Subversive, original and very entertaining - Rated 
China Mieville's brilliant YA fantasy subverts the traditional genre elements, notably the ideas that only a person ordained by prophecy can defeat a Big Bad, fantastical worlds only accessible through special portals and that pretty blonde girls have to be the hero.
When Zanna and Deeba realise that a broken umbrella is watching Zanna one night, they follow it and find themselves in the parallel world of UnLondon. There they discover that Zanna is the Shwazzy, the only person able to defeat the Smog, a cloud of noxious gas intent on dominating and destroying both UnLondon and London. But just as Zanna's embraces the role she's unexpectedly incapacitated. Someone has to help UnLondon if it is to survive, and Deeba volunteers. But she's not the Shwazzy, so what good can she possibly do?
Mieville's imagination blew me away. His UnLondon is familiar to Londoners (double-decker buses, markets, even a version of the London Eye) but he mixes it with the surreal - cannibal giraffes and houses constructed from rubbish amongst others. He uses puns to great effect and I'd recommend this book for the binjas alone. Politics also plays a big part in the book, with London's government being tied to what's happening in UnLondon. There's a distinctly anti-authoritarian feel to the text with the motivation of political leaders and even the book of prophecy all being questioned and found wanting.
Mieville illustrates his own text and the drawings are evocative and help flesh out his world. Deeba's a very human heroine, brave because she needs to be and prone to self-doubt and I particularly liked the scene where she refuses to jump through the normal prophecy hoops. Her helpers are well written, particularly Hemi the half-ghost boy who sees shoplifting as extreme shopping, Jones the bus conductor and I loved Curdle the milk carton. My only quibble is that where Mieville kills members of her team, those members haven't quite been in the book long enough for it to have a big emotional impact.
The slow build-up might put off some readers, but the chapters are kept short and there are some wonderfully written scenes (my favourite being one with a Black Window spider, which is very creepy). Mieville leaves an opening for a sequel and I would love to see more of the world he's created. Teens reading this will want to read more of his work.
Un Lun Dun - Rated 
What a difficult book to review! China Mieville is undisputed in my mind when it comes to weird fiction, and works such as "Perdido Street Station" and "The Scar" are sheer brilliance set like concrete in my imagination. The difficulty with reviewing "Un Lun Dun" is that it is not, strictly speaking, an adult book. Mieville contradicts himself by writing another tome of a novel but intending it to be for younger adults; the protagonist is a young girl undergoing the familiar transition between our world and a mysterious other realm, one that is common in young fiction. It would seem straightforward to judge the novel as one written for a young adult, but it really seems like Mieville is deluding himself here. I would imagine that most fans would have preferred an adult story in the guise of youth fiction, as a form of pastiche perhaps, rather than an unusual attempt at reaching towards a new market.
Still, it is not a bad novel. It ripples with imagination and there are twists of the genre at every turn - the venture into a new world is no longer a trip down a rabbit hole, and the "Chosen One" choses to stay home so the city of Un Lun Dun may just have to settle for Second Best - and the mysterious creatures, the unusual characters and the malformed locations are all interesting and can withstand scrutiny. Anybody who has seen Neil Gaiman's "Mirror-Mask" will have a sense of the kind of distorted reflection of a familiar world.
"Perdido Street Station" it is not, but nor is it a throwaway piece of cheap fiction. There is merit here and Mieville retains a style, although less indomitability, that he has been constructing since "King Rat". It may be a bit of an author's experiment, but it's a great read by a great author. Sadly standing out from the darker and more adult novels by Mieville, I would still heartily recommend it to adults and younger readers alike.
Inventive but overlong, innit? - Rated
I've never read anything by this author before but the blurb looked interesting. I have to admit that although this book could do with a bit of sharp editing, I started reading and kept on right to the end, mainly because of the inventiveness displayed. (For example, I loved the names of the other abcities - Parisn't, Sans Francisco, Lost Angeles, Hong Gone).
Within a few pages, I was racking my brains to try and remember what the style reminded me of, and soon came to the conclusion that more than anything this is like a very long version of "The Phantom Tollbooth" by Norton Juster. Lo and behold, Mieville cites him as one of the authors who has influenced him (along with Lewis Caroll and others - when you read the list of his influences you can certainly pick them out in retrospect).
Apart from the length, the other thing that I found irritating was Deeba's yoof mannerisms, especially the double negatives, which I found neither convincing nor in character. It's not that I want nice, middle-class, Famous Five-type characters, but this just seemed a jarring intrusion. The bus conductor didn't talk like that, after all, innit? So why did she?
Anyway, a fun read but not necessarily one I'll pick up again in a hurry; however, it's prompted me to try some of his other work and I'll reserve judgment until I've seen what that's like.
OK but it drags a bit - Rated
There are some great ideas in the book - the binjas being my favourite, but it feels like a bit of a mish mash of ideas and characters from other books. Some of the secondary characters feel totally un necessary and just seem to be there to pad the story out a bit. I wasnt wildly impressed with the writing and found the 'init' London dialogue used by the main character Deeba and her friends to be a bit strained and quite false.
The final chapters drag and the climax just goes on way to long. I give it three stars for originality and because the binjas were so cool! If you can borrow this book and have plenty of time then give it a go. If you have to be a bit more selective about your reading then give it a miss!
This is an awful book - Rated 
As a fan of Perdido station, I looked forward to China Meiville's take on a childrens story. Please do not think this title is associated with Gaiman or Pratchett or heaven forbid Phillip Pullman.
This is a bolt on tale poorly thought through."Hey why not be chased by a load of double glazing" Modplan is not scary.
When the only character that you can empathise with is an empty milk carton you know your on a slippery slope.Poor story telling at it's worst.
AVOID.
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