Un Lun Dun by China Mieville
May. 3rd, 2008 01:18 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
quippeThe Blurb On The Back:
"UnLondon is at war. We're under attack. And it's been written, for centuries, that you will come back and save us."
Stubmling through a secret entrance, Zanna and Deeba enter the strange wonderland of UnLondon. Here all the lost and broken things of London end up, and some of its people too - including Brokkenbroll, boss of the broken umbrellas, and Hemi the half-ghost boy.
But the two girls have arrived at dangerous times. UnLondon is a place where words are alive, where a jungle lurks behind the door of an ordinary house, where carnivorous giraffes stalk the streets ... and a sinister cloud called Smog is bent on destruction. It's a frightened city in need of a hero.
From a slow start, China Mieville has created a brilliant YA fantasy that subverts the traditional elements of the genre, most notably the idea that only a person ordained by prophecy can defeat a Big Bad, fantastical worlds only accessible through special portals and that only pretty blonde girls get to be the hero.
Weird things start happening to pretty, blonde Zanna - foxes stare at her, clouds form into her face and strangers call her the Shwazzy. Neither she nor her best friend Deeba know what's going on, but when they realise that a broken umbrella is watching them one night, they follow it and find themselves in the parallel world of UnLondon. There they discover that Zanna is the Shwazzy, the only person able to defeat the Smog, a cloud of noxious gas intent on dominating and destroying both UnLondon and London. But just as Zanna's starting to discover abilities she never knew she had, she's unexpectedly defeated in her first battle with the Smog and forced to return to London. Someone has to help UnLondon if it is to survive, and Deeba steps up to the plate. But she's not the Shwazzy, so what good can she possibly do?
The scale of Mieville's imagination blew me away. His UnLondon has enough elements of London to be familiar (double-decker buses, markets, even a version of the London Eye) but he mixes it with the surreal, including cannibal giraffes, roof-runners who never get more than a foot above the ground, strange houses constructed from rubbish. He uses puns (always an element of YA and children's fiction) to great effect and if you need only one reason to reason to read this book, let it be the binjas. He also includes a political message, tying in London's government to the events happening in UnLondon and there's a distinctly anti-authoritarian feel to the text with the motivation of political leaders and even the book of prophecy all being questioned.
Mieville illustrates his own text and the drawings are evocative and help flesh out his world. Deeba is a very human heroine, brave because she needs to be and prone to self-doubt. I particularly liked the scene where she refuses to jump through the normal prophecy hoops to save UnLondon. She's given an interesting team of helpers, particularly Hemi the half-ghost boy who sees shoplifting as extreme shopping and Jones the bus conductor and I loved Curdle the milk carton. If I had a quibble it's with the fact that those helpers she does lose haven't quite been in the book long enough for it to have a big emotional impact.
The book does have a slow build-up, which might put off some readers, but the chapters are kept short and there are some wonderfully written scenes - my favourite being one with a spider called the Black Window, which is very creepy. Mieville leaves the book with an opening for a sequel and I would love to see more of the world he's created.
The Verdict:
Really, really good. Mieville has taken the traditional elements of YA fantasy and subverted them to create something original, entertaining and with a political message that will make people think. So far, this is my favourite book of the year and I'd guess that many teens reading this will want to read Mieville's work for adult readers.
Stubmling through a secret entrance, Zanna and Deeba enter the strange wonderland of UnLondon. Here all the lost and broken things of London end up, and some of its people too - including Brokkenbroll, boss of the broken umbrellas, and Hemi the half-ghost boy.
But the two girls have arrived at dangerous times. UnLondon is a place where words are alive, where a jungle lurks behind the door of an ordinary house, where carnivorous giraffes stalk the streets ... and a sinister cloud called Smog is bent on destruction. It's a frightened city in need of a hero.
From a slow start, China Mieville has created a brilliant YA fantasy that subverts the traditional elements of the genre, most notably the idea that only a person ordained by prophecy can defeat a Big Bad, fantastical worlds only accessible through special portals and that only pretty blonde girls get to be the hero.
Weird things start happening to pretty, blonde Zanna - foxes stare at her, clouds form into her face and strangers call her the Shwazzy. Neither she nor her best friend Deeba know what's going on, but when they realise that a broken umbrella is watching them one night, they follow it and find themselves in the parallel world of UnLondon. There they discover that Zanna is the Shwazzy, the only person able to defeat the Smog, a cloud of noxious gas intent on dominating and destroying both UnLondon and London. But just as Zanna's starting to discover abilities she never knew she had, she's unexpectedly defeated in her first battle with the Smog and forced to return to London. Someone has to help UnLondon if it is to survive, and Deeba steps up to the plate. But she's not the Shwazzy, so what good can she possibly do?
The scale of Mieville's imagination blew me away. His UnLondon has enough elements of London to be familiar (double-decker buses, markets, even a version of the London Eye) but he mixes it with the surreal, including cannibal giraffes, roof-runners who never get more than a foot above the ground, strange houses constructed from rubbish. He uses puns (always an element of YA and children's fiction) to great effect and if you need only one reason to reason to read this book, let it be the binjas. He also includes a political message, tying in London's government to the events happening in UnLondon and there's a distinctly anti-authoritarian feel to the text with the motivation of political leaders and even the book of prophecy all being questioned.
Mieville illustrates his own text and the drawings are evocative and help flesh out his world. Deeba is a very human heroine, brave because she needs to be and prone to self-doubt. I particularly liked the scene where she refuses to jump through the normal prophecy hoops to save UnLondon. She's given an interesting team of helpers, particularly Hemi the half-ghost boy who sees shoplifting as extreme shopping and Jones the bus conductor and I loved Curdle the milk carton. If I had a quibble it's with the fact that those helpers she does lose haven't quite been in the book long enough for it to have a big emotional impact.
The book does have a slow build-up, which might put off some readers, but the chapters are kept short and there are some wonderfully written scenes - my favourite being one with a spider called the Black Window, which is very creepy. Mieville leaves the book with an opening for a sequel and I would love to see more of the world he's created.
The Verdict:
Really, really good. Mieville has taken the traditional elements of YA fantasy and subverted them to create something original, entertaining and with a political message that will make people think. So far, this is my favourite book of the year and I'd guess that many teens reading this will want to read Mieville's work for adult readers.
