Perdido Street Station (New Crobuzon, #1) in flight paths

Feb 19, 2012 Traveller rated it it was amazing

Shelves: favorites, four-and-a-half-stars, steampunk, urban-fantasy

This Steampunk meets New Weird meets Cyberpunk meets Fantasy novel has so many themes, that I'm not even going to try to give it full credit with some sort of synopsis. I'm rather just going to talk about various aspects of the book as I go along with my review.

The way I felt when I finished the novel, I wanted to give it 7 stars. For a few reasons, I'm having second thoughts.

Let me start off the bat with some aspects that niggled me.

Firstly, certain aspects of the world-building:
Mieville used ...more

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Nov 08, 2011 Robert Delikat rated it really liked it

Shelves: fantasy, dystopia

Wow, did I ever have a time with this one. It was a love-hate-love relationship. At first the book drew me in with the language. I am almost always about writing over plot so I was immediately drawn in by the words and their construction long before the plot even began to quicken. Some has been written about how Miéville repeats certain words and, while I noticed that (for me it was pugnacious and detritus), it was not too distracting. Actually, given that the landscape was usually strewn with d Wow, did I ever have a time with this one. It was a love-hate-love relationship. At first the book drew me in with the language. I am almost always about writing over plot so I was immediately drawn in by the words and their construction long before the plot even began to quicken. Some has been written about how Miéville repeats certain words and, while I noticed that (for me it was pugnacious and detritus), it was not too distracting. Actually, given that the landscape was usually strewn with detritus and and its inhabitants pugnacious, these were probably the best choices of words. That being said, the words were wonderful. I spent some time with my dictionary.

For me, the physical, steampunk world and the environment of Perdido Street Station were vividly drawn and easily recognizable, its technological content not so much. Atmospherically, it is vaguely 19th century, Victorian but that only a trope; this is a world definitely not that of our own. This is a world of many sorts of alien life that sometimes includes the humans themselves, humans who copulate with sentient, insect-like creatures. While we may not be at all sure about the time, the place is very well constructed.

Actually, let’s just cut to the chase; at the core, this is a story about the love and mating habits of a human (at least I think he’s human) and a vegetarian insect (my imagination had her looking kind of like a cross between a praying mantis and Angelina Jolie) who is an artist and spits a lot. Oh, and also it’s about giant, psychedelic, mesmerizing moths that literally have shit for brains and that suck the dreams out of everyone in sight and turn them into zombies. I am not making this up. This is what this wildly acclaimed book is about. The sex and the insect wasn’t too bad but when we got to the moths and zombies, I started to wonder WTF was I reading.

Okay, Robert, calm down... Remember Angelina? The artist? I mean, the insect? Well her real name is Lin and she [sic] really isn’t an insect, she’s khepri, uhhh, she only looks like an insect. I guess that makes it better. And the shit for brains stuff? It really isn’t shit. It’s only called that. It’s really the moths’ milk. I guess that makes it all better now. Are you confused yet? I would not be surprised. And we haven’t even gotten to The Weaver, the multi-dimensional spider who speaks in torrents of free-verse poetry. The Orkin Man would’a had a field-day here.

It sounds like there’s a lot going on in this book and there is. There just might be too much going on, especially toward the end. While there was no lack of narrative stamina this reader weakened, weakened to the point of nearly giving up. Weakened not out of fatigue but out of a loss of interest. The narrative toward the end seemed to drone on and on. I actually had to get a fix from my fellow reviewers. I plugged into Goodreads, read some of my friends’ positive critiques of PSS, regained my strength and resolve to continue and continue I did to finish the book. I am not sorry that I did. But even in the ending, I was a bit disappointed.

The narrative of the book is all over the map. We have all kinds of contrivances, some biological, some technological. They come and they go almost as suddenly. However, there was one particular subplot that seemed to be somewhat central but for me, very poorly developed. A garuda, a winged creature by the name of Yagharek comes to our main protagonist, Isaac, for help in restoring his (its?) wings, wings which were lost as a result of a sentence passed on to him (it?) for having committed a particular crime. We do not find out what the crime was till the end of the book but it is how our hero, Isaac, responds to finding out what the crime is that seemed so unsatisfying. Something so central to the book here did not seem to me to be sufficiently fleshed out. It was at that point that I realized there were so many other instances of just that incompleteness in the book. Miéville throws everything but the kitchen sink into this novel but never fully or even moderately develops any of it.

While I found the author’s use of the English language often quite wonderful and beautiful, I found nothing terribly unique in construction nor could I identify any particular stylistic invention with perhaps one exception. The way the spider character, The Weaver, spoke was brilliant. The other characters: Meh. The author’s command of the language, the construction of sentences, how they were phrased were competent. I just expected more about that which he wrote. This was not a short book and to have spent so much time on drivel seemed a waste.

If I had to characterize the depth of scope for PSS, it would have to be superficial. Perhaps these characters just had no great depths to plumb, but damn it, I wanted to know more about Isaac and the garuda. How could the author be so incredibly detailed about the landscapes of this world but tell us so little about the psyches of its inhabitants? While I realize this work has received many awards, for me, in constructing it, I do not feel this author worked on it as hard as he could have. I certainly see the tremendous talent of Miéville but I do not believe for a moment he spent that much time particularly on the ending of this book.

In spite of all of the criticism I have wreaked on the book, I’m still giving it 4 stars. If I could, I’d give it 3.5 and give John Lee’s reading of the book 5 stars. As always, Mr. Lee’s narration was absolutely brilliant.
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Aug 28, 2019 Barbara McEwen rated it it was amazing

Shelves: sff-speculative, uk

At first I thought this was world building and descriptiveness to the EXTREME but over the 24+ hours of audiobook my brain was rewired and now I don't know how I will read anything else. It will all seem so shallow and mundane. Why read if you don't have to break out the dictionary for every third adjective, pshaw, amateurs!
This is a dense read but everything in it is good and addicting. It is the weird sci-fi, fantasy, steampunk, etc. novel I never knew I needed? I especially like the character ...more

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Jun 12, 2021 Kamakana rated it it was amazing

Shelves: aa-englandlit, aaa-favoritefiction, fantasy, all-five-star, aa-europelit, steampunk, multivolume-lit, xlong-over-400, horror, speculative-fiction

if you like this review, i now have website: www.michaelkamakana.com

210612: the length of this book intimidated me. i have not read it for twenty years because of this. now, after reading The City & the City and Embassytown, i decided to try it. it is still very long, my copy is 710 pgs, but i loved it so much read it in basically two days...

other reviews can give you an idea of the breadth of themes, stylistic profusion, multiple genres, lineage of fantastic/horrific/steampunk imagery, the best ...more

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Jul 12, 2013 Oriana marked it as to-read

Shelves: to-read-soon

I'd never particularly thought to read Miéville, but then I hear this, from clever Magdelanye:

The similarities between Miéville and Cortázar are manifold. They share a passion for language, and for the fantastic and the absurd, which they both treat casually; and both are geniuses of observation, exploring the unusual nature of the ordinary. It is easy to read parables in most of their works. Not beligerently political, their works are quite revolutionary, and both are splendid, hypnotic, playf ...more

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Feb 01, 2011 Natalie rated it really liked it

Shelves: adventure-fiction, fantasy-adventure, sci-fi, horror

Perdido Street Station is taking me straight to the GR Books that Should be Made into Movies List!

China Miéville should should play the Tansell role and work on the screenplay and monster design with Guillermo del Toro.

Because the movie needs to have lots of action to match the book Guy Ritchie or maybe Matthew Vaughn should direct, del Toro could co-produce, and play Motley during filming, and spend tons of time on the monsters that way?

David Bowie should play Andrej.

Andy Serkis could play Le ...more

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Jul 02, 2010 Megan rated it really liked it

Shelves: literature-adoration

I would never have ever, ever read this book if it wasn't for my bookclub.
This book was dark and twisted and I loved it! Fantasy that doesn't include loveable hobbits or what are those teddy bear things in Star Wars?
Instead we have characters that are flawed, an oppressing government, forbidden love, a world of danger and science with gears and steam. Fantastic.

I agree that Mieville goes overboard with the language, yes you know how to use big words, but once you get into the story that part i ...more

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