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The City & the City: Difference between revisions
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| genre = Crime, [[New Weird]]
| publication date = May 15, 2009
| wiki URL = https://thecityandthecity.fandom.com/wiki/The_City_%26_The_City_Wiki
| wiki name = The City & The City Wiki
}}
'''''The City & the City''''' is a 2009 novel by [[China Miéville]]. Crime novel, urban fantasy, [[New Weird]]. Inspector Tyador Borlu of the Extreme Crime Squad of the decaying [[Ruritania
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* [[Decade Dissonance]]: For a long time, Beszel was far more technologically advanced than Ul Qoma, and the roads were filled with Qoman donkey traps alongside Besz motor cars. Now the situation is reversed, and Beszel is stuck with late-80s infrastructure - dial-up internet and rickety cars - while Ul Qoma is awash with skyscrapers and broadband. It's implied this is necessary for the separation to keep working - without being able to tell at a glance what city a building or vehicle belongs to, a citizen is perpetually at risk of Breaching.
* [[Grey and Grey Morality]]: There are lots of people who aren't very nice here, but the story is rather short on actual heroes and villains - in the end, it's impossible to say who, if any, of the many factions was in the right, or if there even was an 'in the right' at all.
*
* [[Jaywalking Will Ruin Your Life]]: Breach (The act of acknowledging the existence of the other city as well as crossing over into it illegally, in this case, but is also the name of the secret police) is treated as a crime worse than murder in Beszel and Ul Qoma. Adult citizens who cross over into the other city through unofficial venues are taken away by Breach (the secret police in this case) and are never seen again. Tourists are merely exiled permanently from both cities, and it's stated that children are also treated more leniently.▼
* [[Karma Houdini]]: {{spoiler|[[Mega Corp|Sear and Core's]] CEO basically tells Borlú to fuck off while being held at gunpoint, with nothing but [[Diplomatic Impunity]] protecting him. It works.}}
▲* [[
* [[The Man Behind the Curtain]]: {{spoiler|Breach. After being played up as a mighty, possibly-supernatural force of municipal vengeance for most of the book, they turn out to be little more than a small, moderately high-tech, and very human group who draw their 'powers' from the citizens' psychological blind spots and their recruits from the breachers they abduct. They only exist because Beszel and Ul Qoma allow them to, and the foreign [[Mega Corp]] running the artefact smuggling ring holds them in contempt so complete that they're powerless against it.}}
* [[Maybe Magic, Maybe Mundane]]: The artefacts, which are ahistorical, deeply weird, and hinted to have functions and abilities of a decidedly alien sort... but never actually ''do'' anything explicitly supernatural on-screen. In accordance with the book's themes, no explanation is ever given, and the matter is not dwelt upon.
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