Perdido Street Station

Rating:
Summary: A World in a Gem in a City
Review: Very beautifully written, exciting story based on non-existent sciences, complete with scary monsters, ambivalent characters and something to identify, if such is what you look for in a book.
Keeps you turning the pages, waiting for more, dense and still structured, hinting at hidden plots, well-formed characters complete with deep back-stories.
Also take a look at the sequel, it is different, but still just as fascinating!

Rating:
Summary: extraordinary feat of gothic imagination
Review: I came to this w/no preconceptions. I saw Mervyn Peake in the dedication and began to get a sense of the world I was about to enter. Amazing. A beautifully written chronical of an intricate, complex, and not-for-the squeamish society. I am impressed and envious of Mieville's talent and vision.

Rating:
Summary: Good with a couple loose ends
Review: It takes immensely bad writing, inconsistent characters, or a complete lack of action to make me put a book down and never pick it up again. It took me a month (and the distraction of 3 other books) to get through the first 200 pages of Perdido Street Station. However, it only took me 3 days, reading off and on, to get through the rest of the book.

Mieville's descriptive powers are quite impressive and there were times when I could practically see, feel, hear, or smell exactly what he was describing. The oppressive city backdrop is built extremely well. The two main characters in the beginning of the book are interesting, both apart and as a couple.

I would give the book 5 stars but for a few things.
(1) Deus ex machina (if you don't know what that is, look it up) occurs a couple times and it can only be slightly forgiven because of the tenuous setups. The Weaver deus ex machina is relatively excusable because of the Weaver's task and it's nature but Jack Half-A-Prayer really wasn't excusable at all. The character was barely mentioned and no motivation for his help was ever stated at all. (He felt like a character that Mieville was previewing for a future book.)

(2) I've read books by several other U.K. authors. They often leave loose ends that you, as a reader, get nagging feelings about and eventually realize they detract from the book. Mieville is no exception. SPOILER: (a) We never find out what happened to David, Grimnebulin's "friend" and (b) the end result of the Motley plotline can hardly be called a resolution. Perhaps I've read too much American literature but I don't like plotlines or characters flapping in the wind when the story is over.

It took a while but the book eventually grabbed me and I got into it. If the book grabs you and you can overlook the flaws listed above, I think you'll enjoy it. If you are super nit-picky about American literary conventions (i.e. no deus ex machina and no loose ends) or can't stand too much description, save your time and money.

Rating:
Summary: Heartbreaking
Review: This book is one of the most imaginative and well written books I have ever read.

Mieville's sometimes overly rich language and the learning curve for the new world of New Crobuzon makes this story a hard read, but the reward of finishing it is worth it. Although the story is full of horrible imagery and a certain fetish that leans toward slimy things that disgust, the characters are all extremely well drawn and you will find yourself caring, hating, cheering, and sympathizing with almost all of them at one point or another.

This is a very good book.

Rating:
Summary: Great ideas, somewhat overdone
Review: I have to give Mieville credit for the incredible inventiveness fo the world he's created. On the whole, I left this book thinking it was worth reading. However, the book was hard to get into. The atmosphere-building descriptions in the first couple chapters were overdone in my opinion. Lots of subplots, mostly interesting but not gripping. Mieville's best work to date is in his next novel, the Scar.

Rating:
Summary: Stunningly Imaginative
Review: In `Perdido Street Station', China Mieville explores the city of New Crobuzon located in the world of Bas-Lag. It is an amazingly dark and complex place which the author describes with much detail and imagination. Even a map (which looks suspiciously like a human brain) is supplied. Think London during the time of Jack the Ripper, but throw in a host of non-human, sentient races, and mix it with technology not based in this universe, and you'll get some idea of the novel's mood. In fact, the architecture and streets of New Crobuzon are detailed so painstakingly, I sometimes found my mind wandering during the numerous passages spent on making this place so vivid.

More engaging than the city are the inhabitants, which as mentioned previously, come from numerous races, and include cactus people, amphibians, women with insect heads, the winged garuda, sentient robots, and the Remade (who, strictly speaking, are actually not a race, but are those accused of criminal offenses whose bodies have been reconstructed into monstrous forms ).

The plot builds very slowly, but once it gets going, it proceeds with a momentum that can not be denied. The story is stunningly original and very dark. In fact, sometimes too dark. People have compared Mieville to Mervyn Peake (probably because the author mentions Peake in the book's acknowledgments). But unlike the Gormenghast series, which is bursting with sly humor, `Perdido Street Station' is unrelenting in its gothic depictions. The main character's love for his girlfriend, and in general the strong emotionally attachment of the other leads, is perhaps the only respite we get from the dark tone.

I read `The Scar' before this novel, and if were to compare, I would say that `The Scar' is the better written of the two: the characters seem more well drawn, and the writing a bit less wordy. But for shear imaginative force, `Perdido Street Station' is hard to beat.