For more than a thousand years, the parliament and its brutal militia have ruled over a vast array of workers, spies, magicians, and junkies. Now a stranger has come with an impossible demand, and inadvertently something unthinkable is released. A reckoning is due and it is too late to escape.
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Perdido Street Station is China Mieville’s second novel. It is a large book, set in a large city, with an equally large plot and cast of characters. Compared to the majority of fantasy offerings this is a breath of fresh air.
The story revolves around Isaac Dan der Grimnebulin, a scientist on the outer both from his university and most of the rest of society in New Crobuzon. Isaac lives with his artist partner, Lin, a khepri; human from the neck down but with a scarab for a head. Most of the non human denizens of New Crobuzon are equally fantastic such as the Cactacae.
Both Isaac and Lin receive commissions, Isaac from a wingless garuda to replace his ability to fly, and Lin from a mob boss to immortalise him. Things start to go downhill from here as Isaac unleashes something Very Bad.
Perdido Street Station conjures an atmosphere reminiscent of the Industrial Revolution, however one in which magic plays an important part. Mieville has created a world filled with wonder and terror, peaceful coexistence and deeply divisive racism, a city of extremes. It is a place eerily similar to our own.
If you want to read something which is new and will evoke strong emotions, Perdido Street Station must be on your book list.