Iron Council by China Mieville

The mark of a great book is its ability to generate genuine sympathy and empathy with the characters of the story and the world they live in. Those familiar with Bas Lag, the sprawling, strange, weird wasteland created by China Mieville will already care about its inhabitants. Those unfamiliar should read Mieville's previous efforts, Perdido Street Station and The Scar, although there is no need to. Like his other books, Iron Council stands on its own. Mieville is an author who consistently defies categorization. Is he writing Lovecraft-inspired Sci-Fi? Tolkein-inspired political commentary? Is he on drugs? Who knows? And when it's this consistently good, who cares?

You don’t read a Mieville book so much as get lost in it. His descriptions of worlds, places, minute details, and character traits make his stories present and vibrant. Mieville takes his time to make sure you care not just for a character, but for their cause. He tells tales of Bas Lag and life in the big city (New Crobuzon). The streets, dark and dreary and foreboding, are populated with misfits (and here, being a misfit means you've been "remade", your body spliced with animal parts, machinery, insect bits... you name it), anarchists, a big-brother like militia, a corrupt government, a seedy underworld, and creatures of different races all trying to get by. There are the scarab-headed khepri, the bloated, frog-like vodyanoi, the living vegetation (Cactacae), the wyrmen, the garuda, the remade (criminals), and the fReemade (those who've escaped or found freedom). None of these creatures is treated in a manner that suggests they are alien, otherworldy, or foreign. Like our society, New Crobuzon merely is. They've been living together a long time, learned each other's customs and trades, intermixed, interbred, celebrated their similarities, had race wars over their differences.

Iron Council is Mieville’s third novel set on Bas Lag, but he does not rely on familiar characters or places. Iron Council is set decades after the events of Perdido Street Station, things that changed the very face of New Crobuzon and its politics, yet these events are now only ripples that carry into the storyline, nudge it. Iron Council is a story about the price of rebellion.

The story begins with a slightly mad capitalist bent on a venture to create a train that travels around the world. The train becomes a moving city, creating its own economic system, its own internal politics, and when the money dries up, the train creates its own society. Hundreds of miles from home, the workers rebel, defeat their bosses, and unable to do anything else, they keep the train moving. Fleeing for their safety, searching for something greater. The remade become fReemade, women once used purely as tools of pleasure by men take their rightful place in society. Democracy, though unstable, is born. The Perpetual Train will never stop.

It is the story of Judah Low the golem-maker, and his close friend Cutter. They journey between the city and the train, bringing hope to those on both sides. The Iron Council inspires the rebels of New Crobuzon, first by running, then by fighting, and finally by returning to the city.

It is the story of Ori, an anarchist looking for a cause on the streets of New Crobuzon. He is slowly drawn away form his group of seditionist writers into a seedy underworld of violent resistance. Toro, the heir apparent to the legendary Jack Half-a-Prayer, is looking to overthrow the government by murdering the mayor. Ori follows Toro’s cause, but soon learns that nothing is as it seemed. His heroes all have ulterior motives, and the greater good falls in the wake of personal gain.

As the Iron Council approaches New Crobuzon, the rebellion is pushed to its breaking point by government militia forces. The leaders of the new order have to make hard decisions: sacrifice their dreams to save themselves or sacrifice themselves to keep their dreams alive?

Mieville deals with two divergent theories on how to change the future: Trust thyself, or rely on others. Ori begins with the latter and finishes with the former. The Iron Council begins with the former, and succeeds with the latter. The finale is ultimately realistic, heartbreaking, and uplifting.