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Perdido Street Station Mass Market Paperback – July 29, 2003
Isaac has spent a lifetime quietly carrying out his unique research. But when a half-bird, half-human creature known as the Garuda comes to him from afar, Isaac is faced with challenges he has never before fathomed. Though the Garuda's request is scientifically daunting, Isaac is sparked by his own curiosity and an uncanny reverence for this curious stranger.
While Isaac's experiments for the Garuda turn into an obsession, one of his lab specimens demands attention: a brilliantly colored caterpillar that feeds on nothing but a hallucinatory drug and grows larger—and more consuming—by the day. What finally emerges from the silken cocoon will permeate every fiber of New Crobuzon—and not even the Ambassador of Hell will challenge the malignant terror it invokes . . .
A magnificent fantasy rife with scientific splendor, magical intrigue, and wonderfully realized characters, told in a storytelling style in which Charles Dickens meets Neal Stephenson, Perdido Street Station offers an eerie, voluptuously crafted world that will plumb the depths of every reader's imagination.
From the Trade Paperback edition.
- Print length640 pages
- LanguageEnglish
- PublisherDel Rey
- Publication dateJuly 29, 2003
- Dimensions4.2 x 1.05 x 6.88 inches
- ISBN-100345459407
- ISBN-13978-0345459404
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Editorial Reviews
Review
--BRIAN STABLEFORD
"China Miéville's cool style has conjured up a triumphantly macabre technoslip metropolis with a unique atmosphere of horror and fascination."
--PETER HAMILTON
"It is the best steampunk novel since Gibson and Sterling's."
--JOHN CLUTE
From the Trade Paperback edition.
From the Inside Flap
Isaac has spent a lifetime quietly carrying out his unique research. But when a half-bird, half-human creature known as the Garuda comes to him from afar, Isaac is faced with challenges he has never before fathomed. Though the Garuda's request is scientifically daunting, Isaac is sparked by his own curiosity and an uncanny reverence for this curious stranger.
While Isaac's experiments for the Garuda turn into an obsession, one of his lab specimens demands attention: a brilliantly colored c
About the Author
From the Trade Paperback edition.
Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
A window burst open high above the market. A basket flew from it and arced
towards the oblivious crowd. It spasmed in mid-air, then spun and
continued earthwards at a slower, uneven pace. Dancing precariously as it
descended, its wire-mesh caught and skittered on the building’s rough
hide. It scrabbled at the wall, sending paint and concrete dust plummeting
before it.
The sun shone through uneven cloud-cover with a bright grey light. Below
the basket the stalls and barrows lay like untidy spillage. The city
reeked. But today was market day down in Aspic Hole, and the pungent slick
of dung-smell and rot that rolled over New Crobuzon was, in these streets,
for these hours, improved with paprika and fresh tomato, hot oil and fish
and cinnamon, cured meat, banana and onion.
The food stalls stretched the noisy length of Shadrach Street. Books and
manuscripts and pictures filled up Selchit Pass, an avenue of desultory
banyans and crumbling concrete a little way to the east. There were
earthenware products spilling down the road to Barrackham in the south;
engine parts to the west; toys down one side street; clothes between two
more; and countless other goods filling all the alleys. The rows of
merchandise converged crookedly on Aspic Hole like spokes on a broken
wheel.
In the Hole itself all distinctions broke down. In the shadow
of old walls and unsafe towers were a pile of gears, a ramshackle
table of broken crockery and crude clay ornaments, a case of mouldering
textbooks. Antiques, sex, flea-powder. Between the stalls stomped hissing
constructs. Beggars argued in the bowels of deserted buildings. Members of
strange races bought peculiar things. Aspic Bazaar, a blaring mess of
goods, grease and tallymen. Mercantile law ruled: let the buyer beware.
The costermonger below the descending basket looked up into flat sunlight
and a shower of brick particles. He wiped his eye. He plucked the frayed
thing from the air above his head, pulling at the cord which bore it until
it went slack in his hand. Inside the basket was a brass shekel and a note
in careful, ornamented italics. The food-vendor scratched his nose as he
scanned the paper. He rummaged in the piles of produce before him, placed
eggs and fruit and root vegetables into the container, checking against
the list. He stopped and read one item again, then smiled lasciviously and
cut a slice of pork. When he was done he put the shekel in his pocket and
felt for change, hesitating as he calculated his delivery cost, eventually
depositing four stivers in with the food.
He wiped his hands against his trousers and thought for a minute, then
scribbled something on the list with a stub of charcoal and tossed it
after the coins.
He tugged three times at the rope and the basket began a bobbing journey
into the air. It rose above the lower roofs of surrounding buildings,
buoyed upwards by noise. It startled the roosting jackdaws in the deserted
storey and inscribed the wall with another scrawled trail among many,
before it disappeared again into the window from which it had emerged.
Isaac Dan der Grimnebulin had just realized that he was dreaming. He had
been aghast to find himself employed once again at the university,
parading in front of a huge blackboard covered in vague representations of
levers and forces and stress. Introductory Material Science. Isaac had
been staring anxiously at the class when that unctuous bastard Vermishank
had looked in.
“I can’t teach this class,” whispered Isaac loudly. “The market’s too
loud.” He gestured at the window.
“It’s all right.” Vermishank was soothing and loathsome. “It’s time for
breakfast,” he said. “That’ll take your mind off the noise.” And hearing
that absurdity Isaac shed sleep with immense relief. The raucous profanity
of the bazaar and the smell of cooking came with him into the day.
He lay hugely in the bed without opening his eyes. He heard Lin walk
across the room and felt the slight listing of the floorboards. The garret
was filled with pungent smoke. Isaac salivated.
Lin clapped twice. She knew when Isaac woke. Probably because he closed
his mouth, he thought, and sniggered without opening his eyes.
“Still sleeping, shush, poor little Isaac ever so tired,” he whimpered,
and snuggled down like a child. Lin clapped again, once, derisory, and
walked away.
He groaned and rolled over.
“Termagant!” he moaned after her. “Shrew! Harridan! All right, all right,
you win, you, you . . . uh . . . virago, you spit-fire . . .” He rubbed
his head and sat up, grinned sheepishly. Lin made an obscene gesture at
him without turning around.
She stood with her back to him, nude at the stove, dancing back as hot
drops of oil leapt from the pan. The covers slipped from the slope of
Isaac’s belly. He was a dirigible, huge and taut and strong. Grey hair
burst from him abundantly.
Lin was hairless. Her muscles were tight under her red skin, each
distinct. She was like an anatomical atlas. Isaac studied her in cheerful
lust.
His arse itched. He scratched under the blanket, rooting as shameless as a
dog. Something burst under his nail, and he withdrew his hand to examine
it. A tiny half-crushed grub waved helplessly on the end of his finger. It
was a refflick, a harmless little khepri parasite. The thing must have
been rather bewildered by my juices, Isaac thought, and flicked his finger
clean.
“Refflick, Lin,” he said. “Bath time.”
Lin stamped in irritation.
New Crobuzon was a huge plague pit, a morbific city. Parasites, infection
and rumour were uncontainable. A monthly chymical dip was a necessary
prophylactic for the khepri, if they wanted to avoid itches and sores.
Lin slid the contents of the pan onto a plate and set it down, across from
her own breakfast. She sat and gestured for Isaac to join her. He rose
from the bed and stumbled across the room. He eased himself onto the small
chair, wary of splinters.
Isaac and Lin sat naked on either side of the bare wooden table. Isaac was
conscious of their pose, seeing them as a third person might. It would
make a beautiful, strange print, he thought. An attic room, dust-motes in
the light from the small window, books and paper and paints neatly stacked
by cheap wooden furniture. A dark-skinned man, big and nude and
detumescing, gripping a knife and fork, unnaturally still, sitting
opposite a khepri, her slight woman’s body in shadow, her chitinous head
in silhouette.
They ignored their food and stared at each other for a moment. Lin signed
at him: Good morning, lover. Then she began to eat, still looking at him.
It was when she ate that Lin was most alien, and their shared meals were a
challenge and an affirmation. As he watched her, Isaac felt the familiar
trill of emotion: disgust immediately stamped out, pride at the stamping
out, guilty desire.
Light glinted in Lin’s compound eyes. Her headlegs quivered. She picked up
half a tomato and gripped it with her mandibles. She lowered her hands
while her inner mouthparts picked at the food her outer jaw held steady.
Isaac watched the huge iridescent scarab that was his lover’s head devour
her breakfast.
He watched her swallow, saw her throat bob where the pale insectile
underbelly segued smoothly into her human neck . . . not that she would
have accepted that description. Humans have khepri bodies, legs, hands;
and the heads of shaved gibbons, she had once told him.
He smiled and dangled his fried pork in front of him, curled his tongue
around it, wiped his greasy fingers on the table. He smiled at her. She
undulated her headlegs at him and signed, My monster.
I am a pervert, thought Isaac, and so is she.
Breakfast conversation was generally one-sided: Lin could sign with her
hands while she ate, but Isaac’s attempts to talk and eat simultaneously
made for incomprehensible noises and food debris on the table. Instead
they read; Lin an artists’ newsletter, Isaac whatever came to hand. He
reached out between mouthfuls and grabbed books and papers, and found
himself reading Lin’s shopping list. The item a handful of pork slices was
ringed and underneath her exquisite calligraphy was a scrawled question in
much cruder script: Got company??? Nice bit of pork goes down a treat!!!
Isaac waved the paper at Lin. “What’s this filthy arse on about?” he
yelled, spraying food. His outrage was amused but genuine.
Lin read it and shrugged.
Knows I don’t eat meat. Knows I’ve got a guest for breakfast. Wordplay on
“pork.”
“Yes, thanks, lover, I got that bit. How does he know you’re a vegetarian?
Do you two often engage in this witty banter?”
Lin stared at him for a moment without responding.
Knows because I don’t buy meat. She shook her head at the stupid question.
Don’t worry: only ever banter on paper. Doesn’t know I’m bug.
Her deliberate use of the slur annoyed Isaac.
“Dammit, I wasn’t insinuating anything . . .” Lin’s hand waggled, the
equivalent of a raised eyebrow. Isaac howled in irritation. “Godshit, Lin!
Not everything I say is about fear of discovery!”
Isaac and Lin had been lovers nearly two years. They had always tried not
to think too hard about the rules of their relationship, but the longer
they were together the more this strategy
of avoidance became impossible. Questions as yet unasked demanded
attention. Innocent remarks and askance looks from others, a moment of
contact too long in public—a note from a grocer—everything was a reminder
that they were, in some contexts, living a secret. Everything was made
fraught.
They had never said, We are lovers, so they had never had to say, We will
not disclose our relationship to all, we will hide from some. But it had
been clear for months and months that this was the case.
Lin had begun to hint, with snide and acid remarks, that Isaac’s refusal
to declare himself her lover was at best cowardly, at worst bigoted. This
insensitivity annoyed him. He had, after all, made the nature of his
relationship clear with his close friends, as Lin had with hers. And it
was all far, far easier for her.
She was an artist. Her circle were the libertines, the patrons and the
hangers-on, bohemians and parasites, poets and pamphleteers and
fashionable junkies. They delighted in the scandalous and the outré. In
the tea-houses and bars of Salacus Fields, Lin’s escapades—broadly hinted
at, never denied, never made explicit—would be the subject of louche
discussion and innuendo. Her love-life was an avant-garde transgression,
an art-happening, like Concrete Music had been last season, or ’Snot Art!
the year before that.
And yes, Isaac could play that game. He was known in that world, from long
before his days with Lin. He was, after all, the
scientist-outcast, the disreputable thinker who walked out of a lucrative
teaching post to engage in experiments too outrageous and brilliant for
the tiny minds who ran the university. What did he care for convention? He
would sleep with whomever and whatever he liked, surely!
That was his persona in Salacus Fields, where his relationship with Lin
was an open secret, where he enjoyed being more or less open, where he
would put his arm around her in the bars and whisper to her as she sucked
sugar-coffee from a sponge. That was his story, and it was at least half
true.
He had walked out of the university ten years ago. But only because he
realized to his misery that he was a terrible teacher.
He had looked out at the quizzical faces, listened to the frantic
scrawling of the panicking students, and realized that with a mind that
ran and tripped and hurled itself down the corridors of theory in anarchic
fashion, he could learn himself, in haphazard lurches, but he could not
impart the understanding he so loved. He had hung his head in shame and
fled.
In another twist to the myth, his Head of Department, the ageless and
loathsome Vermishank, was not a plodding epigone but an exceptional
bio-thaumaturge, who had nixed Isaac’s research less because it was
unorthodox than because it was going nowhere. Isaac could be brilliant,
but he was undisciplined. Vermishank had played him like a fish, making
him beg for work as a freelance researcher on terrible pay, but with
limited access to the university laboratories.
And it was this, his work, which kept Isaac circumspect about his lover.
From the Trade Paperback edition.
Product details
- Publisher : Del Rey; 1st Published edition (July 29, 2003)
- Language : English
- Mass Market Paperback : 640 pages
- ISBN-10 : 0345459407
- ISBN-13 : 978-0345459404
- Item Weight : 11.2 ounces
- Dimensions : 4.2 x 1.05 x 6.88 inches
- Best Sellers Rank: #646,010 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #2,807 in Hard Science Fiction (Books)
- #14,118 in Science Fiction Adventures
- #19,990 in Paranormal & Urban Fantasy (Books)
- Customer Reviews:
About the author
China Miéville lives and works in London. He is three-time winner of the prestigious Arthur C. Clarke Award (Perdido Street Station, Iron Council and The City & The City) and has also won the British Fantasy Award twice (Perdido Street Station and The Scar). The City & The City, an existential thriller, was published in 2009 to dazzling critical acclaim and drew comparison with the works of Kafka and Orwell (The Times) and Philip K. Dick (Guardian).
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Top reviews
Top reviews from the United States
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While perhaps not for everyone, and not perfect, this is a first rate work of fantasy. And I mean that in the broadest sense because the book is set in a unique milieu that is part Dickens, part steampunk, part fantasy, part Blade Runner, part Lovecraft and a whole lot more. As one agent said of my first novel's early drafts: Perdido Street Station suffers from an extreme case of too-much-ness. It has too many words, too many characters, too many points of view, too much description, too many subplots, too many races, too many kinds of magic, too many villains, too many heroes, too many really really big words, or old words (I had to use the dictionary every couple of pages). Still, it works, even rises to greatness.
Amazing things about this book:
1. The prose: which is highly descriptive, deft, and subtle, building elaborate piles of intricacy out of slashes of words.
2. The main characters: Isaac, Yag, and Lin all have some real depth.
3. The world: is just so creepy, slimy, and cool -- although not for the faint of heart. This book is dark. It makes The Darkening Dream seem like vanilla icing.
4. The monsters and the weird: nice and creepy. This is a book where human on bug sex is the sweet part!
5. The clarity: for all its length and bewildering array of everything, the book is easy to follow and read (provided you have a dictionary handy).
6. Imagination: No shortage of amazingly cool ideas, images, races, monsters, technologies, places, etc. in this puppy.
Things that aren't as strong:
1. Pacing: the masses of description, which while evocative, effective, and downright creepy, are constant and unrelenting. The city itself is a character and this slows things down a bit. It doesn't drag, but it isn't lightning fast either.
2. The tangents: there are more than a few here, and not all of them worth it.
3. The minor points of view: A number of characters pop in, have their couple POV pages in the sun, and then vanish (usually into the deadpool). This isn't always maximally effective.
4. The baroque plot: The story is easy enough to follow, but it does take A WHILE to get going and is not always full of classic drama created from thwarted desire. In fact, the first third or so is distinctly short on that, but is fast paced mostly because the world is so fascinating.
5. Actions of the government and other non-protagonist forces: There are some big chunks in here where the government is trying to do stuff, and only indirectly involves the regular characters. This stuff is less effective because of the emotional disconnect.
6. Deus ex machina: oh-too-coincidental happenings and escapes occur a number of times.
Overall, in the same way that Vegas transcends cheese by way of pure magnitude, Perdido climbs to greatness on the strength of its positives, rising above any petty flaws. If you appreciate flights of imagination, good writing, and the weird, it's required reading. No question. Not for the square, the staid, the boring, or the grounded who do not at least dream of flying.
ツ On the Plus Side ツ
The world is fascinating and super complex. There are so many different kinds of creatures, peoples and interesting characters. This is a world where there is alchemy, magic and various other mysteries. It is a world where things like this can happen from the magical waste in the rivers.
***Young mudlarks searching the river quag for scrap had been known to step into some discoloured patch of mud and start speaking long-dead languages, or find locusts in their hair, or fade slowly to translucency and disappear.***
The author took some very big risks with the love interest Lin and the relationship between her and the main character Isaac Grimnebulin.
***He kissed her warm red skin. She turned in his arms. She angled up on one elbow and, as he watched, the dark ruby of her carapace opened slowly while her headlegs splayed. The two halves of her headshell quivered slightly, held as wide as they would go. From beneath their shade she spread her beautiful, useless little beetle wings.***
I really couldn’t picture it in my head I mean she is a creature with a woman’s body and a beetle head. It was interesting and different and so odd.
There are eagle headed creatures, huge spider men things that live in multiple realms at the same time and weave things to their liking, moths that drink your dreams and much much more. It was amazing and very detailed I could definitely picture most of the stuff in this so well because of the beautiful writing. Things like:
***New Crobuzon was a city unconvinced by gravity.***
***Wyrmen clawed their way above the city leaving trails of defecation and profanity.***
***Crematoria vented into the airborne ashes of wills burnt by jealous executors, which mixed with coaldust burnt to keep dying lovers warm. Thousands of sordid smoke-ghosts wrapped New Crobuzon in a stench that suffocated like guilt.***
More than once I got lost within the words of the story. It was beautiful yet grotesque, captivating yet horrifying all at the same time. This story lived in a strange and wonderful dichotomy that was just strange.
The characters within the story are not nice and noble people. They are people driven to the brink and tested. They made choices that seemed necessary and at the same time were also horrible. Some of the consequences are horrible and I was really sad that a few of them had to be paid like that along the way.
☠ The Bad of It ☠
It isn’t even necessarily bad. This is not a happy story. There are no roses and sunshine at the end it is choices made and consequences paid. I was sad for many of the characters at the end of this. It is hard to get to know some of them in one context in the story to find out what their crime was before we met them and then figure out how you feel about them now. Can you forgive them their past transgressions or do you now hate them forever. I still don’t know or have an answer to that question.
There is part of this that it seems like the story loses a bit of its direction and flounders for a second. It is just crazy because it shifts right in the middle from being about whatever I assumed it was about at the beginning into what it ended up being about in the end. It is just a strange transition.
☽ Overall: ☾
If you are looking for a happy story where everything works out in the end, the bad guys totally get what is coming to them and the heroes make out better off then they started out, then this is not the story for you.
BUT, if you are looking for something interesting, different, gritty and strange well this should totally fit that bill well. The writing is superb in so many ways and this definitely is a unique world. I don’t read a lot of Sci Fi but I’m definitely going to finish out this series.
Top reviews from other countries
New Crobuzon is home to a vast number of creatures. The main ones we get to know are humans, khepri (body of a human woman, head of a scarab beetle), weird Cactus people, garuda (bird-like creatures) and a whole host more. Isaac is a scientist, working on his own research into 'crisis theory', when he gets a commission from Yagharek (a garuda who's wings have been chopped off for an unnamed crime, and this research inadvertently causes a major crisis for the city itself. We also have Lin, a khepri artist who is Isaac's girlfriend, as well as a few other characters. They are all richly drawn and feel real. They are certainly not heroes, just ordinary beings in a very weird city trying to deal with something they feel responsible for. One of the only negative things I have to say about this book is Lin's storyline. It disappears about half way through and only resumes toward the end, and I'm not entirely sure of her purpose in the story, especially as her own agent.
The book starts slow, almost slice of life for good portion on the beginning but this is great, you actually need this to get a handle on the setting. The last part does have the trappings of a monster hunt but oh in such a great way. I still haven't mentioned the self aware automation, the inter-dimensional spider, the ambassador from hell, or the giant sloth like creatures that feed on dreams and consciousness have I? Well it's all in here along with a host of other weird and strange things. This is a work of mad imagination and I have never read anything like it before and I've read a lot of books. Thoroughly recommend if you want something that's totally different.