The Scar - Hardcover

The reaction to China Mi ville's Perdido Street Station was remarkable: few books in the SF and fantasy field achieve the acclaim of this dark masterpiece. Its seaborne successor is rich with the same vaunting imagination and cannily wrought prose. A ship sets out on a voyage from New Crobuzon towards a new colony, its hold full of criminals to be used as slaves. It passes over inshore waters ruled by a race of human-lobster centaurs, is pursued by demonic mermen, and is captured by a floating pirate city tugged across the sea by a giant beast. This fantastical voyage of exploration and discovery coruscates with Mi ville's unstoppable imagination, and the inventiveness takes the breath away.

A human cargo bound for servitude in exile... A pirate city hauled across the oceans... A hidden miracle about be revealed... This is the story of a prisoner's journey. The search for the island of a forgotten people, for the most astonishing beast in the seas, and ultimately for a fabled place - a massive wound in reality, a source of unthinkable power and danger.From the author of Perdido Street Station, another colossal fantasy of incredible diversity and spellbinding imagination, which was acclaimed in The Times Literary Supplement as: 'An astonishing novel, guaranteed to astound and enthral the most jaded palate...exhilarating, sometimes very moving, occasionally shocking, always humane and thought-provoking'.