Bibliography

[the_lady_lily]

Un Lun Dun - China Miéville

I read this as part of my general sweep for fantastika books set in London featuring a minotaur. There is no minotaur, but I don't really care because this was actually quite good. It's Miéville's first book for 'younger readers' according to the jacket, and it has a couple of markers that point it out as such - a lot of emphasis on teenager emotions, on fitting in with one's family, on trying to articulate those particularly... teenage elements that feel physically so intense at the time in a way that will resonate with the target audience. Also quite a lot of contemporary trendy 'beware people who are in authority because they are not always Nice People' - shades of Dolores Umbridge (although, tangentially, I wonder how long this has been a trope, as I don't know children's literature well enough to know if Rowling created a Thing or tapped into a Thing).

That said, it is also a very readable book if you are not a teenager. The world-building is rather good, and there's some nice exploration of Issues - the question of mixed-race children is articulated through a boy who is half human, half ghost, which struck me as a rather clever way to bring out those issues in a not-too-obviously-heavy-handed way. The way world-slippage is constructed is pleasing - things seeping through the border when they get broken or become obsolete. I also rather liked the plot construction around the idea of a prophecy not actually doing what it should, and so the Unchosen one ending up in the middle of it instead. All in all, an entertaining and fairly untaxing read that also had a pretty hard-core female protagonist going questing with very little in the way of a romance subplot. Which, if I'm not clear, is a definite plus.

Comments

[smhwpf.livejournal.com]

Really need to get round to reading more Miéville. Only read one, Perdido Street Station, which is seriously head-fucking, and I read it when I was seriously head-fucked already, so probably not the best timing.

Miéville is a hard-core Marxist, and former member of the SWP (he left over their shameful handling of rape allegations against a member of the leadership). So I don't think he's really playing a trope in the not trusting authority thing...

[pavanne.livejournal.com]

I also really like Un Lun Dun. Though I'm not sure the half human half ghost boy is really about handling Issues. Sometimes a character is just a character. I liked the fish in a diving suit.

I suspect 'beware authority figures' is a trope (Demon Headmaster? Matilda?). Sometimes for plot reasons, because children's literature often needs to find a way to justify the child not going straight to authority.

[the-lady-lily.livejournal.com]

I think the fact that Demi is about Issues came out when the word 'half-breed' was used to refer to him and the protagonist made it clear that this was Not On. I wouldn't have picked it up otherwise.

Yes, Skool was very clever, not least because the naming convention didn't get revealed until late in the book.