A review by rosekk
October: The Story of the Russian Revolution by China Miéville

5.0

My first experience of Mieville's writing was The City and The City, which is a great book but very surreal. I wondered how his style would work in this sort of context, when describing events from history. I was pleased by what I found - his story-writing prowess few through, and he managed to paint a picture of a bleak, suffering country with the small strokes of humour you tend to search for in situations where so much is terrible. The book relayed how events played out, but more importantly, it did a good job of evoking a sense of these events being real, of having happened to actual people who would have to live with the aftermath, as well as events themselves. While Mieville admits to his own biases regarding the events presented, one never feels like they're being snuck in under the radar, which is when they would be most problematic, so one feels guided through history, but not tricked into reaching the same conclusions about it.