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Embassytown

China Miéville

Start date: May 1, 2012

Finish date: May 31, 2012

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Jun 10, 2011 Sandi rated it it was amazing

Shelves: 2011, audiobooks, sci-fi

I was thrilled to find a copy of Embassytown at the library a few weeks ago. Unfortunately, I only made it through about 40 pages before I had to return it. Those were a tough 40 pages that really hurt my brain. At some point, I realized that my problem was less about the book than about the fact that I just couldn't hear it right in my head. Avice, the first-person narrator, tells the story in a slang that kept making me stumble. She doesn't define anything in her world because she assumes that ...more

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Apr 18, 2011 Sarah rated it really liked it

Shelves: sf, speculative-fiction

China Mieville is a hard guy to pin down. Each of his novels probes a different cranny of genre writing. The only commonality is his use of the word "chitinous" as early and often as possible. Each of his novels that I've read layers idea upon idea, novelty upon novelty. A couple have defeated me, the ugliness of his descriptive passages outweighing the brilliance. I can't remember him depicting any place or creature that wasn't in some way grotesque.

Some of those hallmarks are still in place h China Mieville is a hard guy to pin down. Each of his novels probes a different cranny of genre writing. The only commonality is his use of the word "chitinous" as early and often as possible. Each of his novels that I've read layers idea upon idea, novelty upon novelty. A couple have defeated me, the ugliness of his descriptive passages outweighing the brilliance. I can't remember him depicting any place or creature that wasn't in some way grotesque.

Some of those hallmarks are still in place here, but they are muted. The descriptions in Embassytown are of creatures and landscape that is utterly, brilliantly foreign. There are dozens of terms that need to be internalized and twisted until they give up their intent. The aliens are truly alien. It's a scorcher of an answer to anyone who has ever complained about Star Trek aliens that look like humans with headbumps.

Speaking of Star Trek, one of the episodes I remember most vividly is the one with Captain Picard and Paul Winfield stranded on a planet together. The latter is an alien (headbump variety) who only speaks in metaphors. Mieville took that baffling first contact and extrapolated into the future of two species with a communication gulf. His exploration of Langauge is absolutely my favorite part of the book.

I have to say that the one place the book fell down was in characterization. Avice Banner Cho is a fine enough narrator. She has an interesting history, as a simile, a floaker, and an immerser. She was reliable and in the right place at the right time. I just felt that the interactions between her and her husband, or her and the Ambassadors, or the other staff all felt cold and clinical, like field notes rather than memoir. Grief rarely felt like grief, fear rarely felt like fear. This was my greatest problem with Mieville's The City & the Cityas well.

As a child, I drew nothing but horses. I got to the point where I could make decent money selling portraits to horse owners, just as long as all they wanted was a picture of their horse. My horses were good enough that anything else I put in the drawing - human, dog, background - looked cartoonish in comparison. I think that's what happens with Mieville. He creates worlds and monsters so rich that the humans just can't compare. That's where emotion and observation and interaction between characters becomes important. While I think Avice makes an excellent reporter of the proceedings - and plays an integral role in the climax of the book - I think the stakes might have been higher if I had felt more connections between her and others. As it was, the Areikei carried the book for me. ...more

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Mar 16, 2012 John rated it really liked it

Embassytown is my second Mieville work (I found The City and The City interesting, enjoyable, and yet somewhat lacking). The novel seemed to spend a long time getting anywhere, and it was a bit hard to get into, the way that it got there, but in the end the payoff was worth it. This is probably more like 4.5 stars than 4--the slow build-up wasn't bad, per se, I just wish there could have been a more engaging way to pull us in deeper faster.

Our narrator, Avice Benner Cho, is a native of Embassyto Embassytown is my second Mieville work (I found The City and The City interesting, enjoyable, and yet somewhat lacking). The novel seemed to spend a long time getting anywhere, and it was a bit hard to get into, the way that it got there, but in the end the payoff was worth it. This is probably more like 4.5 stars than 4--the slow build-up wasn't bad, per se, I just wish there could have been a more engaging way to pull us in deeper faster.

Our narrator, Avice Benner Cho, is a native of Embassytown, the human outpost on the alien world Arieka. She grew up there, got away from this fascinating backwater because she had the ability to immerse, to maintain consciousness while traveling through the Immer, which is the humans' method for faster-than-light travel across the universe. After she marries a linguist, however, she is drawn back to Embassytown by his desire to study the language of the Arieka Hosts, a desire to avoid the politics of her Immerser profession, and the subtle call of home.

The language of the Arieki is central to the novel. These aliens have a language that is unique in two ways: because they have two mouths, they speak a double language, a language which only makes sense with two voices; also, for them, language (or Language, since they can only conceive of one) is purely representative of reality, meaning--among other things--that they cannot lie. They also cannot learn other languages, or even really understand that other languages exist. Sometime in the past, through a fortuitous discovery, it was found that the only way humans could communicate with the Hosts was to have two speakers who were empathically linked in some way--from twins, they moved to clones, with special training to allow them to work as one. These doubled individuals are the Ambassadors, the only humans who can speak to the Hosts (or even be understood as speaking).

I don't want to get too far into the plot, but suffice it to say that intergalactic and local politics lead to a crisis of world-shattering proportions, which Avice and her allies must solve through a deeper understanding of these alien beings--as well as a greater understanding of human beings.

One of the sub-genres of science fiction is of the alien anthropology variety, hinging on the unique characteristics of an alien species that are understood dimly at best by the characters and the reader when the novel starts. It's a sort of puzzle or detective story, and in this case the aliens--however much their forms are strange to us--are ultimately at their strangest when it comes to the seemingly-simple difference of being incapable of lying, and the linguistic and consciousness differences that follow from that difference. In the process, Mieville offers an interesting exploration of what being human means, which in this case means beings who use language the way we do.

I listened to this novel as an audiobook, and I wanted to comment on the production as well. Susan Duerden, narrating, is Avice. The POV is 1st person narration, and she carries it off perfectly. I don't know how this was handled in the text version, but Language is represented here by two voices overlaid, as they are described to be, and it works nicely. ...more

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May 11, 2012 Edward Butler rated it really liked it

EMBASSYTOWN is essentially a space opera about semiotics, so if concepts like indexicality are of direct concern to you, this is definitely a book to read. More broadly, if you enjoy the sort of science fiction that is chiefly about explicating social structures, like C.J. Cherryh's 40,000 IN GEHENNA, I think you'll appreciate it. If you're looking for something more character-driven than idea-driven, you may be disappointed. One thing I did appreciate on a character level was that Miéville's fe ...more

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May 16, 2012 Banner rated it liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: sci-fi, alien

This is one of the most interesting universes created in science fiction, but the story is only mediocre. This could have been a great book, but it turns out to be a good one. The concept with the aliens is so fascinating, it is one of the reasons I love science fiction (especially those with aliens). I don't want to say much as not to give away any of the surprise, but it involves language. Which when you think of it would be strange at best when you involve a totally non human culture.

It's jus ...more

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May 30, 2011 Steve rated it liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: science-fiction

I find China Mieville's books a mixed bag and Embassytown has been no exception. One of the appeals of his books is Mieville's attention to language, to the vernacular of human and not so human cultures. In Embassytown, he creates not just a mix of human and near human cultures, he imagines a very different kind of human colony world somewhere out there. The best part of it is Mieville's attentiveness to politics and culture. He doesn't write about social classes as we know them, yet his portray I find China Mieville's books a mixed bag and Embassytown has been no exception. One of the appeals of his books is Mieville's attention to language, to the vernacular of human and not so human cultures. In Embassytown, he creates not just a mix of human and near human cultures, he imagines a very different kind of human colony world somewhere out there. The best part of it is Mieville's attentiveness to politics and culture. He doesn't write about social classes as we know them, yet his portrayal of social conflict ring true. Embassytown is a story of the breakdown of a social order and the growing anarchic (in the good sense of the term) revolt of one side of the conflict. I wanted to know how it would play out. And as in classic terms, the "sides" were not knowable outside of the conflict so the reader focuses on the causes and resolutions and not on natural affinities.

The most challenging human-alien intersection is not the planetary differences or difference in physical appearance, and so on, but instead the language, or Language, around which the society there functions. I loved the concept, and yet got bogged down trying to decide, I got it, I didn't get it, I don't need to get (like language in a Fellini film). Distracting after a while.

Likewise for the characterization. After finishing this book, I realized that I find his characterizations rich, and richer than a lot of science fiction, and yet the characters themselves often don't stay with me or interest me that much. The first person narrator in Embassytown is a woman of unique talent and who also just happens to play a unique role in historical events. All that is believable, yet I gradually found myself losing interest in her travails, relationships and inner dilemmas. I realized that was also true in the last Mieville I attempted but so far haven't completed (Iron Council). Maybe that's part of his philosophy or strategy--a fellow reader said that to me at one point.

In some ways, Mieville is a true successor to Philip Dick. Though Dick wrote in much more accessible language, he also seemed to wrestle in his time with similar themes.

If you haven't read his stuff, I would also say, be prepared for tough slog. Mieville is part of a new inventive, socially aware wave in science fiction that I admire, and if you are into science fiction, or not, you owe it to yourself to give this or another one a try.
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Apr 12, 2012 Lisa rated it liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: from-the-public-library

An interesting look at an alien culture without symbolic thought and language--only literal, concrete. BUT it wasn't as interesting as that Radio Lab episode about the deaf people here on Earth with the same predicament. ...more

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Jun 16, 2011 Gavin rated it really liked it

Shelves: 2011, sciencefiction, 2017

Mieville's done it again. Language..nothing can cause big trouble between humans like language. Miscommunication, poor translation, semantics, words taken out of context. Think about it. Now think about it in terms of communication between alien life forms. What could alien language be? Would in be like human language? Could we really understand each other? ...more

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