The City & the City
- 384
- Pages
- about 7 h
- Reading time
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Our view
“The City & the City” rests on one remarkable idea: two rival cities entwined in a strange spatial doubling, separated by a border unlike any other. Piecing together the rules of that arrangement is the real pleasure, strongest at the start and in the final revelations. The murder inquiry that carries the plot is more conventional; some readers find it slow in the middle and the characters flat. The setting is what stays with readers.
The view of the BookRank editors, written from readers’ ratings and comments. It does not affect the score or the book’s place in a ranking.
About the book
NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY THE LOS ANGELES TIMES, THE SEATTLE TIMES, AND PUBLISHERS WEEKLY. When a murdered woman is found in the city of Beszel, somewhere at the edge of Europe, it looks to be a routine case for Inspector Tyador Borlú of the Extreme Crime Squad. To investigate, Borlú must travel from the decaying Beszel to its equal, rival, and intimate neighbor, the vibrant city of Ul Qoma. But this is a border crossing like no other, a journey as psychic as it is physical, a seeing of the unseen. With Ul Qoman detective Qussim Dhatt, Borlú is enmeshed in a sordid underworld of nationalists intent on destroying their neighboring city, and unificationists who dream of dissolving the two into one. As the detectives uncover the dead woman’s secrets, they begin to suspect a truth that could cost them more than their lives. What stands against them are murderous powers in Beszel and in Ul Qoma: and, most terrifying of all, that which lies between these two cities. BONUS: This edition contains a The City & The City discussion guide and excerpts from China Miéville's Kraken and Embassytown.
Where the score comes from
The sources average 7.9 across 644 ratings. With that many, the reader vote carries 81% of the weight and the score stays at 7.9 — the Science fiction average of 7.8 barely moves it.
| Source | Average | Ratings | Weight |
|---|---|---|---|
| Open Library | 7.6 | 42 | 7% |
| Google Books | 7.0 | 10 | 2% |
| Hardcover | 8.0 | 592 | 92% |
Frequently asked
How long is The City & the City?
It has 384 pages — shorter than 82% of the ranked books in Science fiction.
In this book
Themes this book shares with others — each leads to the best books on it.
If you liked this
Same shelf — Science fiction — with scores between 7.9 and 8.0, closest to this book.
