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Perdido Street Station By China Miéville
 Originally published in 2003 by Del Rey
640 pages
Perdido Street Station is a wonderfully inventive new take on the fantasy genre. Although more a fantasy than anything else, it is a long way removed from a traditional fantasy. To illustrate my point, I present the reader with the following table (read creature/number of appearances):
| Elf | 0 | | Fairy | 0 | | Orc | 0 | | Goblin | 0 | | Werewolf | 0 | | Succubus | 0 | | Gnome | 0 | | Dragon | 0 | | Griffon | 0 | | Giant Mind Sucking Moth | 5 |
Miéville has created one of the most complete, well-developed fantasy universes going. Miéville, I have decided, is spearheading a new genre: Industrial Fantasy. In many ways the main character of the book is the city in which the story is set: New Crobuzon, a sprawling, dirty megatropolis ruled over by a corrupt Parliament whose power is enforced by militia who patrol the streets undercover striking without warning. Miéville seems to delight in his descriptions of the city’s filth, its fetid faece-strewn alleys, its dark looming towers overlooking the vast slums ruled by drug barons.
New Crobuzon is completely immersive. Magic, referred to in the book as thaumatergy exists, but its various branches are treated as other sciences; indeed much of the technology in the book consists of interesting blends between the industrial and the thaumatergic. One of the more interesting schools discussed is bio-thaumatergy, which allows the sculpting and manipulation of flesh in inventive and usually cruel fashions. The criminal justice system makes heavy use of bio-thaumatergists; offenders being frequently ‘Remade’, usually in some ironic fashion befitting their crime.
Not only is Miéville’s world detailed and immersive, his characters are intricate and interesting. The main character (aside from the city itself) is Isaac van der Grimnebulin, and rogue scientist with outlandish ideas about unified-field theory. Isaac’s girlfriend, Lin, is a khepri, a race of insectoids whose females have human bodies crowned by heads that resemble beetles, complete with headlegs, a carapace and tiny non-functional wings. Lin is also a fairly successful artist. Anxious that the curious relationship not damage his credibility in the scientific world, Isaac strains the relationship by the lengths to which he goes to keep it secret.
Isaac has long since given up his teaching job at the university and researches freelance. Out of the blue, he is approached by Yaghrek, a giant parrot-like creature from a nomadic tribe in a far away desert. Yaghrek has had his wings sawn off by his tribe for a crime on which he doesn’t elaborate and wishes Isaac to find a way to help him fly again.
Isaac is fascinated by the job, and throws himself into it with gusto. In doing so, however, he unwittingly involves himself in a conspiracy between the Government and New Crobuzon’s most feared underworld baron.
Perdido Street Station is absorbing, exciting and most of all completely novel. Towards the end of the book, however, as the action was heating up and the conclusion drawing nearer, I could not help but wonder whether Miéville should not have paid a little less attention to his meticulous descriptions of New Crobuzon city. Though not a particularly significant issue, I did begin to feel that it was interfering with the pace. Nonetheless, for anyone looking for something new in the fantasy genre, this is it.
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