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Finished this today. I'm still ruminating on it, I can't really say I have fully parsed it, but I'm definitely glad I've read it.

I've been looking for this book for a year. If you're anything like me, you'll have a lot of moments when reading where davies puts together something you haven't been able to put into words in the same way. Asking why everything is dumb and bad now, Davies outlines how corporation and state respectively have lobotomized themselves in the last 50 years because it seemed like a good idea at the time. As books that try to give you a whole new perspective on things go, it's remarkably short, and you may find yourself wanting to revive a semi-abandoned scientific discipline by the end of it.

I was pitched on this series as having interesting politics, and when I started reading it, that was an honest pitch. On the whole, however, it's a rugpull on that front. What do you expect from Disney, i guess. It redirects toward metaphysics reasonably skilfully, so the turn doesn't hurt as much as you might think, but there definitely comes a moment of "well, let's not get too carried away" after which the story firmly steers away from being as transparently radical as it promises to be earlier on.

picked this up on a recommendation a good while back, and I don't know how i let myself think that this story might engage with politics for real. Maybe I missed something, but even if they snuck in politics disguised as metaphysics behind disney's back, they hid them a bit too well. It's a proper conclusion, kinda, i guess? It's not like the turn away from politics was poorly telegraphed at least.

It's pretty good; but I think it could benefit from a consistent redraw

This is nothing like Perdido Street Station; the story meaners and never entirely comes together. He half explores a lot of ideas here but leans a bit too much on the mysterious side with a lot of it to actually have them come through? I don't know if the disagreements being fought out with the genre here are holding the story back because miéville hasn't finished his thoughts enough to articulate them into a persuasive narrative formulation, or whether he has finished them and is a bit too ready to move on. It is, of course, more bas lag, if the story not entirely coming together doesn't put you off.

It's a marvelously inventive fantasy setting here. Be warned though; it's at least 200 pages before you get a proper sense of the plot if memory serves. That said, this is by far my favourite in the series. It's a great self contained story, relentlessly inventive in its world and relentlessly curious in its myriad themes.