Perdido Street Station

Rating:
Summary: Year's Best Fantasy Novel
Review: This is fantasy/weird fiction the way it should be written; highly inventive, filled with wonder & terror, featuring a cast of believable characters who carry you along with them. This is far and away the best fantasy novel of the year and, in my humble opinion, among the five best of the the last ten years. Read it & discover for yourselves!

Rating:
Summary: A fine phantasmagoric fantasy
Review: What makes Perdido Street Station a refreshingly novel work of fantasy is its setting. The entire story takes place within one city, New Crobuzon, a brilliantly rendered industrial landscape smeared with pollution and overgrown with desperate citizens struggling to scrape out a living. Insect-headed khepri and the amphibious vodyanoi live alongside the Remade, whose bodies have been grafted with spare parts. Not very much magic exists here: the sense of fantasy arises mostly from the more exotic denizens and the thaumaturgic power supplies in this city suffused with dingy railroads, mechanical calculating engines, and brutal factories. Although the narrative follows a handful of well drawn characters, the city is clearly the star here.

Thankfully, this novel is more than just a fascinating setting. Mieville also tells a gripping story about an insidious menace unleashed upon the city, a desperate scientist on the fringe and his illicit khepri lover, and a shattered bird man's quest to regain flight. This tale begins slowly, but quickly gains steam. Be warned, though, that this story is not very pretty, and I don't mean just the garish violence and vulgarity (which seem entirely at home in this squalid metropolis). It doesn't end very neatly, but with a jagged tear that left me more disturbed than with a sense of resolution. Various threads of the plot arise suddenly and then disappear, uncertain to return. Even this casual disregard for tidy narrative structure seems deliberate, a structural reflection of the city's chaotic, brutal nature. Nevertheless, quite beautiful as a whole.

Rating:
Summary: Not for everyone. . .
Review: Perdido is not a casual read. The language is dense, and if you're vocabulary isn't up to snuff, you'll probably struggle with this. Mieville also dedicates an incredible amount of time to imagery and atmosphere. On top of all that, the book takes a while to warm up, and at times the plotting feels loose and disjointed.

So, you may be asking, why did I give this five stars? Because once the story got going, I couldn't put it down, flaws and all. Mieville's imagination is nearly boundless and it's a book, love it or hate it, that's unlike anything else. And in the Weaver, a spider-like god that walks the web of reality, Mieville has created one of the most interesting and wonderfully bizarre characters I've ever come across. The minute he/she/it stepped on the page, I was enthralled. Always. I'd reccomend checking this one out for the Weaver alone.

And even though Perdido felt aimless at times (a tighter plot would have done wonders), certain scenes were so amazing that I doubt I'll ever forget them. The chapter involving the Ambassador of Hell was simply brilliant, and it's just one amongst the many.

Though Perdido is not without its faults, its pros far out-weigh the cons, especially in the latter half. For the patient and open-minded, this is not a book to pass up, for it will definitely make an impression and probably a lasting one.

Rating:
Summary: Dark, Complex, Fantastic
Review: Although I don't usually like fantasy that reads more like science fiction, China Mieville's "Perdido Street Station" is so original, so inventive and so complex that I had to read it, and I'm certainly glad I did.

"Perdido Street Station" takes place in New Crobuzon, a huge, sprawling, polluted city-state quite reminiscent of the very worst of London. New Crobuzon is home to, not only humans, but a variety of mutants, aliens, modified criminals and xenians...a particular species of humanoid that is part bird, part insect, part cactus, etc. In New Crobuzon, humans and humanoids, mutants and aliens, live and work and socialize alongside one another. In fact, the origin of the xenians is never made known, it is simply accepted as the way the world is today. The fact that Mieville does not tell us everything about everything in this novel is a plus, not a minus. In a novel such a "Perdido Street Station" one's imagination needs free rein to create along with the book's creator. Mieville has generously given us this free rein.

The protagonist of the book is rebel scientist Isaac Dan der Grimnebulin who is assigned the task of restoring flight to a criminal garuda bird-man, Yagharek. Isaac's lover, Lin, is a xenian, or, more specifically a khepri sculptor. This jeopardizes Issac and his career in academia for two reasons: humans are not allowed to enter into affairs with xenians, and, Issac is not the only one with an assignment, Lin has one herself, involving New Crobuzon's most notorious gangster. Both Isaac's assignment and Lin's have potentially disatrous results, on the personal level and on a more cosmic level as well. And both threaten the existence of New Crobuzon.

Because this is fantasy (weird fantasy, but fantasy nevertheless), the brand of science practiced by Isaac is not science as we know it, but something more akin to alchemy and magic. The world of New Crobuzon simply overflows with marvelously-realized characters; for Mieville, obviously, anything and everything, goes. Yet, odd as New Crobuzon is, there is something strangely familiar about it as well. The social ills, the corruption, the love, the hate, the friendships are what we, ourselves, experience in our day-to-day life. New Crobuzon, however, is a far darker place than the places we usually inhabit. In fact, the tone of this novel is so dark that, despite its modern elements, there is a vaguely Gothic feel about it.

It's not easy to write about "Perdido Street Station" without giving away some of the plot and I certainly don't want to do that. This book is so good that one should discover the plot within its pages and not in a review. This is also a book that just may possibly be "too much of a good thing." Everything seems to abound in New Crobuzon--monsters, demons, slakemoths, frog people, the spider-like Weaver, the scarab-headed khepri. Does Mieville have anything left over?

As good as "Perdido Street Station" is, I think some readers are going to be disappointed with its ending. I found it to be powerful, but after such a complex plot, I think some readers might be expecting something different. For those who are disappointed, my advice would be to let the novel simmer in your imagination for awhile, absorb it. Then I think the ending might make more sense.

It takes a very special book to cause me to become absorbed in science fiction. "Perdido Street Station" is exactly that kind of book. Even if science fiction or fantasy is not for you, I think you should give this book a chance. You just might be surprised.

Rating:
Summary: Year's Best Fantasy Novel
Review: This is fantasy/weird fiction the way it should be written; highly inventive, filled with wonder & terror, featuring a cast of believable characters who carry you along with them. This is far and away the best fantasy novel of the year and, in my humble opinion, among the five best of the the last ten years. Read it & discover for yourselves!

Rating:
Summary: A Spectacular Canvas
Review: Far from the city of New Crobuzon, on the Cymek desert, Yagharek the Garuda, commits choice theft and faces harsh tribal justice - his wings are cut from his body. The Bird Man's quest to regain the power of flight trigger's a series of events that release a terrible evil on the citizens of the city. Slakemoths, who can strip the spirit and thoughts from any intelligent creature, leaving a helpless husk, are freed to feed at will. Isaac der Grimnebulin, rogue scientist, in undertaking Yagharek's task, is instrumental in first releasing the moths and then in leading the tragic struggle to free the city skies of terror.

New Crobuzon itself is the main character of "Perdido Street Station." Mieville describes the city as a combination of London, Cairo and Havana. But even a shallow reading reveals far more than that. Founded on the bones of some legendary beast, it is peopled with hundreds of different cultures, many non-human. The Kephri, insect headed, who excrete fantastical art, the Vodyanoi water masters, and the isolationist Cactus People. Some are actually shaped by magic and machine. Each individual culture has its own life style and environment. New Crobuzon is a crazy quilt mix of these peoples and their artifacts. The sum of their contributions and more. There are mages, thaumaturges, scientists, artists and artisans of every discipline. Slums and fashionable neighborhoods and decayed elegances abut one another. This is a city made in the image of Hieronymous Bosch's most fevered visions of hell. Wherever the reader looks there are countless layers and distractions to study.

Desperately trying to trap the slakemoths, der Grimnebulin acts as our guide through this city. Having first conceived of the idea of a crisis engine as a way to grant Yagharek flight, Isaac realizes that it is the only hope of undoing his mistake. Aided by revolutionaries, remade men, immense intelligent machines, an eerie spider creature and others almost too numerous to catalog, the inventor scours the city for the knowledge and materials the he needs. Finally, atop the Perdido Street Station, the center of the city's links to the world, Isaac weaves New Crobuzon itself into the his final weapon. If he can win, the dreams of the city will no longer be invaded by the slakemoths and New Crobuzon can return to a semblance of sanity.

This is a book about transformation, the tragic nature of heroism and the pain of inexorable justice. Each character must face the outcome of their decisions and actions. New Crobuzon itself, its vastness sprawling beneath the heights of Perdido Street Station is the court in which each one's mettle is tested, and all too often found wanting. The book has an eerie flavor of the Victorian Gothic about it and one finds that the most memorable characters are creatures of accident - the remade man Half-a-Prayer, the spider creature Weaver, and the housecleaning automaton that develops intelligence and leads the others to their best hope of survival.

If "Perdido Street Station" has a fault, it is that it is too rich a diet for easy reading. On more than a few occasions I found myself putting the book aside after a chapter or two, to think over all the images and ideas that Mieville uses freely. What surprised me is that the writing was so vivid that I found it easy to pick up where I left off, even after a day or two pause. The book is a wonder on many levels, with enough content to populate more than a single city. Indeed, we are promised that there is a forthcoming tale also set in the same venue. The intrepid reader will find this book a deep well of ideas and imaginings.

Rating:
Summary: Very Urban fantasy
Review: Most urban fantasies deal with elves and such living in modern society on Earth. Here the term has another meaning. The novel takes place in New Crobuzon - a megapolice as great as any in our world. The city with its train stations, dumps and red light districts is as much a character in this novel as others.
The plot takes its time to really start. It's not that nothing happens for the first several hundreds of pages - it's that those events are rather slow and serve to set the scene for later events (think part 1 of Tad Williams' "The Dragonbone Chair" where for 200 pages we followed a boy living in a castle and his daily chores).

The characters are interesting if not overly original. Isaac - a young scientist, who was marked as "crazy scientist" by some of the reviewers is a rational person, trying to understand the universe and its' mysteries. To him comes a garuda (birdman) named Yagharek (and NOT Grimnebulin like one review said, that's really Isaacs' surname - Isaac Dan der Grimnebulin! How did they read the novel, if they don't know the name of one character from another?). Yagharek has no wings, and asks Isaac to find a way - any way, to give him back flight. This triggers the series of events, some of which are spectacularly scary. But still, this novel has more in common with Peake and even Dickens, then Robert Jordan and Terry Brooks.

The author has a great imagination and he puts it to full use here, creating many interesting races and building the city from scratch. Among characters worth mentioning are an Ambassador of Hell, the Weaver (a very interesting creature), Council (who will come into action late in the novel, so I won't tell any more about him).

New Crobuzon looks as real as any city you visited, and it's populated with many colorful characters. And though the book felt overlong in places, by the end of it I new that I'd love to make another visit to this strange and yet familiar land.

Rating:
Summary: Putrid, festering, rotten fecal calamity
Review: Perdido Street Station is a boiling, festering, rotten, dilapidated, steamy mess. No not the city - the book. As impressive as the New Crobozun and its citizens are, the plot is as palatable as the city itself. Yes, yes, this carnival of horrors boasts: a de-winged birdmen/poet, walking cacti living in a greenhouse village, Shelob on acid, a sentient cleaning-bot, and a bland scientist who releases a terrible moth like beast upon its queer alien inhabitants. Hmmm...all components of a dark fantasy indeed. I had gotten the impression that this was a dystopia. No such philosophical ramifications here. It's just another horror story. It lacks that overall "Oomph" to make it a purportedly standout modern classic. Characterization is flat. Plot is thin. Setting is overly ripe.

Isaac the un-redeeming, extraordinarily boring protagonist, receives a job not to be dismissed. Grimnebuilin, the de-winged birdman, wishes to fly again. So Isaac buries himself in his studies and the book grudgingly goes through pages upon pages of pseudo-science describing the creation of this crisis engine. The science is utterly and ridiculously implausible. Yet, all this buildup is, in the end, superfluous. The female Kephri, whose beginning was promising: a progressive thinking free-love bug freak, is turned into a pathetic damsel in distress. The author took little advantage of the complexity of Grimnebuilin who, beyond a couple prefixed soliloquies in each chapter, is only a supporting member of this motley crew.

The author has a penchant for scattering the pages with a combination or rare & unusual vocabulary and an annoying lot of diphthongs (like Grimnebuilin), which gives the prose a baroque feel. But underneath the flowery language and queer environs lies a thin tale. The putrefying Metamorphosis sex with the bug headed girlfriend is just disturbing. Her story, involving a Mieville version of a yakuza drug lord gets scrapped midway through. Then Mieville picks up the minor subplot involving the sentient cleaning bot, mashes it together with the monster-butterfly chase and shoves the anorexic and anemic conclusion down your throat.

Perdido Street Station: Fashionable and forgettable like a goth & grunge movie. This book is more horror than fantasy. Perdido excels in strangeness. Hopefully there are other steampunk novels that, unlike the birdman, can take flight.

Rating:
Summary: Definitely cartoonish
Review: I like my fantasy with a complex plot , credible characters , consistent world and rich imagination .

Perdido failed for me fully on the first 3 even if it does fairly on the fourth .

The characters have no credibility , they behave like nobody would .
They are overexcited , yelling for no apparent reason , overreacting , swearing without cause and altogether behaving like Roger Rabbit .
They are unidimensional - you know nothing about their history , their family , their dreams and wishes .
Let's take the main vilain criminal in the story - who is he ?
Where does he come from ? Beside being violent , what does he think ?
The mayor ? A vague shadow without past and future .

Now the plot . If you are used to G.R.R. Martin or S.Erikson then the plot is really poor .
A mutilated wingless avian allien wants to fly again .
A half crazy scientist tries to find a way to help him to fly .
In the process he does an incredibly stupid thing and lets a deadly mind eating monster escape .
The monster frees 4 more .
Everybody tries to kill the 5 monsters and is exceptionaly bad at it (the scene with the handlike parasite beings - remember Allien ? - is particularly ridiculous in that respect) .
The crazy scientist gets lucky and kills the monsters in a really unbelievable way .
End of plot .

Beyond that as far as the style is concerned , Mieville revels in fluids .
Everything is damp , viscous , slimy .
Snot , blood , excrements , slobber , sweat , pus flow freely .
Some of the violence is also gratuitous - the description of the Garuda's mutilation or Lin's tortures didn't need to go in all those details .

Well , I forced myself to get to the end but if you don't like crazy , overspeed , violent cartoons you will not like this one .

Rating:
Summary: Creatively different
Review: Certainly a very creative novel. Multiple species living in the same city, in a fantasy setting with selective technologies. Mieville presents topics such as:
-the social politics of interspecies dating
-how finding out about a friend's sordid past forever changes your relationship
-respecting another culture's social mores, even if you don't understand them
-how curiosity almost killed the entire civilization
-even the minions of hell get scared
-just because you're paranoid doesn't mean your vacuum isn't watching you