Perdido Street Station

[HiddenTiger]

This book is the only China Mieville book I read and although I found it 'dark' I did find it compelling. My problem was that I found my self having to back track a few pages because I lost the plot speculating, I kept wondering where the bug people and Gaurudas came from (was it genetic experiments?), what creature did the giant Ribcage come from (a living space ship?) what was the source of the magic? All those side issues which the characters took for granted.

I was tempted to buy Iron Council... is it worth spending the money on?

 

[Dianora]

(having a few problems imagining Lin with a bug for a head but I guess that makes it easy to see why the khepri are looked down on)

lol! I had the same feelings... in the beginning I was like, um... is this dude makin' it with a BUG? too funny... I am just starting chapter 4, I have a ways to go, but I have heard from a few people it is a great read.

 

[pham]

I've just finished this book and in shell shock

I'm ever so pleased I didnt read this book of China Mieville's first, I think the cramming of information he's put into it would have put me off his work.

The story around Issac and Lin and the closest associates Yag and Derkhan is interesting and to be honest it was their stories that kept me going. I can't fault the vividness of the story, once again blown away by the visual world. But for me there was just too much information

What did everyone else think?

Loved every minute, every word of it. Thanks for the reminder, I must read some more Mieville, this is the only one I have read so far.

 

[Dianora]

okee dokee...

I'm at the metamorphoses part of the book and it is getting more and more twisted. yowza. He's one of those guys that I'm like 'who THINKS about stuff like this?'

 

[j d worthington]

okee dokee...

I'm at the metamorphoses part of the book and it is getting more and more twisted. yowza. He's one of those guys that I'm like 'who THINKS about stuff like this?'

More of us than you'd like to realize. *reeaally evil grin*

 

[Dianora]

um. finished this last night.

woooaaaaaaaaah freaky. my stomach was in a big knot... sad, intriguing, gut-wrenching, amazingly written... great book, but definitely NOT for everyone.

p.s... China Mieville is extremely hot. yowza.

 

[Green]

POSSIBLE SPOILERS

I bought this book on the strength of reputation, and have to say I'm a little disappointed so far. I'm not quite half way through (the flying things have just managed to escape - very Aliens-esque), but tbh it's a bit of a chore.

The writing's good, the world is detailed and interesting (btw, what's the deal with people not liking detail? Do they just want to read about a shallow world, lacking substance? Yawn), but tbh the plot isn't catching enough for me.

I think it's probably only just started now that the flying doo-dahs have escaped their prison, but it's taken too long to get where it is. Isaac's experiments with crisis energy and his breakthroughs are interesting enough, but nothing else is. I also don't like the dialogue, it's too much like informal cockney tosh for my liking.

I will stick with it, though. I think it'll probably get better from here on.

 

[Dianora]

I found the first 1/3 of the book to be very difficult to read and tiresome in places. It does get better after that, and the detail is great... but I was just disturbed by the whole thing in general. Mind-sucking slake moths are just not good bedtime stories, lol.

I'm amazed by his imagination, the characters he manages to create and the detail he puts into each one of them. Still, I have heard that The Scar is a better read. I will eventually read it, but not for a little while yet. It just got a little *too* gruesome for me in parts... and when it was all over, my stomach was still in knots.

 

[j d worthington]

Promised Gollum and Ravenus I'd post my thoughts on this one. It's going to be difficult to sum them up, but I'll try.

First, I don't really think Mieville is quite my sort of thing -- at the moment. I can see where, at other points in my life, I would have been completely taken with his work; now, it leaves me just a leeetle bit ... cold, distanced, in some way. I think that's because, despite the loads of detail, when it comes to giving descriptions of particular beings/characters, he seems (to me) somewhere between giving the most shadowy image of and giving good, specific detail that allows a full visualization; so that I often have trouble getting a really firm image, even of major characters, at times. Perhaps this is a fault of my own, but I prefer one or the other approach; either give light brush strokes and let my imagination fill in the rest, or give an almost clinical description (spaced out over enough text to avoid interfering with storytelling) that I can "feel" the characters as a physical reality. Here they seem stuck between iconographic and individual, and that, I think, is why I don't get quite so involved with them. That said, I may go back to this at some time, and feel completely differently; it's happened before.

As for the detail in his work overall -- I think the best description I've been able to come up with, in telling a friend about this, is that it's like walking through a landscape done jointly by Hieronymus Bosch and Salvador Dali while watching the latter part of 2001: A Space Odyssey after taking a massive dose of LSD. This is not a bad thing, but it can lead to sensory overload, and that "museum feeling" I sometimes get when I'm at a really powerful art exhibit for too long at a stretch; I leave, and the ground's heaving like a ship in a high sea, and it takes a few hours for things to settle down. Nice, intoxicating, but rather dizzying.

My only other complaint about Mieville is the occasionally slipshod phrasing (rare, but I spotted a few that jarred with the overall meticulous use of language); this may be just the occasional glitch, and something that he'll improve with in time, or it may be due to the rate at which he writes and copy editors not catching such things later. Either way, it's a minor quibble; I'd just like to see it improved because, to be frank, even though it's not quite my sort of thing, Mieville is an incrediblly talented writer with a vivid imagination, fascinating concepts, and a delightful blending of serious themes and various types of humor from the almost slapstick to the grimmest gallows variety. A very, very talented young man. I will read the rest of his work, because I'm impressed; but it may take me a bit to get around to them.

I'm not sure I'd go so far as to claim this is one of the 3 or 4 best books to be published in these fields in the last 15 years (that's taking in a lot of territory!), but I will say it's certainly high on the list; probably well within the best 10.

 

[C. Craig R. McNeil]

I found the first 1/3 of the book to be very difficult to read and tiresome in places. It does get better after that, and the detail is great... but I was just disturbed by the whole thing in general. Mind-sucking slake moths are just not good bedtime stories, lol.

I'm amazed by his imagination, the characters he manages to create and the detail he puts into each one of them. Still, I have heard that The Scar is a better read. I will eventually read it, but not for a little while yet. It just got a little *too* gruesome for me in parts... and when it was all over, my stomach was still in knots.

Damn! Took the words straight out of my mouth! I thought this was a stunning and very inspiring book. It's been a while since I've read something so imaginative.

 

[Brys]

JD, I think you should read the Scar by Mieville next - you say you liked the writing and imagination on the whole, but had some problems with the characterisation (or at least, the style of portraying the characters, which is slightly different). In the Scar, Mieville refines the writing a bit - it's technically better, the pacing is more effective as is the plot but the main difference is the characters are a lot more memorable. In PSS, Isaac, Yagharek, Mr. Motley et al were well developed characters and interesting, but none of them have the same memorability of Uther Doul.

I actually thought though that in PSS most of the characters were described in a lot of detail, at least, except for the human characters. But for those, he took the opposite approach. I don't think he quite took the in between approach you suggest, but he instead took both. There's plenty of physical description of Lin, Yagharek - actually of any non-human species(khepri, vodyanoi, cactacae, slakemoths) there is loads of description. Mieville just isn't that interested in the mundane though. So for characters like Motley (ok, I'm pushing it describing him as human), you just get vague hints here and there which develop into a pretty complete picture by the end - kind of like Lin's statue. Or for Isaac, there's very little physical description - but he's the protagonist. Which for me works fine - it would kill the pacing to do equally detailed descriptions for everyone, but to give just vague descriptions of the various species would take away hugely from the atmosphere.

My only other complaint about Mieville is the occasionally slipshod phrasing (rare, but I spotted a few that jarred with the overall meticulous use of language); this may be just the occasional glitch

There are few writers who can do as well as that at all. For a second novel, it's Mieville has an almost unparalleled command of language - I think at its best it rivals M John Harrison and even Mervyn Peake on occasion. One thing I loved about PSS was how Mieville seemed to be writing for the pure enjoyment of it, and that translated into enjoyment of the novel for me. Ok, there were a couple of phrases that weren't quite perfect, the structure could have been better and the characters and plot aren't as brilliant as Peake's Gormenghast - but Mieville seemed to create an entirely unique world and story by taking those elements of the traditional and blending them in his own way. And it was one of the few extremely well written novels that hasn't come out of the magic realism subgenre (which IMO sometimes seems a bit hesitant with use of imagination - as if unsure how far they're allowed to go).

PSS remains my favourite Mieville novel - it might not be as polished technically in the writing, but in terms of sheer imagination and atmosphere, its unsurpassed.

 

[j d worthington]

Well, as I said, it may just be me with the problem with descriptions on this; but, while I could get a fairly clear idea of what Lin, for instance, looked like, there were nebulous, shadowed areas. She never became quite a concrete visualization to me. Her personality, on the other hand, was very well done -- and, thinking on it, this would reflect the khepri way of seeing life in some ways, as well -- so perhaps here it was deliberate. Yag also suffered from this slightly, but not quite as much as Lin. Overall with the sapient species, I'd say he does it quite well, but particular individuals sometimes have a little less than I find helpful for getting that feeling of a character as an actual, physical presence, something with visual thickness, if you will.

As for my comments on the occasional slip in phrasing: I was speaking with my "critic's" cap on, so I'm more likely to note such things (I'm not sure I can read without that, anymore ). But, as I said, it's a very minor quibble and, I think, yes, the mark of a certain increased looseness I've seen develop over the last 30 years in proofreading and publishing (demand has something to do with that, I'm sure). And I already see a vast improvement over King Rat (which I would still recommend; flawed, but it has some magnificent stuff throughout); so I have no doubt Mieville continues to knock off the little bits and pieces that don't really work. That's part of learning the craft; a lifetime thing. I've already -- shortly after entering my thoughts here yesterday, in fact -- highly recommended the book to two people; both seem intrigued, to say the least.

As I said, it may be a while before I get to his next; I've got a backlog a mile long and three wide, but I look forward to trying them out when I get there. And again, I can't thank you folks for the recommendation enough. One final note: On Mieville as a writer as a whole: Even if I didn't like this at all, I think it would be impossible to not see here is one incredibly talented writer who deserves to be high on the list of best living in the field -- and just a darn good writer, period, in field or out.

 

[Brys]

I know what you mean about a massive backlog - I have both King Rat and the Tain by Mieville to read, and I've had the Tain for at least 6 months now, and still haven't had time to read it.

 

[j d worthington]

The Tain -- I'm familiar with the story from Looking for Jake -- is this an expanded version, a novel, or ...?

 

[Zadok]

As others have said the Scar is definately more polished then Perdido Street Station. I had initially put down PSS after about 75 pages in which it failed to hook me. I picked it back up recently and after reading the whole thing I was blown away. It's flaws are pretty obvious and have been pointed out numerous times but the genius there is undeniable.

I'm almost finished with the Scar and looking forward to reading Iron Council, despite some rather lukewarm reviews I've seen.

 

[the smiling weirwood]

I thought this book was wonderful! My onlt complaint is that he used the word "architecture" too much and that the city itself was extremely depressing. Although, this is a major element of the story, but still, I almost wanted to cry after I finished the book.

 

[Brys]

The Tain -- I'm familiar with the story from Looking for Jake -- is this an expanded version, a novel, or ...?

I don't know how long the Looking for Jake story is - the one I have is a novella of about 100 pages. I would assume the Looking for Jake story is a condensed version of that, as the novella was written first.

I'm almost finished with the Scar and looking forward to reading Iron Council, despite some rather lukewarm reviews I've seen.

Don't be put off by the bad reviews - Iron Council is still an excellent novel. It's got mediocre reviews because it isn't as brilliant as PSS or the Scar, but despite that it still managed to win the Arthur C Clarke award.

 

[GOLLUM]

I don't know how long the Looking for Jake story is - the one I have is a novella of about 100 pages. I would assume the Looking for Jake story is a condensed version of that, as the novella was written first.

Just to clarify, it's not a condensed version, it's actually the novella completing one bookend of the Looking For Jake collection. I've got the TPB edition of "Jake" and it's approx 70 pages, so if you have MMPB of Tain then 100 pages would be about right. You're correct however, in that the novella was published in 2002 ahead of this collection. Tain was a Locus Award recipient and is very good, particularly strong on atmosphere and visual imagery. The main character is not as well fleshed out as one would like and the plot in many ways plays a secondary role to Mievile's often superb prose. It also has an aspect of military fantasy, which may please you. The "mirror" creatures are inspired by literary heavyweight George Luis Borges and the Tain is an actual word relating to this concept. I shan't reveal more at the risk of spoiling it for you.

Let us know how you fare once you've read the novella...

 

[j d worthington]

Just to clarify, it's not a condensed version, it's actually the novella completing one bookend of the Looking For Jake collection. I've got the TPB edition of "Jake" and it's approx 70 pages, so if you have MMPB of Tain then 100 pages would be about right. You're correct however, in that the novella was published in 2002 ahead of this collection. Tain was a Locus Award recipient and is very good, particularly strong on atmosphere and visual imagery. The main character is not as well fleshed out as one would like and the plot in many ways plays a secondary role to Mievile's often superb prose. It also has an aspect of military fantasy, which may please you. The "mirror" creatures are inspired by literary heavyweight George Luis Borges and the Tain is an actual word relating to this concept. I shan't reveal more at the risk of spoiling it for you.

Let us know how you fare once you've read the novella...

Um, Gollum ... not to be pedantic or anything (he says, grinning) but it's Jorge Luis Borges...

 

[GOLLUM]

By George, you could be right.....