"Perdido Street Station" by China Mieville (published 2000)
Oh Gods, jabber, Devil's Tail, damn. This book is the best I've read this year. Though -
I'd recommend "Perdido Street Station" to those who are already partial to fantasy, fairy-tales, and science fiction, because the entire novel is heavily steeped in those genre elements and it's an extremely strong brew; a thick and boasty blend, yet a sweet and tart mix of character-driven action, fast-paced at over seven-hundred pages that pulsate with anthropomorphic creatures, evil monsters, a brilliant and non-conforming scientist, beautifully winged-bug maidens, a seedy underworld, a corrupt bureaucracy, sentient A.I. robotrons, pretentious art-world snobs, a hellish brothel of indescribable, sinful creatures and so. much. more.
I'll begin with Isaac, the main character, our passionate scientist unaccepted by his fellows because, well, he's a bit *avant-garde* for his discipline. His thing: Crisis Theory. He's been working on it for some time, but when a Garuda comes to New Crobuzon from Cymek - an unfathomably long journey - Isaac is propelled into his work on Crisis Theory once again with renewed inspiration. The Garuda, named Yagahrek, comes to Isaac without wings: he is castrated and an outcast of his world for reasons unclear, we know just that he was punished for an unspeakable crime. Isaac, in pity and in scientific vanity, decides to help him, with the the idea that if he perfects his Crisis Energy Machine he will enable the poor Garuda to fly once again. As Isaac begins this endeavor, he orders an immensity of winged creatures, large and small, freakish and cute, loud, quiet, obnoxious, you-name-it that reside in cages within and outside of his residence. One of these creatures happens to be a fascinatingly gorgeous caterpillar... and when a drug-dealer happens to leave a bit of the new fix around town in Isaac's abode, the caterpillar feeds on it with zest and, Isaac being the slightly impulsive person that he is, gets more of the stuff and keeps feeding the thing until it outgrows it's cage. By the way, the drug is called Dreamshit.
Part of the reason this kind of literature is something I enjoy is because of the depths of comprehension within the textbook-y fictional fun stuff. Here's an example from Isaac, from a scene in which he goes off on one of his theoretical tangents:
"See, potential energy's all about placing something in a situation where it's teetering, where it's about to change its state. Just like when you put enough strain on a group of people, they'll suddenly explode. They'll go from grumpy and quiescent to violent and creative in one moment. The transition from one state to another's affected by taking something - a social group, a piece of wood, a hex - to a place where its interactions with other forces make its *own energy* pull against its current state. I'm talking about taking things to the point of *crisis*."
I, personally, love this s&^% (excuse my French). That's just one sample from Mieville's brilliant book, and I'm not going to go into the ramifications of what that all could mean in this review, because I want to point out some other things that make Perdido Street Station so good.
Lin is another character within the story. She's khepri: a bug race that lives alongside the humans and ReMades (I'll get to them later) of New Crobuzon as refugees, an immigrant race not accepted by all. Lin and Isaac begin a relationship with one another, and Isaac - though a tinkerer he may be - reveals a really sensitive, caring, hesitant side of his nature when with Lin. Lin, like Isaac, like Yagharek, is a bit of an outcast too. Though she's khepri, she never really "fit in" with the khepri crowd itself. Part of the reason is because she's a very talented artist - and, in any group - we know that artistry is a sign of, though I would like to stall my use of this word, an *individual*.
"Lin was never so foolish as to think she could stop being defined as khepri, as far as the city was concerned. Nor did she want to. But for herself, she stopped *trying* to be khepri, as she had once stopped trying to be insect. That was why she was bewildered... she would sit, in the Kinken she had despised for years, surrounded by sisters to whom she was an outsider. She did not want to return to the 'khepri way' any more..."
A fascinating turn of events occurs once Lin is hired by a malevolent ReMade named Motley, who pays her to create a sculpture of his hideous self. Motley is a globulous mashing up of tentacles and mouths, tongues, teeth, claws, limbs and hooves and feet and feathers and flesh which ooze and drip out of him like moving Play-Dough. Imagine rolling up a huge amount of clay or Play-Dough, say the size of a big human, over a cemetery of recently dead animal and human parts. That would be Motley. ReMades in general are beings which are comprised of two of more incongruous parts. A foot where the mouth should be, teeth where hands should be, etc. This is punishment in New Crobuzon. Many of them are fixed up to serve in the brothel: you'll have to read the book to see where Mieville's imagination goes with that one.
There's more to say, especially about robots, computation, and A.I. in general. And I haven't told you about the most menacing creature, the ultimate antagonist of Perdido Street Station... riding high in the filthy soot-stained clouded sky. And I won't! It's too good and will ruin the fun! But I will end on this: it is *so freaking cool* to read a book about misfits/outcasts that I can relate to. I like how none of them really have found "their people", "their comrades", their "home". I like how they are pulled closer together by certain catastrophes. I like the realism that none of them even end up in a solid group (not really) at the very end. They work together, yes, but for reasons that don't always line up with one another. They are the wrecked and the lonely, the beautiful and the damned. And they all have work to do, their very own, hopefully work that leads them ever more propelling out and inward towards a place of mesmerizing wonder, acceptance, truth, and yes, love.
I'd recommend "Perdido Street Station" to those who are already partial to fantasy, fairy-tales, and science fiction, because the entire novel is heavily steeped in those genre elements and it's an extremely strong brew; a thick and boasty blend, yet a sweet and tart mix of character-driven action, fast-paced at over seven-hundred pages that pulsate with anthropomorphic creatures, evil monsters, a brilliant and non-conforming scientist, beautifully winged-bug maidens, a seedy underworld, a corrupt bureaucracy, sentient A.I. robotrons, pretentious art-world snobs, a hellish brothel of indescribable, sinful creatures and so. much. more.
I'll begin with Isaac, the main character, our passionate scientist unaccepted by his fellows because, well, he's a bit *avant-garde* for his discipline. His thing: Crisis Theory. He's been working on it for some time, but when a Garuda comes to New Crobuzon from Cymek - an unfathomably long journey - Isaac is propelled into his work on Crisis Theory once again with renewed inspiration. The Garuda, named Yagahrek, comes to Isaac without wings: he is castrated and an outcast of his world for reasons unclear, we know just that he was punished for an unspeakable crime. Isaac, in pity and in scientific vanity, decides to help him, with the the idea that if he perfects his Crisis Energy Machine he will enable the poor Garuda to fly once again. As Isaac begins this endeavor, he orders an immensity of winged creatures, large and small, freakish and cute, loud, quiet, obnoxious, you-name-it that reside in cages within and outside of his residence. One of these creatures happens to be a fascinatingly gorgeous caterpillar... and when a drug-dealer happens to leave a bit of the new fix around town in Isaac's abode, the caterpillar feeds on it with zest and, Isaac being the slightly impulsive person that he is, gets more of the stuff and keeps feeding the thing until it outgrows it's cage. By the way, the drug is called Dreamshit.
Part of the reason this kind of literature is something I enjoy is because of the depths of comprehension within the textbook-y fictional fun stuff. Here's an example from Isaac, from a scene in which he goes off on one of his theoretical tangents:
"See, potential energy's all about placing something in a situation where it's teetering, where it's about to change its state. Just like when you put enough strain on a group of people, they'll suddenly explode. They'll go from grumpy and quiescent to violent and creative in one moment. The transition from one state to another's affected by taking something - a social group, a piece of wood, a hex - to a place where its interactions with other forces make its *own energy* pull against its current state. I'm talking about taking things to the point of *crisis*."
I, personally, love this s&^% (excuse my French). That's just one sample from Mieville's brilliant book, and I'm not going to go into the ramifications of what that all could mean in this review, because I want to point out some other things that make Perdido Street Station so good.
Lin is another character within the story. She's khepri: a bug race that lives alongside the humans and ReMades (I'll get to them later) of New Crobuzon as refugees, an immigrant race not accepted by all. Lin and Isaac begin a relationship with one another, and Isaac - though a tinkerer he may be - reveals a really sensitive, caring, hesitant side of his nature when with Lin. Lin, like Isaac, like Yagharek, is a bit of an outcast too. Though she's khepri, she never really "fit in" with the khepri crowd itself. Part of the reason is because she's a very talented artist - and, in any group - we know that artistry is a sign of, though I would like to stall my use of this word, an *individual*.
"Lin was never so foolish as to think she could stop being defined as khepri, as far as the city was concerned. Nor did she want to. But for herself, she stopped *trying* to be khepri, as she had once stopped trying to be insect. That was why she was bewildered... she would sit, in the Kinken she had despised for years, surrounded by sisters to whom she was an outsider. She did not want to return to the 'khepri way' any more..."
A fascinating turn of events occurs once Lin is hired by a malevolent ReMade named Motley, who pays her to create a sculpture of his hideous self. Motley is a globulous mashing up of tentacles and mouths, tongues, teeth, claws, limbs and hooves and feet and feathers and flesh which ooze and drip out of him like moving Play-Dough. Imagine rolling up a huge amount of clay or Play-Dough, say the size of a big human, over a cemetery of recently dead animal and human parts. That would be Motley. ReMades in general are beings which are comprised of two of more incongruous parts. A foot where the mouth should be, teeth where hands should be, etc. This is punishment in New Crobuzon. Many of them are fixed up to serve in the brothel: you'll have to read the book to see where Mieville's imagination goes with that one.
There's more to say, especially about robots, computation, and A.I. in general. And I haven't told you about the most menacing creature, the ultimate antagonist of Perdido Street Station... riding high in the filthy soot-stained clouded sky. And I won't! It's too good and will ruin the fun! But I will end on this: it is *so freaking cool* to read a book about misfits/outcasts that I can relate to. I like how none of them really have found "their people", "their comrades", their "home". I like how they are pulled closer together by certain catastrophes. I like the realism that none of them even end up in a solid group (not really) at the very end. They work together, yes, but for reasons that don't always line up with one another. They are the wrecked and the lonely, the beautiful and the damned. And they all have work to do, their very own, hopefully work that leads them ever more propelling out and inward towards a place of mesmerizing wonder, acceptance, truth, and yes, love.
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