This was a really fantastic novel and I think you should read it. With a heavy hand in world building and exploration of linguistics and translation this novel gave so many hints and tidbits of the world without creating a complete picture which left you will so many paintings of these worlds with just enough to have you pondering the world just outside the frame.

It is really impressive the amount of world building that was built into a standalone novel, I would read anything, including fan fiction, created in the universe after finishing it.

The story itself and it's interactions were fantastic. There was many times I was left feeling so alien from the valleys that divided characters that I truly believed that there was alien consciousnesses so different than ours, rather than a metaphor for human struggles.

The plot was very hard to predict and kept my rapt attention as it twisted and turned building and referencing with clues and surprises that I honestly didn't know where we were going including the conclusion.

China mieville is one of my favourite contemporary authors because his writings bring in politics, class and revolution in such honest and contextual ways that I am left feeling like through the story I am newly a revolutionary within a different world and power dynamics.

I think everyone should read it. And talk about it with friends.