The Scar is a sequel to Perdido Street Station only tangentially: the events take place in the same world and follow on chronologically but we have a completely different set of characters and setting. I had however skipped the other two books in Miéville’s Bas-Lag Trilogy: The Scar and Iron Council. Since I read Perdido Street Station, I have delved into Miéville’s more real-world novels, The Kraken, The City and The City as well as the sublimely gorgeous (allegedly) Young Adult Railsea. This entire melting pot of a city – which reminds me of the bastard child of Ankh-Morpork and William Blake’s London – is in the shadow of the towering ossified ribs of some unfathomable creature. It is a city populated by renegade scientists, scarab-headed khepri, eagle faced garuda, the amphibian vodyanoi, the cactacae and brutally Remade criminals. I discovered him through Perdido Street Station and adored the sprawling city of New Crobuzon: mercantile, rapacious, brutal but utterly compelling. Miéville is one of my favourite authors: acutely political, wildly imaginative and linguistically sparkling.
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