The Scar

One of my friends offered me the loan of The Scar whenever I wanted to borrow it.  When I started Gravity's Rainbow I decided that The Scar would be next.  When I finally made it to the end of Gravity's Rainbow I still wanted to read it (and I had hopes that it would be less stressful).  Right before I started I learned that The Scar is part of a shared world which currently comprises three books and The Scar is the second (!) chronologically of those three.  After some reassurances from my friend that the order did not matter significantly, I embarked on the journey that was The Scar.

China Miéville has crafted a full world that he calls Bas-Lag.  There are so many different species and cultures that it feels like this is a world that has been fleshed out a lot more than just three books.  For some authors, an attempt to do something like this would seem confusing at best and at worst like the author was being needlessly complex but China Miéville pulls it off.

I have to say, the end of the book felt a little contrived but after I started to get miffed about how contrived it was, the characters started talking about how they felt certain events were a little contrived.  That made me feel better and added an interesting dimension to some of the characters.

This book has some great plot twists.  Some characters aren't who they seem and some items are not what they seem.  Allegiances are murky and twisted. I will admit that I am not one of those people that has an easy time predicting plot twists, but there were a lot of surprises for me in this book.

The places within the world that the book goes are fantastical but at the same time plausible.  The battle scenes are very well done and make me wish that there were more of them. I am sure at some point in the near future I will be reading more by him.

Overall, I would give this book a 91%.