Perdido Street Station - China Mieville [325]
—Fantasy and Science Fiction
“Precise and rich prose . . . In the tradition of Wyndham, Lewis, Alasdair Gray, and Mervyn Peake, Miéville pulls off the most impressive act of narrative ‘subcreation’ in ages. . . . How ultimately true and pertinent to all that we hold dear are the people and issues and living conditions that we encounter in this skewed mirror.”
—The Washington Post Book World
“Amazing . . . It is exhilarating, sometimes very moving, occasionally shocking, always humane and thought-provoking. Its exuberant and unflagging inventiveness, as well as the strong narrative, keep up interest throughout. . . . An astonishing novel, guaranteed to . . . enthrall.”
—Times Literary Supplement (London)
“It is the best steampunk novel since Gibson and Sterling’s.”
—JOHN CLUTE
“[A] PHANTASMAGORIC MASTERPIECE . . .
THE BOOK LEFT ME BREATHLESS WITH ADMIRATION.”
—BRIAN STABLEFORD
“New Crobuzon combines equal parts Dickens and Kafka, Dick and Cronenberg to generate 700-odd pages of moving freak show, united into a single urban organism through the matter-of-fact deadpan of Miéville’s assured narration. Perdido Street Station combines audacious invention with surprising detail and grace, and gives a complex amalgam of grotesque and mundane without flinching or smirking.”
—City Paper (Philadelphia)
“[This] darkly imaginative and complex story whirls along to its final resolution with the reader’s own imagination locked in tow.”
—The Anniston Star
“An astonishing fantasy tale that is a must reading . . . Creative, satirical, and witty . . . Fans of epic fantasy will reread this classy tale many times over.”
—Booksnbytes.com
“AUDACIOUSLY IMAGINED . . .
AN IMPRESSIVE AND ULTIMATELY PLEASING EPIC.”
—Publishers Weekly
“Wiggy, weird, and way cool . . . Perdido Street Station is set in a world that is a cross between Blade Runner and the London of Charles Dickens. And it’s populated with characters borrowed from mythologies from all over the world that are given China’s own unique twist. . . . Considering that Perdido Street Station is only his second book, he’s a writer to keep our eyes on.”
—WARREN JAMES
Hour 25
“The most exciting, enthralling novel I have read in a long time. It is about everything important—love, work, hope, worlds we knew were out there but needed a writer like Miéville to show them to us. His imagination is vast, his talent volcanic. Read this book. It just might be a masterpiece.”
—JONATHON CARROLL
“China Miéville’s cool style has conjured up a triumphantly macabre technoslip metropolis with a unique atmosphere of horror and fascination.”
—PETER F. HAMILTON
A Del Rey® Book
Published by The Random House Publishing Group
Copyright © 2000 by China Miéville
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. Published in the United States by The Random House Publishing Group, a division of Random House, Inc., New York, and simultaneously in Canada by Random House of Canada Limited, Toronto. Originally published in Great Britain by Macmillan Publishers Ltd., London, in 2000.
Perdido Street Station is a work of fiction. Names, places, and incidents either are a product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.
Del Rey is a registered trademark and the Del Rey colophon is a trademark of Random House, Inc.
www.delreydigital.com
e-ISBN 978-0-345-46452-1
v2.0
Table of Contents
Title Page
Dedication
Acknowledgments
Epigraph
Map
Part 1
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Part 2
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Part 3
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Part 4
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Part 5
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter