China miéville's the city & the city6/19/2023 This involves a practice called ‘unseeing’ the other. Citizens of either nation state are expected to not see the overlapping zones of the other when they go about their daily tasks. Basically, the two cities overlap onto each other in various places and some places belong to both cities, called cross-hatched zones. He gives clues and short expositions on the cleavage between the cities which happened at some seismic point in the past and how the two cities occupy virtually the same spaces and yet are irredeemably differentiated by some ambiguous (and yet somehow clearly defined) boundaries. Besźel and Ul Qoma are the two cities here, and Miéville never spells it out completely for the lazy reader on what these two are exactly split on. The unique city world which the author builds up is one like no other. That book is ‘The City & the City’ by China Miéville an intriguing name, but one aptly suited to the theme it tackles. When I realized that there was another equally acclaimed book from that year I figured I needed to get my hands on it. One of these was ‘The Windup Girl’ by Paolo Bacigalupi, a riveting dystopian thriller set in Bangkok and one which I read and loved a few years back. Back in 2010, most of the literary awards in the Sci-Fi realm was distributed or shared among two hugely acclaimed works.
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