Perdido Street Station - China Mieville

Advantages: Crosses Genre boundaries, extremely well written, some haunting scenes that stay with you!
Disadvantages: The author looks frightening, Eeeeeeeek! Not easily accessible at first, but that soon changes.

Perdido Street station shocked me in so many ways. It was one of those books that had me in a fit of anger because I had not read it sooner. As it had been first released in 2000 I was at that time in a wholly different frame of mind (a bit retarded you might say), and was pursuing slightly differing types of books at that juncture in my literary explorations. * Read the novel if you want to find out what I mean with the title! ( Lol, now how tantalising ...
...I say this because Perdido Street Station could easily not be termed fantasy, had the author wished it could have been slotted neatly on the fiction bookshelves of Waterstones or in WhSmith. As it stands a term that has been thrown around is weird fiction, this is quite true, and to me it gives a nice little nod back to the original weird tales of the 1930's and the pulp stories printed therein. Also urban fantasy is another erstwhile theme to have ... Read review

Advantages: Glorious, exciting and completely un-putdownable
Disadvantages: None at all

...give the book its name, Perdido Street Station. We begin the story on the polluted river Tar, as a stranger enters the vast industrial city. The stranger is Yagharek, a Garuda. A huge birdlike creature, who as a punishment for a dreadful crime, has had his wings removed and has travelled from the dessert with a purse full of gold to seek the help of Scientist Isaac Dan der Grimnebulin to have his wings restored. This is the story of Grimnebulin’s ...
...friend’s subsequent attempt to defeat the evil he inadvertently releases while doing so. Evil so strong, that the City’s militia are useless and the hell demons consulted by the corrupt rulers of New Crobuzon are afraid to help. New Crobuzon’s population is as grotesque as it is marvellous. Among its strange inhabitants are Lin, Grimnebulin’s Kephri Artist lover with the human body and scarab head, who makes marvellous pearl coloured sculptures ... Read review

Advantages: Engrossing, gripping and sharp.
Disadvantages: Following the map!

...or sci-fi books. But Perdido Street Station is much more than a sci-fi book. It is an odd mixture of fantasy, magic realism, horror and thriller. Although the mixture of insect, human and many other races in the city New Crobuzon is not supposed to be believable, the characters of all races are easy to picture and are very well drawn. The book is basically about a couple called Isaac (a human) and Lin (an insect). Isaac is a freelance scientist who ...
...create a new pair of wings for him. Lin is an artist who has been commissioned by a mysterious crime-lord to sculpt his likeness. Neither Isaac nor Lin know the dark happenings that will stem from these jobs. I cannot emphasise how gripping this book is. I was glad after 5 pages that the book was a hefty 867 pages because I didn’t want it to end too quickly! It’s fast moving but still maintains an immense attention to detail. The underworld of New ... Read review

Advantages: Gripping Story makes for outstanding read
Disadvantages: A few late nights, as I couldn't put it down!

Having never read a book by China Mieville before, and being intrigued by the blurb on the back all of them, this book seemed a good place to start. Right from the start the story is interesting, building slowly and becoming more and more gripping throughout the book, ending in a great climax which doesn't disappoint in any area. The setting, a gothic metropolis called New Crobuzon, is a fiendish mix of squalor and priviledge, technology and backwardness, ...
...richness to the feel of an already good story. On top of this all of the characters are brilliantly realised and described, as they are dragged through the various interweaving plotlines. The book begins with a scientist, Isaac Dan der Grimnebulin, trying to help a Garuda, a winged man, regain his power of flight. Isaac gathers examples of flying species in an attempt to give him an insight into the process of flight, but due to a corrupt government ... Read review