Incredible World
5 stars
Started slow and dense and then turns into a rollercoaster. Incredible world-building, can't wait to read the rest of the series.
623 pages
English language
Published Nov. 5, 2003
In the squalid, gothic city of New Crobuzon, a mysterious half-human, half-bird stranger comes to Isaac, a gifted but eccentric scientist, with a request to help him fly, but Isaac's obsessive experiments and attempts to grant the request unleash a terrifying dark force on the entire city.
Started slow and dense and then turns into a rollercoaster. Incredible world-building, can't wait to read the rest of the series.
In this steampunk fantasy, the main character is the setting.
Our presumptive hero, a polymath scientist, is a secondary character, as the main focus is on the city-state, New Crobuzon. The majority of the book is spent describing the city, its geography, its politics, its populace, its climate, its pollution, etc.
This is a long book, with a lot of description. The author does manage to fit an actual plot in there, and the plot is entertaining. But be ready for a lot of long descriptions as well.