Yes yes you all knew that I would get to this book sooner or later. When it came out, Perdido Street Station received nominations for the Hugo, Nebula, and World Fantasy awards. It won the Arthur C. Clarke Award. Look. It’s not House of Leaves (which I think is STILL giving me nightmares years later) but I have to say that a quick gander at the Amazon page shows that:
a) There are a lot of people who have nothing better to do than talk trash about an awesome book.
b) These people might be boogers.
Some of you might remember that I voyaged to Europe in October. Ah! Italy is so beautiful under the ground and in all the catacombs. During my trip, when I wasn’t entertaining famous vampires, frightening tourists out after dark, or pining over my poor broken heart, I got a lot of reading done. One of the books I brought was Perdido Street Station. To be honest, I read the first two chapters, thought to myself, “What the heck is this?” and then put it down. Luckily, I picked it back up again later on.
Yes, sadly, this is one of those books where the build-up is confusing and overly long. Frankly, there doesn’t seem to be much of a plot for quite a long time. On the plus side, I was able to imagine all of the goings-on in this book as if they had been illustrated by Enki Bilal. Mmmmm. Enki Bilal on Google Image. First off, there is a city, New Crobuzon. The city in this book is as much of a character as anyone else. New Crobuzon is huge, multi-layered, alien, and mostly corrupt. Each chapter of the book begins with a long description of one part of the city, or of a particular thing about the city. These descriptions can get a little long winded, and when I first started the book I felt like I was reading Italo Calvino, but how Italo Calvino might sound like if he was the little boy in The Snow Queen by Hans Christian Andersen. Later on in the book, I started to enjoy these descriptions of the city.
One of our protagonists is an alien woman, Lin, who has a human body with a head like a beetle. She is an artist. Her lover, Isaac Dan der Grimnebulin, is a human man, who is a scientist and is kind of disreputable. They both receive unrelated commissions which end up unlocking a terrifying and unfortunate series of events. The insect-headed artist is commissioned to sculpt a portrait of a terrifying drug kingpin. Isaac is approached by a bird man, Yagharek, whose wings had been sawed off, to make him able to fly again. The bird man, although he seems to be secondary, ends up being one of the main characters.
I’m going to stop here and add more detail because I’m worried that most of you who haven’t read the book are imagining that the character Lin looks like a human woman with a bug head. Meaning that where her head would be, there is a big head. That is not accurate. In fact, where her head would be, there is a full beetle-like thing with legs, a carapace, antennae, and wings.
The plot is very convoluted, but in the end, all you really need to know is that the scientist unwittingly sets a brood of horrifying flying monster moths loose on a city. Then basically everyone in the book is after him. The drug kingpin, the mayor, the police, the monsters. Everyone. On his adventure, Isaac is aided by an insane giant spider, a criminal, some mercenary grave-robbing professional adventurers, a fugitive political journalist, a sentient pile of garbage, the cult that worships said sentient pile of garbage, and a mysterious vigilante. He assembles this group of castaways in an attempt to destroy the monsters and make things right.
When I was reading this book, I was reminded of a lot of the better writing of Clive Barker. It is definitely in the “dark fantasy” genre. Also, some really messed up stuff happens in the book. There is magic, science, steam-power, corrupt politics, drugs, violent upheavals, bizarre monsters, and some bizarre alien sex. One of my favorite things about this book are the monstrous moths. They are ridiculously dangerous and almost impossible to kill.
This is probably one of the weirdest books I’ve read in a long time, and it is strangely literate and ambitious. It certainly has its faults. About 75% of the weird in this book is gratuitous, meaning that it isn’t necessary for the plot. The ending of the book is hijacked by the imposition of a moral decision that one of the characters is forced to make about one of the others, so the story reaches a climax, enters the denouement, and then unravels.
Creepy Factor: 5 out of 5
Suspense Factor: 4 out of 5
Weird Erotic Tension Factor: 2 out of 5
Funny and/or Strange Factor: 5 out of 5
Final result: Perdido Street Station succeeded in winning me over, simply because of that 75% gratuitous weird, the off-kilter ending, the dreary long-winded urban landscapes, and the bug-headed woman. It’s bitter, rambling, and it smells bad and tastes worse, but it’s also beautiful.
Perdido Street Station by China Mieville – Various Publishers – 2000
Get Perdido Street Station on Amazon
Thanks for reading another one of my book reviews. See you next time!
I’m doing a give-away courtesy of the Hachette Group. Next month marks the debut of a new novel by Dan Simmons. You may remember Simmons as the author of Hyperion, The Terror, Carrion Comfort, and Song of Kali. I especially loved Hyperion and its bizarre sequels. His new book, Black Hills, would appear to be a sort of supernatural historical novel. At the battle of Little Bighorn, General George Armstrong Custer lies dying. A young Sioux warrior, Paha Sapa, “counts coup” on him and at that moment, Custer’s ghost enters him. The Sioux warrior, as he goes through the rest of his life, is haunted by General Custer and hears Custer speak to him.
I haven’t read his last book, Drood, but it sounds very interesting. I’ll be giving some copies of Drood away as well. Drood is a thriller about Charles Dickens and his friend, Wilkie Collins. The novel creates a sequence of events to explain the inspiration for Dickens’ final, uncompleted novel, The Mystery of Edwin Drood. Dickens was involved in a train wreck in 1865. While helping to rescue other passengers on the train, Dickens encounters Drood, a menacing figure who had been traveling in a coffin. Dickens finds himself on a quest though the underworlds of London in search of this enigma.
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