Bloody Books Review - Perdido Street Station by China Mieville

Continue the dropping of book reviews that are Fluffenhammer Adjacent, we come to the next of the series I've written with no place to put them whilst busy with Real Life Stuff.

Perdido Street Station by China Mieville

How you begin a synopsis for Perdidio Street Station. Do you talk about the ant-people who make sculptures out of their own spit? The frog watercrafters? Cactus-people? The fact it's a fantasy world (Bas-Lag by name) that is both magical and scientific in equal measure? Or the plot is sort of about a man who tries to help a crippled birdman but instead awakens transdimensional beings that eat peoples dreams?

It's a lot to have to take in.

To describe it sounds like describing a terrible plot, and in the hands of someone less confident, it could well have been. But Mieville is not that person and that massive tale he manages to unravel is equal parts weird fiction and original fantasy world building. That fact it's coherent is in itself a marvel. it shouldn't be. It's big, too much, too loud. But it works, and does so beautifully. Mieveille channels his inner Mervyn Peake, purposefully, to unleash something rhythmic and atmospheric with a flair for language that can be both poety and course. He uses curses and swaers in a manner that could easily become childish but lean into a sense of maturity rarely seen in the Genre of the last 90s.

The spires and grim of New Crobuzon are as much a character as the flesh and blood populace that carry the story forward. It is bohemian as much as rotten, ruined as much as reclaimed and feels more real than any fictional city since Ankh-Morpork.

Isaac, whom we mostly follow is a scientist both discredited and neurotic, desprate to find his way back into academia. He is likable and frustrating in equal measure, but has a true romantic strength with his Kepri partner, Lin. He boils with rage when everything goes wrong and slides into depression, but not unrealistically so. He fears how others view his cross-species relationship, with Lin trying to make a name for herself by being herself; something frowned upon by her species. It's a real, living breathing relationship, and that comes through marvelously, and emotionally charged.

We often flit to other characters as the story moves on, and it's just enough to see the city as a whole rather than just a setting. The events that build up do so organically, and Mieville is happy to let it do so, exploring nooks and crannies along the way.

Perdido Street station is literature in it's purest form, fantast as both examination and escapism. Unique , horrifying, funny and very real. I cannot recommend it enough