Saturday, June 25, 2011

Embassytown by China Miéville

This book was very difficult to get into because the world it presents is so different from our own, but richly rewarding in the way it played out. Avice is an immerser, someone who can travel between the manchmals of the worlds we live in normally through the immer, a substance that makes most humans sick. She uses this talent to escape Embassytown, the backwater trading post remarkable for the Hosts, a species that can only speak Language in which only the truth is possible, but not before she becomes a simile in Language. When she returns with her linguist husband, she finds tensions growing over language and the doubled Ambassadors who go between the human colonists and the hosts. This story has a fantastic plot (I don't want to say too much about the conflict, because a lot of the pleasure in the story comes from figuring it out), and not only develops characters that you'll care about, but also reflects on the nature of colonialism, communication, and power. This book was a fantastic read.

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