asakiyume | (Reply)

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but I don't mind reading books about (by, in a sense) characters who I don't like, as long as they're doing interesting things.

I was thinking about this for myself: do I only like stories told by people (or focused on people) whom I could like? And I don't think that's the case--Time of Daughters, for instance, had a main character who was quite unpleasant, but I was interested in his psyche. But there does have to be *something* I can latch onto. With Avice, she was in such interesting places, doing such interesting things, and she was so worldweary and jaded all the time! I wanted to shake her.

A thing I really, really appreciated about the book was that Miéville straight-up addressed the thing that would be most difficult in dealing with a truly alien alien: communication. The Ambassadors and the Ariekei thought they were communicating--sort of--but they really weren't until the Ariekei could make the linguistic breakthroughs, and to do that, they had to change their whole way of thinking. It's just staggering.

I thought of Semiosis at several points--you did a great job with a very alien alien (and you included humor, which I really appreciated)