missingvolume | #93 Embassytown by China Miéville (Reply)

The setup sounds very intriguing but the layout of the story drags. Humans have a colony on a planet that is currently inhabited with aliens that are almost incapable of lying. The plots turns on two points one is some of the aliens are trying to learn how to lie and due to the aliens brain structure humans can't be heard by them unless they are specially bred twins that are in almost perfect harmony. The government sends in some new ambassadors that have not been raised on the planet and they are not twins either but they are able to speak to the aliens with some unintended consequences. I liked the idea behind the story but I really felt the plot dragged at points and it might have worked better as a novella.