The City and The City (China Miéville)

All in all a very impressive book, but it took the full thing to convince me. I found the first third incredibly difficult to get in to.

The book wins 4 stars for its central idea, but I don't think the characters or plot are good enough to give it 5.

Perhaps China Meiville thought that spending too much time on his characters would detract from the central idea of the book, but I think that it just makes for a more difficult read - I'm certainly in no hurry to read it again

This book did something that few books I've read have done which is make me re-evaluate and re-discover the way I view the world in which I live, and more specifically, the city in which I live.

The dual city of Beszel/Ul Quoma is a fantastic creation which I won't begin to describe but the mirror it lays onto our own cities is absolutely fascinating. I've found myself seeing (and unseeing) the different cities that comprise Glasgow as I walk around, identifying the crosshatched areas and the areas that are in totality.

That paragraph won't mean much to you if you haven't read the book. If you haven't read the book you should.

Plot-wise and character-wise this is a relatively conventional murder mystery, but layered with the setting it creates a brilliant, and slightly unsettling read.