Wow. Clear an evening, take a day off, do whatever you need to do to carve out some serious reading time because the The Scar is good. Very, very good.

This is the sort of book you put down for a second just to exclaim aloud how good it is, the sort you push on friends and family with evangelical fervor. I stayed up late with this one, suffering in a fug of fatigue at work the next day, yet hanging out for when I could crack the covers and read into the wee hours all over again.

If you've read any Mieville you know just how engrossing he can be. I rate Embassytown as one of the most inventive SF works I've read, and The Scar is on the same level - a wild riot of amazing, completely engrossing ideas.

The Scar centers around Bellis Coldwine, a linguist who has been forced to flee the great city of New Crobuzon after the events described in Perdido Street Station. Enroute to exile she finds herself abducted and effectively imprisoned in the floating city of Armada- a collection of hundreds of ships, all lashed together and made into a mobile, piratical metropolis atop the ocean. From here she is drawn into machinations that could make Armada a serious world power, and into the dangerous and supernatural factions that compete for power in the floating city.

I don't want to give too much away so won't elaborate much more about the plot, but suffice to say this book is an absolute frenzy of awesome ideas and I was continually gobsmacked at the breadth and depth of China Mieville's imagination. Every element of the story, from the vast floating pirate city of Armada, to the unique creatures of Bas-Lag (lobster/human hybrid 'crays' for example), to the steampunk techno-magick that drives Mieville's world is seamlessly slotted into a vast and detailed story that I did not want to leave.

As someone who has mild aspirations to write Mieville's talent is both awe inspiring and appalling - how did he get so good? What does the man have in his head to create beautiful, intricate worlds like Bas-Lag and Embassytown? Which daemonic entity did he bargain with in order to write like he does?

This is Fantasy of another level- as far above your average swords and elves saga as the airship that flies above Mieville's floating city. This is fantasy so good, that in all my hours with it I didn't once feel like I was reading fantasy.