Neil Fein's Blog

Perdido Street Station
Written by China Miéville


The illusion of chaos is harder to achieve than it would seem. Not the portrayal of actual chaos, organic and rutting, but the feeling that, amidst a sea of structured stories, there is no order or rhyme. That it all just grew this way, and we have to deal with it.

Perdido Street Station is about desire. Flight. The creative urge. Rebellion, corruption, expediency, evil, loyalty. All of these themes are there, but this rich, mature novel is ultimately about dreams.

There are main characters: Lin, a khepri artist and Isaac, a human scientist. Their relationship gets the story going, but the city they live in, New Crobuzon, is the true protagonist. This allows bit players such as the corrupt Mayor Rudgutter, the underground journalist Derkhan, the Council (a collective intellect of constructs) -- allows them all to live and breathe, no matter how much or little of them we see. We believe.

When the garuda Yagharek approaches Isaac with the monumental task of rebuilding his ruined wings, it seems a perfectly reasonable and preposterous commission. And we comprehend Lin's motives when she takes on a commission to sculpt the kaleidoscopic gangster Motley, though it puts her in unspeakable, unspecified danger. Because this book is a dream, and follows with like logic. In a world where water can be sculpted into exquisitely temporary shapes and statues, and where the body itself is mutable, anything is possible.

The ReMade are possible in this dark world. Flesh, human and alien, is sculpted as if it were clay, amputated and augmented into dark, forbidding shapes, by way of punishment or expediency, by the order of a judge or perhaps the mayor. This process brings a formless dread, yet we do not render such harsh judgement against Lin or Isaac, who seek to participate in much the same processes.

China Miéville’s prose brings to mind that of Gene Wolfe, that of Dan Simmons. While Mr. Miéville is in some ways more gifted, he does not yet have the maturity of theme that Mr. Wolfe and Mr. Simmons have made for themselves. At the moment, this hazy focus is as much a blessing as a problem. Perdido Street Station is not an easy read by any means, but it is without a doubt a rewarding one.

This book is destined to be a classic in the history of science-fiction. While I wouldn't reccomend it to some, anyone who loves words will find this book enthralling and disturbing. It is without a doubt one of the best books I've read in 2004.