China Mieville, I am told, is fashionable. Certainly this
book is currently enjoying five star reviews on Amazon...
which inspired me to express my difference of opinion here.
China's first book was set in London - and he himself is a Londoner. Perdido
Street station is not, strictly speaking, set in London, but the city of New
Crobuzon is almost more London-like than the real thing.
This story is to fantasy, horror and SF what heavy rock is to music. It gets
your attention, pulls no punches and keeps up the pace... but is somewhat
lacking in finesse.
The plot strands themselves are nicely interwoven, avoiding the Banks/Gibson
disease of connecting with each other only on the last page. Unfortunately,
although they interweave the way in which this is accomplished feels
careless. I almost said "contrived", but I don't think much thought went
into it. The author seems to create more and more ideas like a fountain and
is so busy creating that he doesn't have time to do anything with them
except attempt to cram them all into the book. Which still ends up at 500
pages.
Whilst the effect is patchy, the plot is at least pretty good. It kept me
interested for the duration, and I'm not a fast reader. The characters were
the most involving aspect - not that they were particularly original or
brilliant, but I did want to see what became of them. Which is a shame,
because the ending is very much more an ending than a resolution, so I never
really found out. Also, for all its horrifying themes, the book has an
upbeat and almost cartoony feel throughout, which makes the very dark ending
rather unsatisfying.
All that said, I would recommend this book to anyone who is tolerant of a
few rough edges. 500 pages of jumbled ideas can still be entertaining - and
in this case they are.
I will certainly keep an eye out for the author's future work - if his
writing calms down a little without losing its fearless experimental
qualities he could do great things.
