Perdido Street Station 104
| Perdido Street Station | |
| author | China Mieville |
| pages | 867 |
| publisher | Pan |
| rating | 8 |
| reviewer | pinkunicorn |
| ISBN | 0345443020 |
| summary | Fantasy with science and an attitude |
The action takes place entirely in a city, New Crobuzon, and it's a large city.
There are loads of things here that are taken from outside the standard fantasy mould. Lots of the inhabitants of New Crobuzon are not human. This isn't revolutionary in itself, but they are far from the normal Tolkien-influenced critters. There are khepri, a weird species that doesn't even look the same for both sexes. The males are rather small and look like beetles while the females are as large as humans and look like a mixture of humans (lower half) and beetles (upper half). They can't talk, but communicate with scents and sign language. There are garuda, which are a kind of bird men. There are walking cacti. There are vodyanoi who live in water and can shape it to sculptures.
One day, Isaac Grimnebulin get a visit from Yagharek, a garuda who has had his wings taken off for some offense that he doesn't want to talk about. He wants Isaac to help him fly again. Isaac takes on the job in a very thorough way and starts investigating various other animals that can fly to find out how it's best done.
This is different from most fantasy. Normally, magic is the only science there is (and often that isn't treated like a science either). In New Crobuzon this isn't the case at all. There is magic, but it isn't the only thing. There are also photography (of sorts), printing presses for underground newspapers, intelligent cleaning robots, air ships and mechanical computers, all together. As if all this wasn't enough to make you think of science fiction, towards the end there's even an example of prime Star Trek technobabble, but in a fantasy mode.
In spite of its bulk, Perdido Street Station is a pretty fast read. The plot as such isn't too complex, but it drives the story forward nicely. What I think really stands out are the descriptions: China Miéville is very good at conjuring moods and environments and getting the reader to realize exactly how something looks, even in an entirely alien environment. China Miéville claims Mervyn Peake as one of his favorite authors, and the similarities to Gormenghast in feel are sometimes striking.
Perdido Street Station feels quite a bit like cyberpunk in a fantasy setting. Most of the common signs are there: a somewhat run-down city environment, technology development in a guerilla manner, drugs, computers, body modification (through surgery and magic instead of gene technology, but still) and quite a bit of attitude. I'm looking forward to see if this book will leave as much of a footprint in the fantasy genre as Neuromancer did in the science fiction genre.
You can purchase Perdido Street Station at bn.com. You can read your own book reviews in this space by submitting your reviews after reading the book review guidelines.
Re:1 post (Score:3, Informative)
yes...but (Score:2, Funny)
Two Years Old? (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Two Years Old? (Score:3, Interesting)
I appreciate being given a review of a book I'll probably read, but hadn't heard of before. Maybe it didn't belong on the front page, but I, for one, am glad it wasn;t rejected.
Re:Two Years Old? (Score:2)
At least it's not like a lot of their sf classics reviews, where the reviewer almost drips with condescension, bringing literature to us savages. Don't tell me to read a book that's been a classic for a few decades.
two years is nothing! (Score:2)
I'll have to do a review of The Epic of Gilgamesh or The Book of the Dead one day.
Danny.
China Miéville's Website (Score:2)
Pretty crummy website [panmacmillan.com].
You'd think that by now publishers would have ensured they were on top of what must surely be their most important marketing medium.
Weird species (Score:3, Funny)
You think humans look the same for both sexes? I'm glad I don't hang around in the same circles you do.
King Rat? (Score:1, Informative)
Re:Ugh... (Score:1, Offtopic)
last time I checked, it was spelled losing...or is this secretly CmdrTaco? :)
-motardo
Not really new... (Score:1, Interesting)
Genre (Score:4, Insightful)
I highly enjoyed the book myself and I'm anxiously awaiting the next book, set in the same world, The Scar. [amazon.com]
Re:Genre (Score:1)
Judging its cover (Score:3, Interesting)
Fantastic book. One of the better things about it is that it has a great cover. Most fantasy (and don't let that term spook you, this book is very urban, and has been acclaimed by both the horror and steampunk crowds) have covers that look like they were done by the Harlequin romance cover artists. It's nice to be able to read a fantasy book in public without shame.
A good interview with the author is here [strangehorizons.com].
-adso
thaumaturgy (Score:4, Informative)
Re:thaumaturgy (Score:1)
Old News (Score:2, Redundant)
This book has been around for ages (more than a year) so why is it being reviewed on Slashdot, source of cool up-to-date news, now?
Re:Old News (Score:3, Insightful)
Secondly, the notion of only recent books/movies/whatever being eligible for review is so utterly wrong at so many levels I don't even know where to begin. The thing about art--of whatever sort--is that it is always new. If I have never read it, Chaucer is as new as Shakespeare is as new as Austen is as new as Hawthorne is as new as Faulkner is as new as Byatt is as new as anybody you care to name, really. Art is. The fascination with the current moment and with only the current moment is really a modern phenomenon.
Re:Old News (Score:1)
By that defintion, any news is new if you happen to not have heard it before: "Ug not-so-recently made break through with a revolutionary circular rock he calls a wheel, critics dispute its usefulness!". Doesn't make it relevant, or 'matter'.
For me the whole point of /. is that it is the very latest. If I want to read old news I will go elsewhere.
Perdido Street Station, as good as it is, has been around for ages, and as such has innumerable reviews [google.com] elsewhere. Why waste bandwidth on Slashdot?
Dear /. (Score:1, Flamebait)
There are, reportedly, a quarter million readers of Slashdot. Please explain, why are you subjecting them all to this story? Are you trying to destroy the reputation you have built over the last several years? Have you lost that last shred of respect you once had for your visitors? Are you implying that perhaps, a 'for pay' version of the site would be better able to provide quality content, while the unwashed, freeloading masses are left with stories like this one?
Why? Why did you do this to us? What was the thought process? Whose decision was it? Please, out of respect for sentience, please explain.
Registered vs Paying (Score:1)
I am NOT a PAYING user.
Big difference
Whine whine whine (Score:1, Flamebait)
I like most of the book reviews that get posted, so I don't want to limit that. On occasion, Timothy might funnel forth something interesting, so I don't want to shut that door either.
The purpose of the editorial staff is to pick and choose through the submitted articles, and to post the stuff that seems interesting and 'of quality'.
This is neither IMO, and so, I just want an explanation. I can typically see something of value in the sposted stories. Even the ones that do not interest me, I can imagine being of interest to others. But this review is so badly written that it actually turned me off to the book.
It was bad enough for me to stick my neck out to multiple 'flamebait' and 'troll' ratings, even though I am completely sincere in my question.
I just want to know what it was about this story that appealed to Timothy enough to put it on the page. Is he a big fan of the author? The story-line? Is he friends with the person who submitted the review? Is he filling a quota?
This story is BAD. Very bad. It's poorly written, it's uninteresting, it is, IMO, a waste of space. I genuinely want to see Timothy's reasoning, to try and understand. And I'm willing to burn precious Karma to do it.. So, Timothy, if you're reading this, go as far as a bitchslap if you must, but do explain to me why you posted this story. I sincerely want to know.
And notice, I'm not making fun of you, I'm not being insulting (not intentionally, and not maliciously, unlike many others who mock you regularly). I am being a bit snide, but this is my way of trying to be a little humorous, not mean.
I'm truly curious as to why this story exists.
Re:Whine whine whine (Score:1)
(yes that was a side-ways appology. Ever go back and read something you've written and thought "what the hell was I thinking"?)
I actually didn't think the article was bad at all. But I'm no english major, nor a critic. (boy am I ever not critical... I didn't think the acting in AotC was that bad, though I agree that some of the dialog needed help)
Judging by the review (and the conversations it has spawned, baring this one) I am interested in reading this book. I LIKE magic/technology combinations, as well as fanatsy that tries to escape the "elf-orc-magic sword" stereotype. Yes, the author made an overbroad generalization. But I think even HE recognized it as such.
As to why the story was posted... who knows? My pet theory is that Timothy read the book, liked it, and posted the first review he saw, regardless of its quality.
Great book (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Great book (Score:2, Informative)
(Of course, if you're a slashdot reader, this will probably increase rather than decrease your interest in the book... but I would not recommend it for, say, my mother...)
Re:Great book (Score:2)
The most appealing thing about the novel I thought was the characterisation (for want of a better word) of the different species. Each of them behaved in a way that seemed alien but consistent, which is a hard trick to pull off (considering the number of oh-so-human aliens I've read about in other novels).
The balance of the technology and magic was done well also, and the internal rules governing them that became apparent also worked. A good read and a great world.
Pretty thin review (Score:5, Interesting)
Perdido Street Station presents an intricately detailed world. The world may shock and repulse you (as it did me). It will certainly make you scratch your head. You may even wonder what the author was smoking to come up with creatures like the khepri and the Construct Council.
I would not want to inhabit this author's dreams.
In some ways, New Crobuzon and it's inhabitants remind me of "The Difference Engine", rolled together with a bit of "Brazil" and "Dark City". It is worth a read and well deserving of the Hugo nomination it just received. Even if you say nothing else about it, you will have to admit that it is not run-of-the-mill SF.
WTF? (Score:4, Insightful)
Secondly, did the person reviewing this even bother to research the genre whatsoever? They make several blatantly false blanket statements about the fantasy genre.
This is different from most fantasy. Normally, magic is the only science there is (and often that isn't treated like a science either).
There are many novels in the genre where science and magic co-exist. Any of the Urban fantasies intermingle modern day science with magic (pick up nearly anything by Charles DeLint or American Gods by Neil Gaiman for examples of this). There are also several novels which have both magic and futuristic technology mixed (Look into Anne McCaffery and L. E. Modesitt Jr. for some good Sci-Fi/Fantasy crossover novels).
This review is poorly written. From uninformed generalizations to details about the story which are taken out of context and do not serve to provide any useful information to the reader. Why this made its way to the front page of Slashdot is beyond me.
Randall Garret -- Lord Darcy (Score:3, Interesting)
Technically fantasy but written to the rules of hard SF such that the stories used to be published in Analog back under John W Campbell, when that magazine had such a reputation for hard SF it was often referred to as "the one with rivets".
For all who liked this book... (Score:4, Interesting)
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0345444388
From the editorial review:
The Scar begins with Miéville's frantic heroine, Bellis Coldwine, fleeing her beloved New Crobuzon in the peripheral wake of events relayed in Perdidio Street Station. But her voyage to the colony of Nova Esperium is cut short when she is shanghaied and stranded on Armada, a legendary floating pirate city.
Re:For all who liked this book... (Score:1)
Making your 15% I see. I'm not impressed.
--
Re:For all who liked this book... (Score:2)
I'm not impressed with your accusations. I was trying to be helpful.
Already out here. (Score:1)
I've been thinking about buying it for the past two weeks, but this "review" (you call that a review? Bah.) made me really want to read it. Now. I'll pick it up on monday.
(Here == Sweden)
King Rat was written in 1965... (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:King Rat was written in 1965... (Score:2, Insightful)
China Mieville did not write a version of Clavell's King Rat, he just wrote a novel with the same title.
Your point?
His point, O passive-agressive one, may be he's miffed that Mieville stole a great title from someone else's novel.
Or maybe he's just perplexed by it all.
Technobable does not SF make (Score:5, Insightful)
I haven't read the book, so I won't comment on its merits. pinkunicorn, however, does seem to be a bit mistraken about what makes good science fiction.
True science fiction--at least good SF--has nothing to do with technobable. Rather, science and technology are important characters in the story.
For example, Larry Niven takes the idea of a Star Trek style transporter, and examines what it would do to society. Perfect murders go unsolved, protests and riots spontaneously appear and disappear, pickpockets run rampant.
Timothy Zahn creates a super-soldier with implanted weapons and sends the soldiers home. They're feared and hated, develop terrible wasting diseases, and eventually flee to create their own society.
James Hogan explores virtual reality and the effects of total immersion in an unreal world. Alan Dean Foster creats a society of fanciful aliens with a specialized socialst structure and then throws humans into the mix. Frank Herbert creates a self-aware computer that becomes God--or is it the Devil?
There are related genres. Good space opera, like David Weber's works, is classic adventure storytelling set in a detailed and internally consistent technologically-advanced future.
Star Wars and friends is perhaps best classified as science fantasy. The story may be entertaining, but it makes no attempt at basing itself in reality. What psuedo-technology there is serves as colorful background. If Star Wars were truce science fiction, it would have spent more time on the Endor Holocaust [theforce.net] than the (admitedly entertaining) final swordfight between Luke and Vader.
So don't expect me to get excited about a story just because it has intelligent cleaning robots and mechanical computers, especially if the plot isn't too complex. If I want intelligent cleaning robots, I'll read Doug Adams and get a great plot and good laughs. If I want mechanical computers, I'll read William Gibson and get a great plot, social commentary, and a fascinating exploration of human nature.
Why SF and fantasy are lumped together is beyond me. What Tolkein and Vernor Vinge have in common besides great creativity and command of the English language escapes my attention.
</rant>
b&
Re:Technobable does not SF make (Score:1)
General Ishmoo
I was with you right up until the end.. (Score:2)
Obviously, what the two authors have in common is a prodigious imagination coupled with a patient intellect capable of exploring an entirely mentally constucted world through many levels and editing it for self-consistency.
Tokien used his vast research of european mythology to make a world of his imagination (middle earth) feel real to the reader, just as Vernor Vinge uses his scientific knowledge to make the universe of his imagination in "Fire Upon Deep" feel plausible (in parts).
Fantasy and science fiction *are* very similar. Both are excellent when the author has imagination, knowledge, and mental discipline to shed insight into our culture, and both are utter trash when all the author has is rehashed ideas, a bad love story, and a colorful front cover.
Re:I was with you right up until the end.. (Score:2)
In that case, we should see Sherlock Holmes next to Isaac Asimov and Ian Fleming next to Ben Bova. Stranger in a Strange Land could be placed in the comparative theology section with Dune, and, while we're at it, we might as well put Moby Dick and Call of the Wild in the biology section.
When it comes down to it, great writing is great writing, regardless of genre. Genre is a classification system, not a qualification system.
There's a clear distinction between SF and fantasy: SF explores the possible (or, at least, the plausible); fantasy explores the impossible. SF has its roots in reality; fantasy, unreality. Both deserve exploration.
But lumping them together makes as even less sense than combining horror stories with detective fiction.
b&
Re:I was with you right up until the end.. (Score:2)
Both fantasy and science fiction push the boundaries of world-environments beyond other types of fiction you mention. Both genres deal with worlds that are alien to our own. There is a continuum of worlds in works of fiction. At one end you have dramatized history, after that historical fiction, books such as "Moby Dick" which could have happened in our world, and then, down at the far opposite end of the spectrum, worlds that are far from our reality, such as Vernor Vinge's worlds and Middle Earth.
The difference you draw between "plausible" and "impossible" does not always hold, and it's a thin veil at best. Once genre may be superficially based on "science" and the other on "mythology" but as the quote goes "any suffiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic". The parallels between the two genres are explicitly seen in works that mix the two together, as you would say "plausibly", such as Anne McCaffrey's books.
Even with hard science fiction you're only talking about more rigorous consistency checking and (hopefully) fewer leaps of faith. Technobable about how quantum mechanics "really" work in a hard sci-fi book is not that much different than a fantasy book with a rigorously consistent magic system with its own magic-babble.
You end up taking them both on faith in the end.
Arthur C. Clarke Awards (Score:2)
Hugo Nom. (Score:1)
great book (Score:1)
This book actually has a lot of disturbing images while gave me some odd dreams. I did not however like the way this book ended and felt that it did not fully wrap up the story. Leaving some of the main characters maimed and listless, dragging each-other off into the sunset.
It is a very good read however and has wonderful imagery.
China Miéville at Octocon 2002 (Score:2)
This is as good a time as any to plug Octocon 2002 [octocon.com] - China Miéville is the Guest of Honour this year. Time for a trip to Ireland?
Octocon always has a great many guests, and is one of the most fun SF conventions in Europe - doesn't take itself quite as seriously as the large British or American cons, yet it's large enough to attract an impressive lineup.
See you there...
fish and Chip (Score:2)
This would have made Chip from Futurama happy. I'm thinking of the Futurama episode where Chip falls in love with a mermaid. After a great romancing phase, the passion derails when they get into bed and Chip suddenly comprehends that he will never again have sex as long as he is in a relationship with a mermaid. As he sprints in terror from her house he wonders "...why oh why couldn't she have been the opposite, with the human part down below and the fish part on top?!?"
.
Good Book, Bad Ending (Score:3, Interesting)
What did it for me was the ending. He's far too preachy. Not to spoil it, but after Yagharek has played an instrumental role in saving the city and Issac is ready to give him wings, another garuda shows up and explains what his crime was in the first place. All very well and good, but doesn't saving a city of over a million inhabatants count for something? Surely saving a million lives outwieghs (spoiler!) the rape he committed years ago. Mielville seems to chicken out (no pun intended) at the end and refuse to allow that any rapist could ever be redeemed.
From a literary view, that's my beef with the book. In a post-Christian literary environment, rejecting redemption is like a throwback to Greek drama. His archaic moral, therefore, jives with the steampunk (a better phrase might be "gas-lamp fantasy"), technology-forward fantasy world he's created. A vivid read, but a let-down ending.
Plus, the monsters were rather unoriginal, I thought.
Re:Good Book, Bad Ending (Score:1)
His ending fails that contract, since Yagharek's quest for flight is the thing that moves the plot. We as readers expect that to come to fruition, and it doesn't.
In some genres, you can get away with not giving the reader what they want. But this is fantasy, not The New York Times. His denial of what we want serves no useful literary purpose in this work. He would have been better served to have a happier ending. There's enough sad endings in real life, after all.
Re:Good Book, Bad Ending (Score:2)
Well, yes and no. Yagharek's quest was what moved the plot, but what moved the world was the interaction between the different species. And in that world Yagharek's quest was probably doomed to failure. There was always the tension between what the participants wanted and what the society demanded.
It could have been a happy ending for the individuals, but that would have been a cop-out. He did a good job of following the logic of the world to it's tragic conclusions.
I don't think there is the implicit contact to deliver the ending you're expecting anyway - the surprise twist is a standard literary device. There is only the contract to delivery the ending a story demands, and this ending was quite fitting.
Re:Good Book, Bad Ending (Score:1)
I didn't mean to rule out surpirse endings, but I think we find that in a proper suprise ending, the reader expects to be suprised. I.e., "it all seems too perfect", and while the reader may not know how it's going to end, the reader knows that it's going to be a suprise.
Anyway, I disagree that it's the logical ending, which is why I don't like it. To me, the ending seems arbitrary (fifth-act character introduction is almost a deux ex machina, only in this case the angel -the garuda woman - puts things wrong instead of right) and needlessly negative. It seems to me like Mielville is saying "well, you expected a happy ending, but I'm not going to give you one" just because it's so hip to leave the reader unsatisfied.
Re:Good Book, Bad Ending (Score:1)
Another Review (Score:2, Informative)
I found this book review through Locus Magazine [locusmag.com], which is the best online source of sf and fantasy news that I've found.
A yes-but review (Score:1)
VERY highly recommended! (Score:1)
A part of the book that really intrigued med was when Isaac held a long monologue about the Torque. The Torque is a mysterious force that can be used as an incredibly powerful energy source -- as well as big-ass bombs. Sort of like nuclear power and nuclear bombs. But the Torque doesn't kill by radiation -- it has the power to distort reality. In a "people grow tentacles and act weird" kind of way.
Isaac described an expedition where the members got Torque poisoning. Quote from memory: "One of the scientists started disappearing. Part by part. Large holes appeared in her body. There was no pain, there was just large holes where here flesh disappeared. She killed herself when both her legs were gone."
I think "The Scar" will most likely deal with the Torque.
Other Torque quotes: "We think it was a domestic goat. The scientists shot it, but the claws in its stomach killed a crew member when they dissected it. [...] That was once a house. The mouth appears to be made from engine gears."
Complete Torque quotes (Score:1)
Not much info to spoil here, actually. Consider it a teaser instead.
He indicated that Yagharek should turn the page. Yagharek did so, and something clucked deep in his throat. Isaac supposed it was the garuda equivalent of a sudden intake of breath. Isaac looked briefly at the picture, then looked up, not too quickly, at Yagharek's face.
'Those things in the background like melting statues used to be houses,' he said levelly. 'The thing you're looking at, as far as they could work out, is descended from the domestic goat. Apparently they used to keep them as pets in Suroch. This could be second, tenth, twentieth generation post-Torque, obviously. We don't know how long they live.'
Yagharek stared at the dead thing in the heliotype.
'They had to shoot it, he explains in the text,' Isaac went on. 'It killed two of the militia. They had a go at an autopsy, but those horns in its stomach weren't dead, even though the rest of it was. They fought back, nearly killed the biologist. Do you see the carapace? Weird splicing going on there.' Yagharek nodded slowly.
'Turn the page, Yag. This next one, no one has the slightest idea what it used to be. Might have been spontaneously generated in the Torque explosion. But I think those gears are descended from train engines.'
[...]
'There were twenty militia, Sacramundi the heliotypist and three research scientists, plus a couple of engineers who stayed in the airship the whole time.
Seven militia, Sacramundi and one chymist came out of Suroch. Some were Torque-wounded. By the time they got back to New Crobuzon one militiaman had died. Another had barbed tentacles where his eyes should be, and pieces of the scientist's body were disappearing every night. No blood, no pain, just... smooth holes in her abdomen or arm or whatever. She killed herself.'
[...]
'Yag,' Isaac said softly, 'we ain't going to use the Torque. You might be thinking "You still use hammers and some people are murdered with them". Right? Eh? "Rivers can flood and kill thousands or they can drive water turbines." Yes? Trust me... speaking as one who used to think the Torque was /terribly/
exciting... it's not a /tool/. It's /not/ a hammer, it's not like water. It's...
the Torque is /rogue/ /power/. We're not talking crisis energy here, right? Get
that /right/ out of your head. Crisis is the energy underpinning the whole of
physics. Torque's not about physics. It's not /about/ anything. It's... it's an
entirely pathological force. We don't know where it comes from, why it appears,
where it goes. All bets are off. No rules apply. You can't tap it -- well, you
can try, but you've seen the results -- you can't play with it, you can't trust
it, you can't understand it, you sure as godsdamn-fuck can't control it.'
The Scar Reviewed (Score:1)
http://news.diversebooks.com/article.pl?sid=02/