Ahira's Hangar

This is a very well written and creative genre bender which blends urban fantasy (in its purest form - not the werewolf/vampire stuff that seems to dominate that particular subgenre these days) with science fiction and detective noir/police procedural.

A murdered body is found in the decaying Eastern European city of Beszel. Inspector Tyador Borlu is assigned to the case. The clues lead him to making investigations in both his own city and the (ahem) nearby city of Ul Qoma. There is a history of great tensions between the two cities (though to say why would involve huge spoilers) and the investigation is hampered due to the politics between the two cities.

Nevertheless, no matter what the challenges, Borlu soldiers onward, determined to find justice for the young murdered woman, no matter where and to whom the trail of clues leads.

Mieville does a great job creating his two cities - each with its own culture, architecture, and language.

He also does a great job in making the police officers of the two cities into hard working and sympathetic characters, trying to bend the strict laws that separate the two cities in order to find justice for the victim.

This is one of the best science fiction/fantasy releases I have run into for 2009. Well worth a try.

It's hard to discuss a book in a forum, when nearly anything posted will spoil the experience for other readers!

A very very different book to Mieville's others. I enjoyed it, but the storyline didn't have the wow of his other books, though the setting did.

I didn't pick up on the 'Eastern European city' bit at all - is that mentioned somewhere, duchess of malfi? I assumed it was a British city, though I can't think why, now! I mean, a city in what is now Britain. It reminded me, in a way, of a city-state out of a Ken McLeod book.

This is a really hard book to discuss and not spoil it for other people. I will have to go back to and see if it ever explicitly says that is was an Eastern European setting, or something I just thought from implications.

I'm reading this book now. It doesn't ever say explicitly that the country is in Eastern Europe, but I've gotten that impression as well -- particularly from the extra consonants in the characters' names . But also there's a scene in which Borlu and Corwi talk about places they've been outside of Besz; Corwi has been to a couple of Eastern European cities, but Borlu has traveled more widely -- Berlin before the wall came down, Paris (I think he said), etc. The sense I got from that scene was that Corwi had traveled closer to home.

I haven't gotten to the part yet where it's explained (if it ever is!) why the two cities split, and how it was accomplished. Looking forward to that. I'm not a huge fan of police procedurals, but the fantastic elements are keeping it interesting for me.

Just won this year's Hugo (tie with a novel called The Wind Up Girl.

Looks like besides the Hugo, it has also just won the World Fantasy Award for best novel.

Excellent! Well-deserved.