Following <i>Perdido Street Station</i> and <i>The Scar</i>, acclaimed author China Miéville returns with his hugely anticipated Del Rey hardcover debut. With a fresh and fantastical band of characters, he carries us back to the decadent squalor of New Crobuzon—this time, decades later.<br><b><br></b>It is a time of wars and revolutions, conflict and intrigue. New Crobuzon is being ripped apart from without and within. War with the shadowy city-state of Tesh and rioting on the streets at home are pushing the teeming city to the brink. A mysterious masked figure spurs strange rebellion, while treachery and violence incubate in unexpected places.<br>In desperation, a small group of renegades escapes from the city and crosses strange and alien continents in the search for a lost hope.<br>In the blood and violence of New Crobuzon's most dangerous hour, there are whispers. It is the time of the iron council. . . .<br><br>The bold originality that broke Miéville out as a new force of the genre is here once more in <i>Iron Council</i>: the voluminous, lyrical novel that is destined to seal his reputation as perhaps the edgiest mythmaker of the day.<br><br><br><i>From the Hardcover edition.</i>