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Perdido Street Station by China Mieville : A rambunctious novel that defies description


Perdido Street Station is a truly exceptional book. Perdido Street Station is packed with so many ideas and concepts that other authors could have made a whole series out of just one of them. Thinking about this novel still gives me the chills. I had not heard of China Mieville till Samit Basu(author of the Gameworld trilogy happened to mention him) and what a recommendation this turned out be.
I couldn't help but form images of what was happening and they still creep me out. The monsters in this book are scary to say the least.
The novel begins with a Garuda(a bird like creature) who comes to Isaac, a scientist to get his wings(they have been removed by his folk as punishment for his crimes). Isaac then begins his foray into winged creatures and the tale metamorphoses into something else entirely.
The world of New Crobuzon that Mieville creates is on an entirely different scale from what is typical. It is rich, detailed, nuanced, utterly fantastic and populated with a dense cast of characters whose motivations I could not help but wonder at.
There are monsters who feed off your dreams. There are machines who obtain sentience. There are water beings, insect like folk and huge cactus like ones as well all of who live together in New Crobuzon with all the strife that this entails. There is the weaver, whose only motivation to do things is to make things look better in the grander scheme of things and its amazing how all of it fits.
Mieville writes like a dream with deftness and subtlety. Here he possesses the ability to get into the skin of every character etching them out with great intimacy and thought. He writes with a flair and verve that he seems to have abandoned in his later works(with the exception of Kraken).
Highly recommended and a must read. This is without a shadow of doubt one of the finest books that I have ever read.

You can buy Perdido Street Station here.
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