From Newsgroup: rec.arts.sf.written
On 29/09/2026 04:51, Bice wrote:
On Tue, 22 Sep 2026 12:27:26 +1200, Titus G <noone@nowhere.com> wrote:
This Census Taker. China Mielville.
Many years ago, I loved his steampunk "New Crobuzon" series and the
standalones, "Embassytown" and "The City and the City" which were also
brilliantly imaginative earning solid Four Stars but "This Census Taker"
was One Star rubbish.
A youth, whose father makes magical keys for a living and kills things including people, escapes to the village where he claims his father has
killed his mother but is not believed so is returned home. Slow, dry and boring. I didn't appreciate what I was reading so sought on line reviews
once finished. I missed some riddle aspects in which I lost interest but
the consensus of views once the empty flowery praise was ignored was
that the book was a study of a traumatised unreliable narrator. And that
is neither interesting not entertaining.
As an opposing viewpoint, I'll mention that I found the book at a
library sale several years ago and really enjoyed it. It's a fairly confusing post-apocalyptic story that jumps around in time and switchs
from first person to third and back. It may or may not have a reliable narrator and it leaves a lot unexplained. But I blew through it in
three days, and I'm not the fastest reader. It's more novella length
than novel.
The narrator is definitely unreliable. It is clearly stated that the
second book of the three census takers' books, (the one we are reading),
was incomplete and dishonest and that truths were disclosed in the third
book which no one would read except the census taker himself.
After my second reading, when I thought I had finally worked out what
was really going on in the story, I read a review from someone who had
a completely different take on the tale's backstory and a different explanation for the events in the book, and his version made more
sense than what I had come up with.
I would be interested to hear those two differing theories. One of my
gripes is that the lack of events fitting a plot and the lack of
characters made everything so vague. You support that gripe with your
report of different interpretations.
Perhaps his murdered mother was the other census taker's assistant and
the census taker put the father in the hole as revenge?
At the very end of the book, he leaves with one of the children, (now an adult), from the house on the bridge suggesting that the narrator was a resident there instead of living with his father?
The census taker is counting or accounting for people only from his own
polity. People capable of magic who were responsible for the troubles
resulting in the post apocalyptic primitive society?
If you're looking for a story that spoon feeds the reader and wraps up
all the loose ends, this isn't that book. But it was interesting and definitely got my imagination fired up.
-- Bob
Whilst I enjoy being spoon fed, I also enjoy ambiguous conclusions where
the reader can consider the choices not knowing which might be correct
but in this book, everything was too vague.
The primitive setting was vague but not relevant to the story apart from
the lack of communal authority.
There was only one non-plastic character, the traumatised unreliable
narrator.
If there is a plot, it is carefully hidden. I think you were lucky to
have your imagination fired up as it fell flat for me. Rather than using
his brilliant powers of imagination to explain impossibilities, (The
City and The City), Mielville's imagination has undertaken a writing
exercise.
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