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Never had international trade looked so much like symbiosis.

Embassytown is a generous serving of yummy brainfood titillating with novum and teeming with grotesque alien life forms. I’m in love.

I mean, you know you’re reading a good book when you’re just over a third of the way in and you’re horrified and appalled and keep thinking this can’t possibly get any worse and it consistently does to the point where it becomes borderline depressing and yet you never lose faith because at all times you feel that the author knows exactly what he’s doing and that this isn’t an aimless snowball of self-indulgence but a meticulously composed symphony of horror vacui and despair tumbling purposefully towards a very specific premeditated conclusion.

If you’re into languages or linguistics, Embassytown offers a lot to chew on. I was constantly fascinated by Miéville’s ability to seamlessly incorporate semiotics and theory of language into the story and not have it come across as experimental.

I got a very gratifying Solaris vibe from the first third of the book, when we're presented with the near-impossibility of fully understanding, let alone establishing communication, with an alien life form so different from our own.

Anyway, I know I’ve read a five-star book when I can't do more than babble enthusiastic gibberish at the end. I’m happy this man exists and I’m looking forward to reading more of his stuff. (By the way, you should check out interviews with China Miéville on YouTube; he’s not only a gifted storyteller with an elephantine imagination, but also a really cool and eloquent guy.)