Cirque De Soleil & China Mieville

What do these two things have in common you my be asking yourself. Freaking weird ideas about bugs is the answer. I went to see the latest Cirque De Soleil show and it was about bugs. The costumes were absolutely amazing and I was delighted in the way they changed the way a persons body looks when they move to create a more insect-like movement. The whole time  I was watching the show I just kept thinking I felt like it was a China Mieville novel come to life. I have read Perdido Street Station and I didn't finish it, I just couldn't get into it. The story line was insane and the characters so hard to relate to, because so few of them were humans. I want to share with you some pictures and phrases taken from the book and maybe you will see the similarities too.

"Saw her throat bob where the pale insectile underbelly segued smoothly into  her human neck" pg 10

"She angled up on one elbow and , as he watched, the dark ruby or her carapace opened slowly while her headlegs splayed. The two halves of her headshell quivered slightly, held as wide as they would go. From beneath their shade she spread her beautiful, useless little beetle wings."pg 14

"Five on each side, holding my wings. Holding my great wings tight as I thrashed and sought to beat them hard and viciously against my captors' skulls." pg 705

Fevre Dream - G.R.R. Martin

I think we all know G.R.R. Martin is able to write a good book and  Fevre Dream is no exception. It has vampire's in the book, but it's not about vampires. It is about a partnership and a steamboat. It is about a loveable riverman by the name of Marsh who is so unlucky you feel bad for the poor guy. Above all, it is about a steamboat, that goes by the name of Fevre Dream.

My favourite thing about this book was how well the characters and settings were written. Martin takes us strolling down the Mississippi at a leisurely pace. I was drawn into this world of steamboats and trade and I was drawn to this mysterious stranger and the bold as brass captain Marsh.

The novel is short, and it isn't action packed but there is a charm in the story. You can almost trick yourself into thinking you are reading a real account of the river trade along the Mississippi 1850s. The scenery, the calm pace of the river is all written so beautifully, I want to put the mississippi river on my go to list when I travel over to America. I am aware that it will look very different to what it looked like in the 1850s though :(. I would have like more to happen in the story though, a few added big events, just to give it a bit more excitement.

There was plenty of natural stopping points in the novel, much like there is in our own lives, where things are less hectic and are just flowing along smoothly. It mean I finished the novel in a much longer time frame then I thought I would.

Overall I really liked this novel. Because it felt to different in style I can trick myself I read something outside of the genre :P

4 out of 5 beautiful old steamboats.