Loved that this got me so far away from chick-lit book club selections with plot points like regret, miscommunication, and romance. No, this is so much more complex and so much more interesting. A sci-fi murder-mystery with a hefty dose of archeology as set perhaps behibd the iron curtain. Dense, and not the quickest read, but just wonderful.

This was a very fun page-turner sci-fi novel with moments of intellectual depth and a very original storyline that really inhibits any detailed discussion without giving away a lot of the story. It's a sci-fi novel but as with most thoughtful fiction it gives the reader a lot to think about with regard to our society and politics today. I'm knocking it down one star because by the end I felt that a lot of the challenging presentation of the novel (i.e. making the reader think and figure out the plot) turned into Mieville hand-holding and explaining a bit too much. There's a learning curve, a detective phase where one must piece together what weird world the author has constructed, and once you get it it's awesome -- but after all that effort Mieville starts to over explain the way the sci-fi world works. In the end: a great read and original, thoughtful story development that will lend itself to rich discussion with any other fellow readers.