October

The author certainly likes to use a lot of million dollar words, and as a lover of language that's fine with me. The fact that reading this on a Kindle allowed me to instantly look up those million dollar words made me even more fine with it.

Language oddities aside, this book is a very good read.

This was a really fascinating read. The Russian Revolution is one of the most influential historical events of the 20th century, but it's one that rarely gets discussed in and of itself - most general history media looks either at what was happening before (Rasputin, the Tsar and his family) or after (Stalin's genocidal and totalitarian policies) with little time spent on the event itself. In this book, Mieville takes what is normally background and brings it to the foreground, and the result is an interesting read, especially given his quality storytelling expertise.

7/10

So this is a narrative non-fiction work. What I mean by that is that Mieville tells this as a story and not just a dry recitation/list of who did what and when. Very focused on the October Revolution with enough (but not a lot) of background for newcomers to this history to not feel lost. Also he stops at the moment revolution starts, because well we know how it ends and how the revolution was betrayed. Read it a primer or as a tightly focused story, it works both ways.

очень хорошо, но как то неровно. в самом начале была несколько шокирована (кажется это называется кринж) языком автора, до боли схожим с языком учебника истории времен моего советского детства. но потом, то ли я втянулась, то ли автор исправился, а может это можно списать на огрехи перевода, ну, короче, содержание меня захватило, отодвинув форму подальше. ну это и немудрено. содержание захватывающе. и не идеализируя и не проклиная, автор показывает на самом деле совершенно невозможное, но случившееся событие, нет, Событие!
хороший человек чайна мьевиль, наш человек :)