Perdido Street Station

By: China Mieville

Narrated by: John Lee

Length: 24 hrs and 21 mins

Publisher's summary

Winner of the Arthur C. Clarke Award

The metropolis of New Crobuzon sprawls at the center of the world. Humans and mutants and arcane races brood in the gloom beneath its chimneys, where the river is sluggish with unnatural effluent and foundries pound into the night. For a thousand years, the Parliament and its brutal militias have ruled over a vast economy of workers and artists, spies and soldiers, magicians, crooks, and junkies.

Now a stranger has arrived, with a pocketful of gold and an impossible demand. And something unthinkable is released.

The city is gripped by an alien terror. The fate of millions lies with a clutch of renegades. A reckoning is due at the city’s heart, in the vast edifice of brick and wood and steel under the vaults of Perdido Street Station.

It is too late to escape.

©2003 China Mieville (P)2009 Random House Audio

Critic reviews

Winner of the August Derleth Award

"Primal awe and erudite references have always mingled in Miéville’s work—along with a healthy dose of pulp playfulness.”—The New Yorker

“Flawlessly plotted and relentlessly, stunningly inventive: a conceptual breakthrough of the highest order.”—Kirkus Reviews

“Perdido Street Station is brimming with enchantment. Written in intense, evocative prose, set in Dickensian New Crobuzon, peopled with characters of Boschian demeanor and diversity . . . the book flourishes and shuffles the conventions of science fiction, fantasy, and horror.”—Tordotcom

Recommended

I do not recommend this because it is a perfect novel. It is a flawed novel, in many respects - stylistically uneven, rough, hard to like, characters overpowered by concepts and action(s), an author trying too hard to impress, to force an atmosphere, a feeling on the reader. There are inconsistencies in the characters and their actions. I also feel the author did not have the endurance and strength to write this - or: rewrite, edit, this as one single book. Instead, it ended up more like two books, or maybe one book taking off in the direction of another book.

But it is also a fascinating melange of ideas, and a hard to describe, imaginative look at another reality, described with a voice of his own by the author, who always, in the end, can take his work wherever he wants. And I may personally prefer flawed works by determined authors to polished works off a production line.

Interesting plot/characters, difficult writing

The world and characters of this book are amazing and deep, and the plot is intriguing and kept me interested, but it was hard at times to sit through the overly lengthy and wordy descriptions of literally everything. There were scenes that could have been a 10 word sentence that went on for 15 minutes. I listened to this while traveling and there were times when I would drift off for a couple minutes and miss nothing because it was still describing the same scene. The author has an unfortunate habit of overusing odd words, which really make them stick it. My traveling companions and I made a game of pointing out every time the words "desultory" and "pugnacious" were used. It probably would have been fine to read, but listening to it really made those words stands out. Overall, I did enjoy this book, but it's fortunate for me that it wrapped up pretty well, because I really don't have it in me to sit through two more books like that.

Beautifully told but a little disappointing

Really fascinating world building and a lyrical writing style, but I wasn't fully satisfied with the way the plot wrapped up. I kind of expected the book to be focused on one character but they were kind of written out halfway through, so I was disappointed. Definitely worth your time though!

Dark and Grusome

What did you love best about Perdido Street Station?

The characters were a product of their environment.

What other book might you compare Perdido Street Station to and why?

This book was unlike anything I have read before. Box Trolls. I could see a clay-mation version of this story. It would take a century to make, and it would have the same feel as Box Trolls.

Have you listened to any of John Lee’s other performances before? How does this one compare?

No.

Did you have an extreme reaction to this book? Did it make you laugh or cry?

I found myself sitting in my driveway, finishing a chapter, a few times. That is uncommon for me.

Any additional comments?

A great book, read by an eloquent man. What more could you ask for while commuting?

Fascinating Nightmare World

I read this book several times, buying the Audiobook to enjoy the familiar story in a new format. day whst you will about Mieville's excessive word count, he truly creates his fictional world, the bits that seem excessive to the storyline filling in details that add to how real a place New Crobuzon becomes in the mind of the reader. The narration was sufficiently upper crust sounding to fit the verbose gravity of the story. This is no easy listen, the story has so many layers and facets to it. Choice, government, crime and punishment, technology, religion, science, relationships, society, culture and more are the themes of this dystopiam tale. Mieville has created so many different races and types of peoples. it's fascinating....I highly recommend this book.

Great Story

one of my favorite stories. china Mieville found a niche when he wrote these stories. not sure which is my favorite Bas Lag novel of the three. I really hope he finds more tales to tell.of that fascinating place.

Brilliant

An amazing creation—the vivid sense of a place more real than most real-world places I have been.

Better than the print version

As astonishingly brilliant as the book is, I enjoyed this version far more. Mesmerizing.

Great mood, story doesn’t deliver

The world is the star of this book, more than any of the characters. Very strong, evocative opening, but then we get to a save-the-world-with-ineffable-powers kind of story, and it mostly stops being about the weird city life, a kind of shallow superhero plot, that feels like someone recounting an experience from the roleplaying game. You really had to be there.

Surprised

At first I thought this was not going to be all that enjoyable then i quickly realized this was a truly original story and one of my favorite for the rest of my life. It’s dark and brutal but so very original.