I listened to this audiobook on the advice of someone who'd read the trilogy it is part of. I had mentioned to them that I found the second book The Scar lacking to the point where I failed to finish reading it and they said this third volume had more in common with the first book Perdido Street Station, which I had liked. The action takes place after these other books in a setting that has elements of the weird and of magical realism with a set of characters distinct from those other books. It is more overtly political as it depicts the struggle between the upper classes of New Crobuzon who use the city militia to maintain their dominance and the working classes. The sympathis are with the revolutionary sentiments of the latter. The story bounces between a number of revolutionaries, taking place both in the city and across the continent, over a span of years. the Iron Council is a train which has been hijacked by a crew of leftists (they lay track in front of it and pull up the track behind it so the thing can travel to any part of the land) which has become a powerful symbol of the opposition to the elites. There are various forms of magic, strange intelligent species living in tension with one another, and the mutilation of convicts to produce an enslaved class of workers, all of which combines to give the impression of a dream world. There are also disturbing scenes of sex and violence along the way. It is all a heavy load for the reader to make sense of and there were stretches where I would lose my way as the lush prose just carried on. By the end, though, all the machinations did combine to produce an emotional climax that does not try to reach a settled verdict on who was good and who was evil.

I would say that I admired parts of this book, more than enjoyed it as a whole. Perhaps it would have been easier for me to digest presented as a set of linked stories rather than as a hulking novel. There might have been a single theme buried among the axtravagance on display but it wasn't on the surface as far as I can tell.