Maxim Jakubowski's view...
British author Mieville is one of the most adept practitioners when it comes to creating imaginary worlds and cities which are both alien and recognisable as an extrapolation of the world we live in. The urban and gothic New Crobuzon is a harbour for humans, mutants, magicians and every mysterious species under the sun. Old-fashioned storytelling taken off the leash and exhaustively inventive.
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Synopsis
Perdido Street Station by China Mieville
The metropolis of New Crobuzon sprawls at the centre of its own bewildering world. Humans and mutants and arcane races throng the gloom beneath its chimneys, where the rivers are sluggish with unnatural effluent, and factories and foundries pound into the night. For more than a thousand years, the parliament and its brutal militia have ruled over a vast array of workers and artists, spies, magicians, junkies and whores. Now a stranger has come, with a pocketful of gold and an impossible demand, and inadvertently something unthinkable is released. Soon the city is gripped by an alien terror - and the fate of millions depends on a clutch of outcasts on the run from lawmakers and crime-lords alike. The urban nightscape becomes a hunting ground as battles rage in the shadows of bizarre buildings. And a reckoning is due at the city's heart, in the vast edifice of Perdido Street Station. It is too late to escape.
Reviews
Anyone unsure whether to buy this book, should take a serendipitous leap of faith. Mieville has extended his solidly built reputation for intensely written, page turing prose established with his first novel Rat King. Once again the plot is fascinating and intriguing, interesting and enterprising, exciting and cogitative. Offering a sinister, Gormenghast-esque society that homogenizes with Ayn Rand's vision of a state controlled future world, Mieville entices the reader into his fantastic creation that is New Crobuzon. A disparate bunch of misfits are drawn together with a common goal; their synergy must defeat the external, alien threat that has been unwittingly unleashed, to prevent society - or more specifically themselves - from being destroyed. Even desperate pleas to the Ambassador of Hell are refused, and the band must struggle on alone. As the final denouement draws nearer, the action ebbs and flows, pulling the reader yet further into the world Mieville has synthesized from his own lurid imagination. The author comes up with the goods, at the end, almost weary from the experience, the reader can acknowledge is the sort of writing from natural, new talent that should be entered for literary prizes. Mieville's first novel was his seminal work. This novel extends from the boundary of Mieville's first seminal work, breaks loose of its constraints and climbs to an erudite level few authors will be able to perceive, yet alone aspire to. Miss it at your peril. (Kirkus UK)
About the Author
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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). His most recent novel, Kraken, was published in 2010.
In 2010 China Miéville won the prestigious Arthur C. Clarke Award for his novel The City and the City, the first time in its history an author has won it three times.
Maxim Jakubowski's view on PERDIDO STREET STATION...
British author Miéville is one of the most adept practitioners when it comes to creating imaginary worlds and cities which are both alien and recognisable as an extrapolation of the world we live in. The urban and gothic New Crobuzon is a harbour for humans, mutants, magicians and every mysterious species under the sun. Old-fashioned storytelling taken off the leash and exhaustively inventive.
Author photo © Chris Close
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Horror - Fantasy - SF
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