A mythmaker of the highest order, China Mieville has emblazoned the fantasy novel
with fresh language, startling images, and stunning originality. Set in the same
sprawling world of Mieville’s Arthur C. Clarke Award-winning novel, Perdido Street
Station, this latest epic introduces a whole new cast of intriguing characters and
dazzling creations.

Aboard a vast seafaring vessel, a band of prisoners and slaves,
their bodies remade into grotesque biological oddities, is being transported to the
fledgling colony of New Crobuzon. But the journey is not theirs alone. They are joined
by a handful of travelers, each with a reason for fleeing the city. Among them is
Bellis Coldwine, a renowned linguist whose services as an interpreter grant her passage-and
escape from horrific punishment. For she is linked to Isaac Dan der Grimnebulin,
the brilliant renegade scientist who has unwittingly unleashed a nightmare upon New
Crobuzon.

For Bellis, the plan is clear: live among the new frontiersmen of the
colony until it is safe to return home. But when the ship is besieged by pirates
on the Swollen Ocean, the senior officers are summarily executed. The surviving passengers
are brought to Armada, a city constructed from the hulls of pirated ships, a floating,
landless mass ruled by the bizarre duality called the Lovers. On Armada, everyone
is given work, and even Remades live as equals to humans, Cactae, and Cray. Yet no
one may ever leave.

Lonely and embittered in her captivity, Bellis knows that to
show dissent is a death sentence. Instead, she must furtively seek information about
Armada’s agenda. The answer lies in the dark, amorphous shapes that float undetected
miles below the waters-terrifying entities with a singular, chilling mission…
.

China Mieville is a writer for a new era-and The Scar is a luminous, brilliantly
imagined novel that is nothing short of spectacular.