The Tain
From LeoWiki
| The Tain | China Mieville | Urban Fantasy | |||
| 9 | 8 | 8 | 8 | 8 | 8.2 |
| Secularity | Technophilia | Quality | Xenophilia | Personal Tilt | Average |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
The Tain is a rather obscure novella, but it's available as part of the Cities anthology published by Gollancz. It tells of a London invaded and conquered by beings neither alien nor eldritch and yet both.
The urban landscape is painted in expert penstrokes. It is perhaps not as immersive as Mieville's larger works, but the details still stand out and anchor the plot.
At one point, the protagonist rhymes off Snell's Law -- n1 * sin(θ1) = n2 * sin(θ2) -- but the story nevertheless remains more urban fantasy than hard sf. That particular thread is not followed up and the cause of the invasion does not really make sense in the context of proper physics.
The story's good, but not amazing. One wouldn't buy Cities just for The Tain. I haven't had a chance to read the other novellas in it, but I suspect they are of comparable quality and that would make the purchase worthwhile.
