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Perdido Street Station by China Mieville
Feb. 12th, 2017 10:03 amThe Blurb On The Back:
A stranger has come to the city …
The metropolis of New Crobuzon sprawls at the centre of the world. Humans and mutants and arcane races brood in the gloom beneath its chimneys, where the river is sluggish with unnatural effluent, and factories and foundries pound into the night. For more than a thousand years, the Parliament and its brutal militia have ruled over a vast economy of workers and artists, spies and soldiers, magicians, junkies and whores.
Now a strange has arrived, with a pocket full of gold and an impossible demand. And inadvertently, clumsily, something unthinkable is released.
While the city is gripped by an alien terror, the fate of millions lies with a clutch of renegades on the run from lawmakers and crime-lords, outcast and alone. The urban nightscape has become a hunting ground. Battles rage in the shadows of uncanny architecture. And a reckoning is due at the city’s heart, in a vast edifice of brick and wood and steel, under the chaotic vaults of Perdido Street Station.
A nightmare has come to the city. And it is too late to escape.
( The Review (Cut For Spoilers): )
The Verdict:
China Mieville’s fantasy novel couples dazzling creativity and invention, stunning concepts and a thoroughly imagined alien world with a twisting, complicated plot that draws on numerous strands but is prevented from being truly great by some purple writing, under-utilised female characters some stilted dialogue and a down beat ending that seemed to undermine the characters’ previous experiences together. There’s a lot to admire in the book – not least the world building with Mieville building a convincing semi-industrial world filled with weird magic, weirder science and a bewildering mass of cultures and peoples that together form a wonderfully realised and believable city. However Mieville’s prose at times is very purple and the dialogue (especially Isaac’s) is really stilted at times so that I never quite believed in it. Lin’s storyline unfortunately devolved to give her a standard woman-in-peril role although I enjoyed Isaac and Yagharek’s growing friendship, which is probably why I was so disappointed in the ending when a reveal about Yagharek makes Isaac act in a way that seemed to run counter to their experience together. That said, I do think this a must-read for fantasy fans for the scope and worldbuilding alone though and will definitely check out the sequel.
The metropolis of New Crobuzon sprawls at the centre of the world. Humans and mutants and arcane races brood in the gloom beneath its chimneys, where the river is sluggish with unnatural effluent, and factories and foundries pound into the night. For more than a thousand years, the Parliament and its brutal militia have ruled over a vast economy of workers and artists, spies and soldiers, magicians, junkies and whores.
Now a strange has arrived, with a pocket full of gold and an impossible demand. And inadvertently, clumsily, something unthinkable is released.
While the city is gripped by an alien terror, the fate of millions lies with a clutch of renegades on the run from lawmakers and crime-lords, outcast and alone. The urban nightscape has become a hunting ground. Battles rage in the shadows of uncanny architecture. And a reckoning is due at the city’s heart, in a vast edifice of brick and wood and steel, under the chaotic vaults of Perdido Street Station.
A nightmare has come to the city. And it is too late to escape.
( The Review (Cut For Spoilers): )
The Verdict:
China Mieville’s fantasy novel couples dazzling creativity and invention, stunning concepts and a thoroughly imagined alien world with a twisting, complicated plot that draws on numerous strands but is prevented from being truly great by some purple writing, under-utilised female characters some stilted dialogue and a down beat ending that seemed to undermine the characters’ previous experiences together. There’s a lot to admire in the book – not least the world building with Mieville building a convincing semi-industrial world filled with weird magic, weirder science and a bewildering mass of cultures and peoples that together form a wonderfully realised and believable city. However Mieville’s prose at times is very purple and the dialogue (especially Isaac’s) is really stilted at times so that I never quite believed in it. Lin’s storyline unfortunately devolved to give her a standard woman-in-peril role although I enjoyed Isaac and Yagharek’s growing friendship, which is probably why I was so disappointed in the ending when a reveal about Yagharek makes Isaac act in a way that seemed to run counter to their experience together. That said, I do think this a must-read for fantasy fans for the scope and worldbuilding alone though and will definitely check out the sequel.
