China Mieville, Perdido Street Station

[ChrisC]

I have this books sitting in front of me, I will read it after Dune by Frank Herbert. However, what's the gist of the story with out spoiling it. Is it SF or Fantasy? Not that I'm worried either way. From the stuff on the back of the book, my guess is some kind of cyberpunk. Is this close?

[slaven41]

I think they're calling this genre "New Weird." It's hard to decide whether it's scifi or fantasy, since it has elements of both. There's a healthy dose of the supernatural, but kind of a steampunk level of technology besides. I can tell you the plot without spoiling anything: monstrous creatures escape and terrorize city. The book isn't really about the plot, however. It's about Mieville creating a world with as much bizarre stuff as he can stuff into it. Definitely the strangest book on my shelf. I liked it.

I've read Iron Council since then, but didn't really enjoy that one as much. Maybe the concept just got old after awhile. It seemed like he was throwing in weird stuff because he needed to throw in weird stuff.

--Dave

[admin]

When I first started reading science fiction, there were acknowledged classics that everybody read: The World of Null A, the Foundation Trilogy, Heinlein's Future History, The City and the Stars. Today, because there are so many more books and writers, it is much harder for a book to earn that kind of recognition. Dune, of course, but that was a long time ago. Ender's Game also quite a few years ago.

Of modern books, I'd say Perdido Street Station is one of the half-dozen whose name keeps coming up. I haven't read it yet, but it is high on my list.

[temp]

It's about Mieville creating a world with as much bizarre stuff as he can stuff into it

...agreed. and yeah, kinda steampunk-ish. I was impressed with the writing skill.
If you like this one...the followling one, "The Scar" was also really good. I haven't read Iron Council, but I heard it wasn't as good as the first two.