In Perdido Street Station China Mieville flexes his considerable imagination to bring us an improbable world of strange creatures and bizarre physics. From human-like creatures with beetles for heads, to exotic forms of energy, to multi-dimensional spider-like creatures who speak in poetry and harness unimaginable amounts of power, Perdido Street Station's sprawling city of New Crobuzon unfolds like an exotic flower before the reader's eyes, each new detail a fresh and awe-inspiring experience.

But New Crobuzon is also a dark and dirty place, both physically (its streets are awash with toxic effluvia that generate packs of mutant undead in the city's sewers) and morally. Those who read fantasy or science fiction to escape from the real world may find Perdido Street Station too bleak for their tastes. Emblematic of New Crobuzon's moral decrepitude is the practice of Remaking, whereby criminals' bodies are twisted into forms appropriate to their crime: a former gangster who refuses to testify against his boss finds his mouth sealed shut, a young mother who murders her children has their arms grafted to her head. Among New Crobuzon's human and non-human denizens, a good will is hard to find, and even the best of friends can turn traitor. Trust is a rare thing, love even rarer, and those in power are uniformly corrupt and vicious (the mayor, for instance, has no qualms about taking eyeballs from his non-consenting constituents for his own use). There are, of course, heroes in the book--but even the protagonists display shocking and at times revolting moments of cruelty and disregard for human dignity. And in this book, even when the good guys win, they lose.

The combination of a fascinating but rotting environment and its equally unsavory characters gives Perdido Street Station a dark but undeniable appeal. Indeed, what drives the first few chapters of the book is a constant stream of casual revelations about Mieville's sickly lush world. But soon the plot begins to take on a life of its own, and what starts out as a simple story of scientific and artistic pursuits becomes a thrilling and complicated tale of a battle against a rapacious evil that seems nearly invincible. It is truly a sheer joy to watch Mieville pull his fascinating characters through an exciting plot in his awe-inspiring world.

But several flaws keep Perdido Street Station from being a perfect read. The second half of the book drags at times, especially when Mieville stops feeding us new details about his fictional world--the plot becomes somewhat more workmanlike, even plodding. And the last few chapters are simply awful; the main protagonist displays a level of moral righteousness that seems completely out of place (not to mention treacherous) given the choices he had to make throughout the book. Plus the protagonist's moral righteousness comes in response to a fairly random event that comes with a jolt, especially after the harrowing climax that should have been the ending of the book.

But these flaws are not enough to outweigh the immense pleasure that Perdido Street Station can give to the reader. If you are not chronically depressed, I highly, highly recommend this book.

Copyright © 2002 Steven Wu