesfolk to take on the name of their profession, and for me that includes a certain connotation of hard work and dedication. Again, I fell this fits Tanner very well as the hard working, loyal engineer under the waves.


Uther Doul - I can't help but have the thought of Uther Pendragon come along with this name, a kingly powerful name. Even before knowing his background, my thought for the last name, Doul, was that it rhymes with ghoul. That coupled with the initial descriptions of Uther in his grey armor and very serious cold depictions seemed to fit perfectly with his background as a super powerful fighter and former resident of the deadlands(forget their real name now).


Tintinnabulum - tintinnabulations, the ringing of little bells. I just liked this one. I didn't find anything in his character that necessarily reflected this, but it is a very latin sounding name to me.

Johannes Tearfly - Tearfly is a naturalist that works with animals. The name always helped to remind me of who exactly he was and what he was doing there.

Hedrigall - Seems a very norse-inspired name to me, which, again, fit with the sort of noble loyal troop descriptions that this character received.


Okay...tired now...only one more thing.


Nimea, the questions you were left with were pretty much the same ones that I had, but, again, I feel that since Bellis and Tanner had no knowledge of the answers it would have been even stranger for me to have some strange exposition of the facts come out somewhere to explain it all to them. This story was told from the perspective of the pawns, not the people making the decisions and pulling the strings. We only found out what they needed to find out to accomplish what was done, which was one of the things I found most interesting about it.

Erf.

[Nimea]

Erfael,
you are quite right. Yet, still I feel hanging in the air without those answers. Fortunately the letter at the end - as I tried to say before - made me feel okay with the ending.


Oh, and: Read PSS and you will know exactly what the cactus people are like! As I stated before, I felt those descriptions were missing and that was a really negative point.

About your interpretations of the names: wow! I had similar thoughts on Coldwine and Uther but would never have seen it all so clear. Very good statement!

:)

[Erfael]

One of the most common things in fantasy literature is the presence of a hero, someone who gets the job done when it needs to be done through leadership, strength, and force of will. By hero, I don't mean the main point of view character or the protagonist necessarily, though these people are usually very good candidates. I am curious to know who people think of as the hero in The Scar. I have a definite opinion, but I will keep it out of this one for now. I'll give it time to stew a day or two before presenting my opinion on the matter.

An example from The Hobbit, hopefully without leading everyone to my answer in the process:

HOBBIT SPOILER WARNING (is this really necessary?)
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Bilbo Baggins is not the hero of The Hobbit. Bilbo Baggins is the protagonist and POV character for The Hobbit. Bilbo does get the things done that he needs to get done, but almost never through heroic means. The means that Bilbo uses are those of a traditional trickster character. He is occasionally brave, but usually not. His acheivements are made through cunning and trickery -- invisibility rings(Smaug's lair), stall tactics(trolls), word games(Gollum), sneaking about(frequently), clever ploys(barrel escape).

There is no way that Tolkien could have used Bilbo to kill Smaug. Bilbo is simply not that kind of character. So Tolkien had to introduce a true hero character to kill Smaug. This was done through the use of Bard and his arrow, a man with skills and special abilities or magical items that is present when the time comes to do the job. Bilbo certainly facilitated the act by sending word to Bard that there was a weak spot in Smaug's underside, but it was up to the hero character to ultimately see it through.

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END HOBBIT SPOILER

So, it may be an easy question, maybe not: Who do we think is the hero of The Scar?

I'll try to be patient before I put mine down. Erf.

[trentdick2882]

I'd say there were multiple hero characters in the Scar. I would definitely consider Uther Doul one, as well as Tanner Sack. They both did what needed to be done from their point of view. Bellis was an odd character to be chosen as the main character, since she is basically used by others the entire book, never really having conviction about anything except not wanting to be there.

[Nimea]

Well, one could debate the definition of 'hero' . . . even in your Hobbit-example. ;)

And for my taste (or better: my definition of a hero) none was to be found on all the 800 pages . . . not a negative criteria.
Not knowing all the facts, all the background on which some people acted - can one really give those characters the title of 'hero'? Especially Uther Doul . . .

About Tanner Sack - well, having a second thought: on him I would have to ponder some more.

:)

[Terazed]

Based on my reading of PSS and 'The Scar' I think that Mieville is not interested in creating heros in his novels. He definately spends his time creating antheroic characters. His novels are heavily politically weighted. I think I creates his characters to fit into this politcal world and to make a point rather then to be traditionally heroic. I think he created Bellis more as a bitter comment of how a naive idealist winds up being used again and again to further others' political agendas. That Bellis could see through the subtrifuge and was still coerced into acting as an agent for someone else is again a political comment along the same lines. Every last character in 'The Scar' is being manipulated by someone else's definition of what the truth is.
If you asked me which character was the one that "got the job done" as the definition of who the hero was, I would tell you that no one did. In the end of the novel the political system remains unchanged. While the current crisis was resolved there was no change in the system that would allow idealogs to gain a monopolistic control over the system and over the ideas expressed and thus another similar disaster will always be waiting in the wings.

[FicusFan]

I agree there is no real hero in The Scar, or PSS, he did it on purpose. I think he also set out to avoid likeable characters (more in The Scar than in PSS) because he does not think that you should always be comforted or have an easy experience when reading.

It is funny that someone used The Hobbit as an example of the hero, because one of the authors CM detests is Tolkien. He trashed him in a Locus interview, he also took on those who have created the fantasy industry in his image, but he rejects Tolkien's view that fantasy should serve as a consolation to those who read it. When I saw CM he talked about a lot of this, so it was no flash in the pan or misquote. He also dislikes humorous fantasy of any kind, regardless of how well done. He feels it is the author laughing over the heads of his characters and winking at the readers.

Then there is the socialism, which is out in the open in King Rat, but I suspect buried in both The Scar and PSS. I had the feeling when I was reading that The Armada was actually capitalism.