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PERDIDO STREET STATION
China Miéville
Macmillan hb, 717pp, £16.99
reviewed by Rosanne Rabinowitz
Isaac is a scientist. Fat, genial and a bit of lad, he's fallen out with academia and lives on freelance research and dodgy dealings. His girlfriend Lin is an artist who hangs out with subversives, bohos and avant-gardeners. Her work is just getting recognition, but it's a long haul for this girl from the slums who has divided feelings about her origins. Lin and Isaac's mixed relationship is considered somewhat scandalous. Isaac, you see, is a human boy and Lin is an insectoid khepri.
The author of King Rat is back and no, it's not another trawl through the mean streets of London. There's absolutely no mention of drum 'n' bass. Instead we journey through the mucky streets, canals and nests of 'New Crobuzon'. Humans, mutants and a dazzling array of alien races struggle on in this dark, dirt-ridden city ruled by slick politicians and crime bosses, backed by a brutal militia. Though distinctly different than King Rat, Perdido Street Station also focuses on the marginalised and outcasts of its world.
Lin is commisioned to create a sculpture of a notorious crime boss, done in khepri fashion with 'colourberries' and spit. Isaac is visited by a huge bird-like garuda asking him to restore his ability to fly, having lost his wings in a brush with the law. The garuda is prepared to pay well, and Isaac sympathises with his plight. So the plot unfolds at a leisurely pace. All stories converge as New Crobuzon simmers with tension leading up to a strike, and a new terror threatens from the skies.
Miéville writes with a vast panoramic sweep, in intricate prose that drips with decay and darkness - and vitality. He creates alien landscapes and beings, yet he touches on familiar feelings and dilemmas as his characters duck and dive and try to survive. He conjures up some truly fabulous creatures, most notably a cross-dimensional, super-intelligent if autistic spider-mutant who talks in poetry and lops off ears on a whim.
However, something misses when the nasty arch-creatures come on the scene. Too much 'slime' and 'ichor' gets flung about! It jars with the general tenor of the writing, as if a bottle of HP (as in Lovecraft?) sauce has been spilled into a stew full of complex flavours. And considering what they eat, these creatures come across a little too thick and unsubtle. In a related problem, the blam-blam action scenes often feel out of step within a plot that brims with telling detail and quirks. But maybe that's just my bias that 'action' is often overdone and overrated in genre fiction.
Yet the book ends perfectly on a tense and surprising note. Though he draws on some familiar fantasy elements, Miéville combines them in a memorable and unique tale. Perhaps Perdido is reminiscent of early Delaney (Fall of the Towers vintage), infused with a bitter Brechtian sensibility. Police and thieves are brothers under the skin, uneasy alliances are made and broken, and 'heroes' don't get tickertape parades for their pains. Imaginative and unsettling, Perdido Street Station is an outstanding work that raises political and philosophical questions in an entertaining way. Read it!
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