Perdido Street Station (book review) China Miéville

(New Crobuzon, #1)

210612: the length of this book intimidated me. i have not read it for twenty years because of this. now, after reading [book:The City & the City|4703581] and [book:Embassytown|9265453], i decided to try it. it is still very long, my copy is 710 pgs, but i loved it so much read it in basically two days...

other reviews can give you an idea of the breadth of themes, stylistic profusion, multiple genres, lineage of fantastic/horrific/steampunk imagery, the best i can offer is unstinting applause for the ambition of the author. mieville has invented sort of an alternate london, heavily indebted to [book:Gormenghast|258392], with that particular english vision of the world as one massive city, populated by diverse races, species, inventive and fantastic, mythic, pulpy, and not necessarily beholden to biology as science...