cyphomandra

Yeah, no, Un Lun Dun is just not up to the standard of The Scar or even Perdido Street Station. (I think it's about on par with Iron Council, but I, uh, really didn't like Iron Council much.) I forgot about the 'skip straight to the last one' bit, so I guess I liked 1.5 structural decisions? The one I was talking about was the need to return to the secondary world to undo the problem you helped create.

I can see how the opening of a Shadow in Summer could strike you that way. Its kind of unfortunate that that was the opening, though, because as far as I'm concerned, it gets better later on. If I'm remembering it correctly, it also doesn't give some of the context that's necessary to understand why everyone's busy being a bastard (well, it alludes to it, but that's not the same).

I am kind of a sucker for quasi-Asian fantasy cultures that aren't blatant Japan/China/India ripoffs, though, so YMMV.