Mieville China

Reviews & Overviews by Rod Cameron

Perdido Street Station by China Mieville

Perdido Street Station is China Mieville's second novel (his first was King Rat). It concerns the vast city of New Crobuzon which sprawls in the centre of a strange world, attracting a vast range of alien creatures. The city hasbeen a centre of industrialisation for centuries. Imagine Victorian London with all its squalor and pollution. Imagine something a quantum level worse. The river is clogged with pollution and unnatural effluents. The sewers have to be seen to be believed (you will). Separate races have mutated down there. On top of everything else, the population of merchants, workers, artists, magicians, junkies, scientists and whores is ruled by a strict regime with a brutal militia. In summary, the city is a rich soup, and this book is a meal fit for anyone.
Neither Science Fiction nor Fantasy, the book is rather Fantastic Fiction, a mixture of the best of the two genres, science & sorcery, alien & bizarre, drug-addicts & mutants. Mieville has stuffed the book full of fantastic ideas, many of which are not developed to any extent - just thrown in as teasers. For instance, the inhabitants of one region of the city live under the apparently indestructible rib-cage of an enormous extinct creature; communication with the demons of Hell is possible; and an intelligent virus is sweeping through the robots and automata.
So what of the plot? A stranger arrives on a boat on an impossible quest. He meets with Isaac Dan der Grimnebulin, a research scientist from the University who is currently out of favour. In attempting to solve the stranger's problem, Isaac releases an alien creature into the environment which threatens the lives of the millions of inhabitants of the city. In the climax, Isaac and his band of outcasts battle with the creatures in and on the vast building that is the central railway station - Perdido Street Station.
This book is well written, both amusing and fascinating - dare I say addictive? China Mieville has created a stupendous world, and it is to be hoped that he will revisit it in the not too distant future. Perdido Street Station is, if not the best book of 2000, in the top three. Buy it as soon as possible.

Publisher: Pan
Date: 2000
Pages: 867 Pages
Price: £7.99
Format: Paperback
Reviewed by: Rod Cameron
Date Reviewed: July 2001