200 Extrapolation, Vol. 50, No. 2 © 2009 by The University of Texas at Brownsville and Texas Southmost College From Cacotopias to Railroads: Rebellion and the Shaping of the Normal in the Bas-Lag Universe NICHOLAS BIRNS Abstract China Miéville’s Iron Council is the most overtly political of the three Bas-Lag but it reveals political circumstances latent throughout the entire series. Miéville upends two givens of the traditional sf/fantasy universe. He sees the existing op- pressive order as too entrenched for an immediate, cathartic overthrow, while not relinquishing a hope that this overthrow will someday come. Also, he does not hypothesize a benevolent historical agency operating behind the scenes, as has been a customary trope in sf/fantasy that takes on political dimensions. Miéville champions a patchwork, hybridized, but highly material mode of resistance to con- stituted authority. The emblem of this resistance is the Time Golem manufactured by Judah Low, which bursts the order of time so that resistance can thrive outside the contours of a deterministic, fxed political universe. China Miéville’s three Bas-Lag novels— ■ Perdido Street Station (2000), The Scar (2002), and Iron Council (2004)—present an implacable, force-flled universe-to-go, with khepri and Remade to boot, and with all this multiplicity causing optimism rather than pessimism. Not only is Miéville a talented op- erator on the level of entertainment, but he has the ability to guide the reader through a labyrinth of political disillusionment and yet to hone rather than