The Scar
New Crobuzon • Book 2
Narrated by Gildart Jackson
Why Listen to This Audiobook?
China Miéville built an entire floating city of pirates and possible realities, and somehow Gildart Jackson makes you feel the ocean beneath all of it.
- Great if you want: dense, literary weird fiction with genuine philosophical stakes
- Listening experience: slow, immersive, cerebral — rewards patience over 27 hours
- Narration: Jackson's measured, formal tone fits Bellis Coldwine's cold detachment perfectly
- Skip if: you need a warm protagonist or a tidy resolution
About This Audiobook
Bellis Coldwine boards a ship to a colonial outpost to escape punishment in New Crobuzon, only to have the vessel seized by pirates and brought to Armada, a floating city assembled from captured ships, where no one is ever permitted to leave. China Miéville's second New Crobuzon novel expands far beyond the first book's geography while maintaining its commitment to a world built from biological, political, and philosophical strangeness. Bellis must navigate captivity, conspiracy, and the Lovers who rule Armada, all while searching for any possibility of return.
Gildart Jackson navigates Miéville's dense, invented vocabulary with admirable fluency, giving the prose its proper weight without letting the world-building overwhelm the narrative momentum. His performance captures the cold intelligence of Bellis as a viewpoint character while doing justice to the genuinely alien elements Miéville introduces. At nearly twenty-seven hours, The Scar is a substantial commitment that rewards listeners willing to surrender to its scale.
