<![CDATA[Perdido Street Station]]>

false <![CDATA[Perdido Street Station]]> http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1179033322m/867383.jpg 68494 22 When Mae West said, "Too much of a good thing can be wonderful," she could have been talking about China Miéville's Perdido Street Station. The novel's publication met with a burst of extravagant praise from Big Name Authors and was almost instantly a multi-award finalist. You expect hyperbole in blurbs; and sometimes unworthy books win awards, so nominations don't necessarily mean much. But Perdido Street Station deserves the acclaim. It's ambitious and brilliant and--rarity of rarities--sui generis. Its clearest influences are Mervyn Peake's Gormenghast trilogy and M. John Harrison's Viriconium books, but it isn't much like them. It's Dickensian in scope, but fast-paced and modern. It's a love song for cities, and it packs a world into its strange, sprawling, steam-punky city of New Crobuzon. It can be read with equal validity as fantasy, science fiction, horror, or slipstream. It's got love, loss, crime, sex, riots, mad scientists, drugs, art, corruption, demons, dreams, obsession, magic, aliens, subversion, torture, dirigibles, romantic outlaws, artificial intelligence, and dangerous cults. Generous, gaudy, grand, grotesque, gigantic, grim, grimy, and glorious, Perdito Street Station is a bloody fascinating book. It's also so massive that you may begin to feel you're getting too much of a good thing; just slow down and enjoy. Yes, but what is Perdido Street Station about? To oversimplify: the eccentric scientist Isaac Dan der Grimnebulin is hired to restore the power of flight to a cruelly de-winged birdman. Isaac's secret lover is Lin, an artist of the khepri, a humano-insectoid race; theirs is a forbidden relationship. Lin is hired (rather against her will) by a mysterious crime boss to capture his horrifying likeness in the unique khepri art form. Isaac's quest for flying things to study leads to verification of his controversial unified theory of the strange sciences of his world. It also brings him an odd, unknown grub stolen from a secret government experiment so perilous it is sold to a ruthless drug lord--the same crime boss who hired Lin. The grub emerges from its cocoon, becomes an extraordinarily dangerous monster, and escapes Isaac's lab to ravage New Crobuzon, even as his discovery becomes known to a hidden, powerful, and sinister intelligence. Lin disappears and Isaac finds himself pursued by the monster, the drug lord, the government and armies of New Crobuzon, and other, more bizarre factions, not all confined to his world. --Cynthia Ward 3221410 book 2000 Perdido Street Station total:3271|5:1327|4:1167|3:516|2:174|1:87| 3271 13286 4995 523 1 15 false true Sun Jun 01 00:00:00 -0700 2008 Sat Mar 29 19:40:06 -0700 2008 Fri Oct 23 22:04:32 -0700 2009 more...]]> 1 18 false false Mon Jul 30 17:16:52 -0700 2007 Mon Jul 30 17:27:21 -0700 2007 more...]]> 5 16 false false Mon Sep 24 16:46:37 -0700 2007 Tue Sep 25 13:22:47 -0700 2007
Let's get this out of the way: yes, Mieville likes to get his vocab on. But I don't think it's out of pretension or apprehension (I've seen both suggested in reviews on this site). Mieville's using the language to draw you in to a world that is like ours, but sligh...more...]]> 5 14 false false Thu Jun 26 17:25:01 -0700 2008 Wed Aug 06 21:04:40 -0700 2008
I found it difficult to read -- not for writing style, with is incredibly fluid; not for content, which, while often uncomfortable, was not that ...more...]]> 4 6 false false Tue Mar 31 00:00:00 -0700 2009 Wed Mar 25 21:20:32 -0700 2009 Tue Mar 31 17:14:38 -0700 2009 more...]]> 2 8 false false Thu Apr 10 00:00:00 -0700 2008 Tue Jul 22 22:37:17 -0700 2008 Wed Jul 23 13:19:05 -0700 2008
In short, the premise of the book was fun. I love a boo...more...]]> 5 12 false false Thu Feb 07 00:00:00 -0800 2002 Tue Mar 25 13:06:05 -0700 2008 Thu Nov 26 21:32:13 -0800 2009 4 WARNING: This review probably contains some (but not many) spoilers, so you may not want to read this if you haven’t read Perdido Street Station yet. This review also contains plenty of vulgarity. Please don't read this if you do not want to see the "f" and other words. Thanks.

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I have a very ambiguous feeling about PSS. I loved the book and hated the ending.

The book:
An incredible story! Mieville's imagination blows you away. There are a lot of absolutely new things introduced in the book, races, monsters, engines, contraptions...more...]]> 4 1 false false Sat Nov 01 00:00:00 -0700 2008 Sat Jan 24 12:36:57 -0800 2009 Sat Jan 24 12:51:22 -0800 2009 more...]]> 5 1 false true Sun Jun 28 00:00:00 -0700 2009 Thu Oct 09 20:58:10 -0700 2008 Mon Jun 29 21:38:34 -0700 2009
In New Crobuzon, humans are a minority among the sentient beings. Isaac, a human, is a ...more...]]> 2 1 false false Sat Sep 06 00:00:00 -0700 2008 Mon Jul 07 19:30:23 -0700 2008 Sat Sep 06 01:28:37 -0700 2008 no way I can finish this during the first half of term - too many other things assigned for reading. It's freaking dense.

And I'm not sure I'm getting along with the writing style - I'm kind of sick of four-page tangent...more...]]> 4 1 false false Thu Sep 04 00:00:00 -0700 2008 Fri May 16 15:16:16 -0700 2008 Thu Sep 04 23:48:07 -0700 2008 more...]]> 5 2 false false Sun Jun 01 00:00:00 -0700 2003 Wed Apr 09 19:22:02 -0700 2008 Mon Jun 02 10:34:41 -0700 2008 more...]]> 3 1 false false Tue Feb 26 00:00:00 -0800 2008 Tue Feb 26 23:16:56 -0800 2008 Tue Feb 26 23:54:51 -0800 2008 more...]]> 4 1 false false Fri Mar 16 00:00:00 -0700 2007 Thu Jan 31 06:43:01 -0800 2008 Sat Feb 09 06:08:10 -0800 2008 City of Saints and Madmen by Jeff Vandermeer. While Vandermeer's book wasn't a bad one, it was a tough slog in places.

A...more...]]> 4 1 false false Wed Jun 01 00:00:00 -0700 2005 Sun Jan 27 00:51:20 -0800 2008 Fri Feb 01 18:13:38 -0800 2008 more...]]> http://www.goodreads.com/book_link/follow/8?book_id=867383