A review by amandatastic
Embassytown by China Miéville
3.0
The beginning of this book gets a 2.5, but the ending gets a 4.
The plot is super unique and I really enjoyed that aspect... but only about halfway through, where I really started to understand what was going on.
The beginning seemed needlessly convoluted and basic concepts of the world were explained poorly. It seemed very much like the author was trying too hard (to make the book “smart” or to make things seem “alien”, maybe?).
But then, when [important plot point redacted], the action starts unfolding, and things start making a lot more sense. That’s where I really started to enjoy the book. From there to the end I was invested.
The characters were kind of weak overall. Avice Benner Cho (aka ABC) is a passive protagonist, until about 2/3 if the way through. Some characters were brought up as important and then just didn’t really appear again except for a cursory mention (Ersuhl). I don’t understand anything about ABC and Scile. Not at all.
The language (or Language, rather) is the focus of this book. There are some issues linguistically, but these I can suspend my disbelief for more than the characters.
I think the most interesting concept to me was of the Ambassadors, and two people being one person. But they’re also obviously still individuals. Of course, this concept by the end of the book seemed to be disappearing. I also thought that the immer was interesting, but that was brought up like it would be important for ABC and then other than cursory mentions was never brought up again.
I don’t really have a conclusion so... there are my spoiler-free thoughts.
The plot is super unique and I really enjoyed that aspect... but only about halfway through, where I really started to understand what was going on.
The beginning seemed needlessly convoluted and basic concepts of the world were explained poorly. It seemed very much like the author was trying too hard (to make the book “smart” or to make things seem “alien”, maybe?).
But then, when [important plot point redacted], the action starts unfolding, and things start making a lot more sense. That’s where I really started to enjoy the book. From there to the end I was invested.
The characters were kind of weak overall. Avice Benner Cho (aka ABC) is a passive protagonist, until about 2/3 if the way through. Some characters were brought up as important and then just didn’t really appear again except for a cursory mention (Ersuhl). I don’t understand anything about ABC and Scile. Not at all.
The language (or Language, rather) is the focus of this book. There are some issues linguistically, but these I can suspend my disbelief for more than the characters.
I think the most interesting concept to me was of the Ambassadors, and two people being one person. But they’re also obviously still individuals. Of course, this concept by the end of the book seemed to be disappearing. I also thought that the immer was interesting, but that was brought up like it would be important for ABC and then other than cursory mentions was never brought up again.
I don’t really have a conclusion so... there are my spoiler-free thoughts.