Helpful Score: 4
This story is set in a universe similar to ours, yet vastly different. The action takes place in a city-state known as New Crobuzon and the main character is a scientist named Isaac. Isaac lives a fairly normal lifecontent with his girlfriend and his researchuntil a stranger from far away commissions Isaacs scientific mind to solve his problem. Through the course of this new research, Isaac unwittingly releases a monster into New Crobuzon and then the adventure begins.
This book is dark and dirty, and while this is usually a turn-off for me, I enjoyed this book anyway. The language is impressive with a vocabulary bigger than my own and a feeling that no subject is untouchable. The story is long and convoluted and filled with lots of detail. Sometimes something would happen in the story or something would be stated that would make me think, No way, that couldnt happen. But whenever this happened, the author would later divulge more details so everything would make sense again. The world in which this is set is developed with great imagination. The characters are all characters that I could care about, either positively or negatively. The ending of the story is not one that I expected at all. I also liked the way the author didnt tie up all the loose ends, but instead left me wondering what was going to happen.
My only real complaint about the book is, as I said before, that it is very dark and dirty. Its filled with filth and scuzziness. Every type of slime imaginable is featured in this book. But somehow the author is able to make it feel like the dirtiness belongs. The foulness of the characters language and the griminess of the setting makes the story more believable and more real. So it turns out that my complaint isnt a complaint after all. China Miéville has written three other novels, two of which are also set in New Crobuzon although the characters and stories are completely different. Ive yet to read them, but now Ive added them to my list of books to read. These two books are The Scar and Iron Council.
This book is dark and dirty, and while this is usually a turn-off for me, I enjoyed this book anyway. The language is impressive with a vocabulary bigger than my own and a feeling that no subject is untouchable. The story is long and convoluted and filled with lots of detail. Sometimes something would happen in the story or something would be stated that would make me think, No way, that couldnt happen. But whenever this happened, the author would later divulge more details so everything would make sense again. The world in which this is set is developed with great imagination. The characters are all characters that I could care about, either positively or negatively. The ending of the story is not one that I expected at all. I also liked the way the author didnt tie up all the loose ends, but instead left me wondering what was going to happen.
My only real complaint about the book is, as I said before, that it is very dark and dirty. Its filled with filth and scuzziness. Every type of slime imaginable is featured in this book. But somehow the author is able to make it feel like the dirtiness belongs. The foulness of the characters language and the griminess of the setting makes the story more believable and more real. So it turns out that my complaint isnt a complaint after all. China Miéville has written three other novels, two of which are also set in New Crobuzon although the characters and stories are completely different. Ive yet to read them, but now Ive added them to my list of books to read. These two books are The Scar and Iron Council.
Helpful Score: 4
I loved this book...you have to be patient through the first 50 pages or so, because the setting is so alien and dark, but it is sooo worth the effort. Very, very dark place. The characters are beautiful and flawed. The author is not too sentimental to kill a few off along the way. I'll be reading everything else he writes.
Rebecca H. (amichai) reviewed Perdido Street Station (New Crobuzon, Bk 1) on + 368 more book reviews
Helpful Score: 3
A creative masterwork. The characters are real and sometimes complex, the world depicted is complete to the littlest detail and the story keeps your attention. If you liked American Gods by Neil Gaiman, Mieville's Perdido Street Station is worth a read. Category: adult fantasy, science fiction, contains violence and a little interspecies sex.
Patrick C. (MeadowbrookManor) -
Helpful Score: 2
Excellent writing from a very interesting Brit - bachelor's in Social Anthropology and a Masters with Distinction from the London School of Economics. Steampunk isn't my favorite genre, but this book kept me riveted. Slakemoths? *shudder*
Helpful Score: 1
I have to admit I was nervous about approaching this book again. I had started reading it years ago, but didn't get far. This time, I kept going, and I'm glad I did. Perdido Street Station is a intensely descriptive book filled with so much detail about New Crobuzon and its inhabitants. Woven throughout is the story of Isaac and his quest to help Yagharek fly and what that quest ultimately leads to. It'll be a while before the images of this book leave me and I look forward to reading the next book in the series, The Scar.
Helpful Score: 1
Excellent dark fantasy/sci fi. Superior world building.
Heather K. (VivaLaVole) reviewed Perdido Street Station (New Crobuzon, Bk 1) on + 119 more book reviews
Helpful Score: 1
Absolutely brilliant. Mieville pulls you into his bizarre world right from the start and even now, weeks after reading it, I still have passages from the book haunting me. Here are the themes: love, betrayal, fear, justice, obsession, cruelty, shame, courage, hope, rage, fortitude, dedication, innocence, cunning, vengeance. To name a few. The author's imagination and intelligence is amazing and I am in awe of his talent. I kid you not. Even if science fic or fantasy isn't your usual read I urge you to READ THIS.
Helpful Score: 1
A mix of horror, fantasy, and pure weirdness. It reminded me a lot of Edward Lee's City Infernal. The descriptions are amazing. Mieville is an excellent author.
R E K. (bigstone) - , reviewed Perdido Street Station (New Crobuzon, Bk 1) on + 1452 more book reviews
This is the third book I've read by this author and the more I read his writing the more I enjoy it. This is the best to date. The imaginative world Mieville created is unreal but quite engaging. The key characters, human and remades, are sensitive, courageous and brave. Even when one tries to picture them, strange as they may be, their personalities are intriguing. I really enjoyed Lin, Isaac, and Yagharek. Lin is the artist whose perfection leads her to the contract creation of her life. Isaac is a brilliant and idealistic scientist who guards his inventions with passion. Yagharek suffers his entire life for one weak action that his culture abhors. Add the four slake moths who terrorize the city while Isaac and his friends seek a way to stop them and the adventure unfolds. This is a fantastic read!
Maura (maura853) -
Like Charles Dickens on acid.
OK, this won't be for everyone, but I loved it. Yes, I toyed with the idea of quibbling, with weasel words about how I might have shaved off half a point, because it can be a teeny-tiny bit over-inflated, at 700+ pages. A tad self-indulgent, at times, as the plot vanished in a maelstrom of loving excursions into the crumbling neighbourhoods of New Crobuzon, and sidebars about its weird and wonderful citizens. A little gross, for the delicately-minded ...
But ... worth every page, and every difficult passage, and every time you have to flip back x-pages to remind yourself, who the heck is Jack Half-a-Prayer again? just for the privilege of spending time in the imagination of China Mieville.
Mieville's great talent is spinning narrative gold from the highest of high concept Big Ideas. Every single one of his novels has, at its heart, a Big Idea that make your eyes go crossed when you try to answer that question posed by loving friends and family, "What's it about?" Oh, please. How long do you have?
What I think I love best about Mieville is that he understands the power -- and the proper usage -- of metaphor. Once you hand yourself over to his epic imagination, trusting that you are in safe hands, his narrative wears those metaphors lightly -- it's easy to go for long pages forgetting that New Crobuzon is a twisty, turny fun-house mirror image of London (just look at the map at the beginning of the text, if you doubt me), and that the deeply disturbing and perverted politics of New Crobuzon is a pretty accurate metaphor for what's been going on for years in our millennial world. It's easy to go for long pages marvelling at the residents of New Crobuzon -- the frog-people, the eagle-people, the bug-headed people, the cactus-people -- without stumbling over the question of what they "represent." Until, like one of Mieville's slake-moths, the ideas and imagery worm their ways into your brain, and you are left turning the possibilities over ... and over ... and over ...
Mieville says it himself, putting the words in the mouth of his most interesting (and tragic) creation, Lin, the bug-headed Khepri: "I see clearly as you, clearer. For you it is undifferentiated. In one corner a slum collapsing, in another a new train with pistons shining, in another a gaudy painted lady below a drab and ancient airship ... You must process as one picture. What chaos! Tells you nothing, contradicts itself, changes its story. For me, each tiny part has integrity, each fractionally different from the next, until all variation is accounted for, incrementally, rationally."
OK, this won't be for everyone, but I loved it. Yes, I toyed with the idea of quibbling, with weasel words about how I might have shaved off half a point, because it can be a teeny-tiny bit over-inflated, at 700+ pages. A tad self-indulgent, at times, as the plot vanished in a maelstrom of loving excursions into the crumbling neighbourhoods of New Crobuzon, and sidebars about its weird and wonderful citizens. A little gross, for the delicately-minded ...
But ... worth every page, and every difficult passage, and every time you have to flip back x-pages to remind yourself, who the heck is Jack Half-a-Prayer again? just for the privilege of spending time in the imagination of China Mieville.
Mieville's great talent is spinning narrative gold from the highest of high concept Big Ideas. Every single one of his novels has, at its heart, a Big Idea that make your eyes go crossed when you try to answer that question posed by loving friends and family, "What's it about?" Oh, please. How long do you have?
What I think I love best about Mieville is that he understands the power -- and the proper usage -- of metaphor. Once you hand yourself over to his epic imagination, trusting that you are in safe hands, his narrative wears those metaphors lightly -- it's easy to go for long pages forgetting that New Crobuzon is a twisty, turny fun-house mirror image of London (just look at the map at the beginning of the text, if you doubt me), and that the deeply disturbing and perverted politics of New Crobuzon is a pretty accurate metaphor for what's been going on for years in our millennial world. It's easy to go for long pages marvelling at the residents of New Crobuzon -- the frog-people, the eagle-people, the bug-headed people, the cactus-people -- without stumbling over the question of what they "represent." Until, like one of Mieville's slake-moths, the ideas and imagery worm their ways into your brain, and you are left turning the possibilities over ... and over ... and over ...
Mieville says it himself, putting the words in the mouth of his most interesting (and tragic) creation, Lin, the bug-headed Khepri: "I see clearly as you, clearer. For you it is undifferentiated. In one corner a slum collapsing, in another a new train with pistons shining, in another a gaudy painted lady below a drab and ancient airship ... You must process as one picture. What chaos! Tells you nothing, contradicts itself, changes its story. For me, each tiny part has integrity, each fractionally different from the next, until all variation is accounted for, incrementally, rationally."
Very intersting read. A wonderful writter but a bit to discriptive for my taste
Really awesome read. BUT: This book has a dense vocabulary that can sorta overwhelm you when he starts to describe this huge, decaying city he's created. Sometimes as you read, his vocabulary will suddenly spike way up, and you think, wow. Thesaurus junkie. Honestly, I wish Mr. China had been a little less heavy handed with his description. The flow of the story would really have benifitted if he hadn't spent such effort on every little detail.
Anyway, those are the cons. The book is great when it's great and impressive when it's not. Haha.
Also: garuda are the freakin' bomb. I loved them so much.
Anyway, those are the cons. The book is great when it's great and impressive when it's not. Haha.
Also: garuda are the freakin' bomb. I loved them so much.
Romaine S. (Alcairha) reviewed Perdido Street Station (New Crobuzon, Bk 1) on + 21 more book reviews
Brilliant writing, fascinating story, but very dark and stays dark to the end.
The plot (Spoilers!):
the eccentric scientist Isaac Dan der Grimnebulin is hired to restore the power of flight to a cruelly de-winged birdman. Isaac's secret lover is Lin, an artist of the khepri, a humano-insectoid race; theirs is a forbidden relationship. Lin is hired (rather against her will) by a mysterious crime boss to capture his horrifying likeness in the unique khepri art form. Isaac's quest for flying things to study leads to verification of his controversial unified theory of the strange sciences of his world. It also brings him an odd, unknown grub stolen from a secret government experiment so perilous it is sold to a ruthless drug lord--the same crime boss who hired Lin. The grub emerges from its cocoon, becomes an extraordinarily dangerous monster, and escapes Isaac's lab to ravage New Crobuzon, even as his discovery becomes known to a hidden, powerful, and sinister intelligence. Lin disappears and Isaac finds himself pursued by the monster, the drug lord, the government and armies of New Crobuzon, and other, more bizarre factions, not all confined to his world
The plot (Spoilers!):
the eccentric scientist Isaac Dan der Grimnebulin is hired to restore the power of flight to a cruelly de-winged birdman. Isaac's secret lover is Lin, an artist of the khepri, a humano-insectoid race; theirs is a forbidden relationship. Lin is hired (rather against her will) by a mysterious crime boss to capture his horrifying likeness in the unique khepri art form. Isaac's quest for flying things to study leads to verification of his controversial unified theory of the strange sciences of his world. It also brings him an odd, unknown grub stolen from a secret government experiment so perilous it is sold to a ruthless drug lord--the same crime boss who hired Lin. The grub emerges from its cocoon, becomes an extraordinarily dangerous monster, and escapes Isaac's lab to ravage New Crobuzon, even as his discovery becomes known to a hidden, powerful, and sinister intelligence. Lin disappears and Isaac finds himself pursued by the monster, the drug lord, the government and armies of New Crobuzon, and other, more bizarre factions, not all confined to his world
One of the most horrific, exquisite and wonderful books I've read. Mieville's setting is utterly original, perfectly evoking the energy and pathos of a metropolis, and I couldn't scrub some of his images off of the inside of my skull if I tried (even with the right...assistance). I'm not generally a fan of horror but this was a five-star read, and not because it tread lightly (which I wouldn't say it did...)
Melody F. (GrandmaMel) -
This is not my genre that I love, which is horror. I tried and tried to get through it but finally had to give up. I hate giving up on a book but this fantasy/sci-fi story was out there and the author loved using difficult words to understand and I didn't want to take the time to check my dictionary for the meaning of the words. I am sure that people that are into this genre would find it enjoyable.
