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When I first read about this book, I was fascinated and eager to read it, but also fearful that I’d be terribly disappointed.\u00c2\u00a0 I’m very fond of the noir tradition, especially Chandler.\u00c2\u00a0 (Bright Spot<\/span> is a more science fictional homage to that genre).\u00c2\u00a0 I liked many things about Perdido Street Station<\/span>, but Mi\u00c3\u00a9ville’s handling of suspense wasn’t one of them.\u00c2\u00a0 As with the earlier book, the brilliantly imagined city is central to the novel, or in this case two cities.\u00c2\u00a0 One of the novel’s virtues is the sly exposition of setting, so I won’t spoil it here.\u00c2\u00a0 It’s quite a good detective novel and so much more.\u00c2\u00a0 I definitely intend to add it to the Urban Fantasy course I teach each summer.\u00c2\u00a0 Some might argue this isn’t fantasy at all, and if you like your fantasy laid on with a trowel, this book isn’t for you, but the fact that it seems so real is credit to Mi\u00c3\u00a9ville’s skill as a writer, and the subtlety of the fantasy.\u00c2\u00a0 Hat’s off to his impeccable control of his subject.\u00c2\u00a0 If you let it, this book will make you see the world a little differently, rather like being inside of it, and who can ask for more than that from a novel?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" When I first read about this book, I was fascinated and eager to read it, but also fearful that I’d be terribly disappointed.\u00c2\u00a0 I’m very fond of the noir tradition, especially Chandler.\u00c2\u00a0 (Bright Spot is a more science fictional homage … Continue reading