Having finished The Silent Land, I move on to a book that I never expected to read. Though Mieville is a popular author and receives all sorts of praise and awards, my interest in his work has remained slight. I read Un Lun Dun years ago and thought it a decent book, but there was little that impressed me. My attempts to read The City and the City were cut short by the headache that coincidentally developed whenever I opened the book and had a go (this happened every time I tried to read the book, no matter if it was later that day when the headache went away or several months later). I will admit the latter has a lot to do with my lack of interest.

I picked up Embassytown from the library, a random selection based on not having found near enough books to last me a couple weeks, but wasn't sure what the outcome would be. I was not looking forward to a The City and the City repeat.

At nearly a hundred pages in, the novel is finally starting the grow on me. For the moment, it seems to have shed the desire to descend into paragraphs of babble that make my eyes glaze over and my mind tune out. Unfortunately, I seem to be nearing the portion of the book that Larry referred to as "ridiculous". That portion of the book also marks the last dog-ear of the person who borrowed the book before me, so I can either assume he/she loved it so much that he/she finished half the book in a sitting or he/she just gave up.

Either way, onward.