Perdido Street Station Review

I originally began blogging as part of an assignment, but I'm going to see if I can stick with it for a little while. So, having just finished reading China Mieville's Perdido Street Station, I figured I could post a review.

Overall, I like the book, but there are definitely some drawbacks. I'll start with the negative to go ahead and get it out of the way. First off, OMG, 710 pages is kind of a lot. I mean, sometimes, an author needs some time to fully flesh out a story, and sometimes an author could have used a better editor. Kudos to China* for keeping my attention that long, however every few chapters I would find myself skimming over swathes of useless information.

This lead to my next issue. I love science fiction as much as the next nerd, but when an author invents a new creature, place, or concept we, the audience, need an explanation or at least some context clues so that we can get an idea of what it is or means; otherwise it's a waste of time and ink. This happens a few too many times for me to overlook it. I'd love to know what some of these things are, but China just moves right along, sometimes repeating the names, but still without providing any defining information. If they aren't important enough to the plot to tell us what they are, then don't mention them at all. That's an easy way to cut down a few pages.

On the flip side, sometimes China gets a little too caught up in explaining things. After the first few encounters with the monsters much of the book is built around, the reader has a pretty clear idea of how these creatures look. After that it gets to be a little much to have to re-read descriptions of their multiple, unmatched limbs and dream-inducing wings. Having recently learned about "purple" writing in an afternoon lost in the inter-webs, I would like to use it here to describe a great deal of this book. Sometimes, a little over-the-top description can be fun. But in the future, China, let's try to tone it down.

This tendency towards more violet hues of description may have also led Mr. Mieville to lean a little heavily on his nearest thesaurus. From the book jacket I learned that China was pursuing his doctorate in Economics from the London School of Econ, or at least he was whenever it was published. Good for you! However, it becomes kind of off-putting when for the first few chapters I had to grab a dictionary every third word to look up something that would have been better put in more simple terms. It really just gave the impression that China is trying to hard to be high-brow. My apologies for not providing examples...twas a library book and I returned it earlier today.

Now, onto the good. I really enjoy most of the main characters. The most important players are pretty well described, and each is pretty easily related to due to character flaws or baggage. I have to say that my favorite is the Weaver, but I won't go beyond that so as not to give anything away.

The storytelling is pretty good. It takes China a little while (oh, about 250 pages) to really get into the swing, but once the action starts it becomes easier to get lost in the adventures of the characters. A positive is that the ending is kind of bittersweet for all involved. While feel-good endings do just that, they just aren't as plausible and can really wreck a good story. But at the same time, you certainly don't want everyone killed off. This particular ending, while somewhat anticlimactic, is believable.

Unfortunately, China brings up some really interesting points about a number of things that aren't really resolved. There are also some plot lines that sort of trail off into nothing and disappear. So, overall, on a scale of 1 to 5, with 5 being the best, I'd give this book a 3. It's not bad if you have the time, but it certainly isn't life-changing. I won't be re-reading it, but I will certainly give China another chance.

*Just for the record, I consider myself to be on a first-name basis with...well...everyone.