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Book Review
Dec. 30th, 2012 11:21 pmUn Lun Dun
by China Mieville
This YA novel is a charming mix of Neverwhere, Alice in Wonderland, and The Wizard of Oz. Deeba and Zanna, two adolescent girls living in a London housing development, are swept into the world of UnLondon, a sort of parallel world where obsolete and broken things (and sometimes people) from London end up. It is inhabited by strange people, odd creatures, ghosts, and dangerous things like carnivorous giraffes. It turns out Zanna is the Chosen One, destined to fight for UnLondon against the Smog, a sentient deadly, well, smog. However, things don't turn out quite the way the prophesies say they should.
And that's one of the most wonderful things about Un Lun Dun - the way it subverts tropes of fantasy and YA literature. It turns out to be Deeba's story, not Zanna's, and it is Deeba who is the heroine. The prophesies delineate a set of tasks that must be undertaken to defeat the Smog, but as it happens, Deeba has her own ideas about what should be done. Along the way there is clever wordplay, lots of excitement, and really imaginative world-building - the last of which should not surprise anyone who's read Mieville's other work.
by China Mieville
This YA novel is a charming mix of Neverwhere, Alice in Wonderland, and The Wizard of Oz. Deeba and Zanna, two adolescent girls living in a London housing development, are swept into the world of UnLondon, a sort of parallel world where obsolete and broken things (and sometimes people) from London end up. It is inhabited by strange people, odd creatures, ghosts, and dangerous things like carnivorous giraffes. It turns out Zanna is the Chosen One, destined to fight for UnLondon against the Smog, a sentient deadly, well, smog. However, things don't turn out quite the way the prophesies say they should.
And that's one of the most wonderful things about Un Lun Dun - the way it subverts tropes of fantasy and YA literature. It turns out to be Deeba's story, not Zanna's, and it is Deeba who is the heroine. The prophesies delineate a set of tasks that must be undertaken to defeat the Smog, but as it happens, Deeba has her own ideas about what should be done. Along the way there is clever wordplay, lots of excitement, and really imaginative world-building - the last of which should not surprise anyone who's read Mieville's other work.
