Perdido Street Station (US edition cover)

Perdido Street Station is the second novel written by China Miéville, and the first set in New Crobuzon. It was nominated for the 2002 Nebula Award for Best Novel and won the Arthur C. Clarke Award in 2001. Image File history File links PerdidoStreetStation. ... Image File history File links PerdidoStreetStation. ... China Miéville China Tom Miéville (born September 6, 1972, Norwich) is a British writer of fantastic fiction. ... New Crobuzon is a fictional dystopian city-state created by China Miéville. ... The Nebula is an award given each year by the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America (SFWA), for the best science fiction/fantasy fiction published in the United States during the two previous years. ... Winners of the Nebula Award for Best Novel. ... The Arthur C. Clarke award is a British award given for the best science fiction novel first published in the United Kingdom during the previous year. ...

Synopsis

Perdido Street Station opens with the arrival of Too Too Abstract Individual Yagharek Not To Be Respected to New Crobuzon. New Crobuzon is a fictional dystopian city-state created by China Miéville. ...

Commissions

We then meet Isaac Dan der Grimnebulin, an independent scientist, and his khepri girlfriend Lin, a spit-artist. Lin is commissioned to make a statue of the crime boss Motley, who is a hideous, possibly Remade, being. Meanwhile, Yagharek (a garuda) commissions Isaac to restore his wings, which were removed for the crime of choice-theft in the second degree. In China Miévilles books Perdido Street Station and The Scar, Khepri are a species of pseudo-arthropod people, the females being intelligent humanoids having art and culture expressed through biological resin sculptures and an oral history. ... Garuda according to Ida Made Tlaga, an 19th century Balinese artist. ...

Physiognomies of flight

Isaac starts his inquiries by trying to find out about the garuda, including going to a freak show with Derkhan Blueday, a member of the Salacus Fields set that Lin hangs around with. He then obtains a large number of flying animals, including a multicoloured larvae intended for a secret and dangerous R&D program. Derkhan is a seditionist, a writer for the illegal magazine Runagate Rampant based in a Dog Fenn slaughterhouse and run by Benjamin Flex. Isaac has a failed visit to the garuda in Spatters, which prompts him to free all his animals (bar the larva) and focus on crisis energy, the core subject of his career. He discovers by accident that the larva likes dreamshit, a new drug on the market, and feeds it (as well as experiencing the drug by accident).

Metamorphoses

This section of the novel presents the physical change of the larvae that Isaac received into a monstrous creature: a slake-moth. The slake-moth feeds off of the dreams of sentient creatures, and the moths leave their victims in a permanent vegetative state devoid of thought or dreams. Also described in this part of the novel is the further metamorphosis of the characters and their interactions with one another: Yagharek changes from a detached and wingless garuda to a more social creature as he interacts with Isaac and his friends; and the cleaning construct in Isaac's lab contracts a virus that changes it from a programmed automaton into a machine capable of independent thought.

A Plague of Nightmares

A particularly interesting addition to the book, the way the author ties in natural relationships between consumer and producer into these extremely unnatural creatures. Just as a buffalo grazing on a plain leaves fertilizer behind to feed a new generation of grass which will feed the buffalo again latter, the slake moths "fertlize" their human crop with a plague of nightmares that renders the population of New Crobuzon easy prey.

Councils

The Glasshouse

Crisis

Judgement

Races in Perdido Street Station

See Races of Bas-Lag This is a list of the races of British author China Mievilles created world, Bas-Lag. ...

Books set in the same world

• The Scar
• Iron Council

(both by China Miéville) The Scar is the third novel written by China Miéville, a self-described weird fiction writer from London, England. ... Iron Council Iron Council (2004) is the fourth novel by China Miéville, set in the same universe as his previous books Perdido Street Station (2000) and The Scar (2002), although they can all be read independently of each other. ... China Tom Mi ville (born September 6, 1972) is a British writer of fantastic fiction. ...

Similar books

• The Gormenghast novels, by Mervyn Peake
• The Viriconium cycle, by M. John Harrison
• Shiva 3000, by Jan Lars Jensen

Gormenghast Castle in the BBC miniseries Gormenghast is a fictional castle of titanic proportions that features prominently in a series of fantasy works penned by Mervyn Peake. ... Mervyn Laurence Peake (July 9, 1911 – November 17, 1968) was a British modernist writer, artist, poet and illustrator. ... Viriconium is a fictional city created by M. John Harrison and also the name of the cycle of novels and stories set in and around it. ... Michael John Harrison (July 26, 1945, Warwickshire ), is a UK science fiction author, fantasy author and literary fiction author, who writes as M. John Harrison. // Biography and writing career Harrisons first story was published in 1966. ...

External links

• Perdido Street Station publication history at the Internet Speculative Fiction Database