Perdido Street Station by China Mielville

Rating: 4.5 out of 5

For the past 30 years or so, the fantasy genre has, with the exception of a few great works from a few great authors, mired itself in a situation where it has become unimaginative and unoriginal where works have become practically clones of each other. In recent years though, a few inspired souls have gradually tried to take the genre out of its familiar and commercially safe elements hoping to take fantasy back to an environment when it was wide-open in terms of storyline, setting, characterizations, etc., where every other author wasn’t trying to be the Second Coming of J.R.R. Tolkien. Daring and creative authors have emerged who have taken their work away from the accepted formulaic approach and looked for inspirations outside of the established works of the genre, instead of keeping on repeating its own successes.

Perdido Street Station takes the reader in a totally different world from that of your typical fantasy fare. Take a look at these:

• The story isn’t set in a quasi-medieval or feudalistic society. Instead it takes place in an industrial city that seems to invoke images of Victorian-era London that is ruled by a government with an iron fist.


• Magic (or thaumaturgy) co-exists with science and both are “systemized” in their usage.


• There are no elves, dwarves, orcs or some other typical fantasy race. Instead there are races never seen in before. Among others, there are the frog-like vodyanoi; the khepri females with human bodies and insects for heads; winged, bird-like garuda; and humanoid cacti, the cactacae.


• There are bio-engineered beings, called the Remade, who have humanoid or animal parts, or even machine parts grafted onto the body to serve as a tool for a profession, or a punishment for a crime. (One punishment has a mother who murdered her own baby have the child’s limbs permanently attached to her face, a constant reminder of her sin.)


• There are monsters including a giant spider that phases in and out of each plane of reality, constantly maintaining the web of existence; and slake-moths who prey on the unwary feeding on their thoughts and dreams.


• There is a machine-intelligence living in a junkyard who thinks it is a god.


• Hell has established diplomatic relations with the government and actually has an embassy.

And all these only on just one city, which is the setting of the story: New Crobuzon. We get the hint that there are lots more to see in the world called Bas-Lag.

China Mielville, who describes his work as “weird fiction” and influenced by early fantasy authors like H.P. Lovecraft and Mervyn Peake, deliberately stayed away from Tolkienesque formulas in order create his work. He incorporated fantasy, science fiction, horror, and steampunk to create this highly imaginative, complex and downright amazing masterpiece that breaks the established boundaries taking the genre to heights unexplored for a very long time.

The story revolves around Isaac Dan der Grimnebulin, an outcast scientist who dabbles in scientific experiments in a warehouse and has an existing sexual inter-species relationship with a Khepri named Lin, who herself is an artist who creates sculptures by using her own insect spit. One day, as Lin was being commissioned for a job by someone who turned out to be the biggest crime boss of the city, Isaac receives a visitor. He is approached by a garuda, Yagharek, who has his wings cut off as a punishment for some terrible crime. Yagharek wants to fly again, and he asks Isaac to make it so.

Challenged by this, Isaac agrees and this leads to horrible consequences that ultimately threaten the safety of everyone in the city. The danger is so great and so terrifying that even the Ambassador of Hell, who is offered anything in return, refuses to send demons to help. Why? Because they are afraid.

Isaac, feeling responsible, takes a quickly-banded motley group of companions, including Yagharek, to try to stop the nightmare. A task which he would risk his life... and others', as well (a dilemma which emerges deep into the story). Along the way, he is hunted by the government, the mob, a machine-intelligence, and a giant (and possibly demented) spider.

Perdido Street Station may be a little difficult for some to read as the story takes time and requires focus. He takes the reader into a tour of New Crobuzon and explores a city in decay through some rich and descriptive passages that define the cities structures, societies, creeds, history and its various races and creatures. In doing so, he also explores a little on themes like, crime, and racial intolerance, government control, poverty, merchantilism, freedom of expression, drugs, and religious societies. But as one takes the time to immerse in the writing of Mielville, one is taken to a city that is amazing at the same time dark. It is dark, vile, dirty, ragged, ill, decaying but also mesmerizing and amazing, and one which seems to impose itself on its inhabitants. No other city has come this alive with character in the pages of fiction since the establishment of Gotham City.

Such is the way the author writes. Each major character is well-rounded and fully dimensional. They have strengths and they have faults. Isaac isn’t a handsome and cool physical specimen. He is an overweight person, who makes love to an insect and probably caused the death of one of his friends. He will also make morally ambiguous decisions.

And through him, Mielville makes his readers think about the ethics of some issues. In the story, Isaac makes two decisions that could be subjects of a great moral debate about what is right and what is wrong. Does the end justify the means? How much is one life worth? Do our moral obligations supersede our morality?

And herein lies the reason why Perdido Street Station is a masterpiece. It is a manifestation of the wonderful imagination of a great mind. It dares to break standards and pushes and challenges its peers to reach for new heights in a genre that supposedly has very few limitations. It has a wonderful story and characters, even the non-humanoid types, feel down-to-earth-real that readers can sympathize with them. And most of all, it makes one think about ourselves as human beings.

And the good news is that China Mielville would return to the world of Bas-Lag for more stories.