The opposite of an easy-breezy beach read with no real substance. Meaty on many different levels. New ideas; great story. The ONLY book I've ever read that's also - bonus - included fancy words I'd previously not known. Thank you, Mr. Mieville! Fantastic book.

This novel’s core is understanding language, alien and otherwise; so it’s ironic that the primary fault rests in a vocabulary maze: “Not many of us scored particularly highly in these latter, in the various flairs prized elsewhere, in the out.” Ooooookay. At times, sentences were so twisted they needed translation. Yet, be patient. Much like Shakespeare, you may not know what’s what, but the emotional thrust is felt. Continuing forward, settling down into the wordly rhythm, it makes sense. In its way, it’s beautiful. The characters, the worlds, the plot, the Language … it’s real. And in sci-fi, that’s special.

This whole book is the author stroking his ego. It's like he sat down with a thesaurus and dictionary to write it. Boring, hard to follow, and snobby.

Reminiscent of Niven and Pournelle's, "The Mote in God's Eye" but told from a completely different perspective and set in a fully new world. Wonderfully written, easy to follow but with many twists and turns. One of my three favorite scifi books ever.

Fascinating look at personal and societal transformation. Helen Keller like aliens meet Anne Sullivan Cho.