Reviews with content warning for Torture - Perdido Street Station

You better strap in, because this is a truly wild ride. While other authors get the worldbuilding out of the way early, China Miévielle just does. not. stop.

Very minor spoiler to give you an idea:

Halfway through the book, the ambassador of literal hell just casually pops up. And that's just the setup for an even wilder concept.

And I'm all for it. Coupled with a tense thriller plot and a vivid, imaginative cityscape, Perdido Street Station entrances you with its colorful imagery (ha! You'll get the joke once you've read it.) and doesn't let go until the end. If you're willing to roll with the more outlandish concepts, I highly recommend it.

Content Warnings

bennyfelds's review against another edition

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challenging dark mysterious tense slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

2.0

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rartastic's review against another edition

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challenging dark tense slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes

3.0

This review sums up my feelings pretty well: https://ucsdguardian.org/2015/04/01/fully-booked-china-mievilles-perdido-street-station/

Also a quote from someone else that he tries to give us too much breadth in the book, so he ends up twisting characters into things they wouldn’t normally do.

I got tired of how gross and dark the city was. There was some deus ex machina toward the end that I found annoying.

It felt like it was trying to be a new Ankh Morpork/Discworld. But it was way darker and worse.

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zealforneil's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging dark emotional tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.25

Miéville’s world of Bas-Lag and the city of New Crobuzon must be one of the greatest feats of fantasy invention. The world-building is so intense that you can smell the stench and feel the stifling heat of the city in the clutches of a nightmare summer. The story starts slowly and then steams ahead, the second half taking place in smaller and smaller time intervals, leaving you breathlessly pulled along. Utterly brutal and with character arcs that bear thinking about for a long time, Perdido Street Station is a must for fans of Gaiman or Pratchett who are looking for a story with a little less humour and a lot more darkness.

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foxmulders's review against another edition

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dark mysterious slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

2.25

oy vey… this came highly rated and recommended by sff audiences but this was an utter miss for me. i think i would have enjoyed this if we spent more time on the interpersonal lives of lin and isaac and yag. the slake-moth stuff felt like a 400+ page slog through a monster of the week tv show filler episode. the initial story - about forbidden love and an outsider seeking to regain flight - had promise but falls apart entirely in the end chapters. overall disappointing. the treatment of lin in particular felt pointless and unnecessary in its cruelty.

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