Perdido Street Station

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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.

Contents 1 Plot summary 1.1 Commissions 1.2 Physiognomies of flight 1.3 Metamorphoses 1.4 A Plague of Nightmares 1.5 Councils 1.6 The Glasshouse 1.7 Crisis 1.8 Judgement 2 Races in Perdido Street Station 3 Books set in the same world 4 Similar books 5 External links

[edit] Plot summary

Perdido Street Station opens with the arrival of Yagharek to New Crobuzon.

[edit] 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.

[edit] 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).

[edit] 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.

[edit] 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.

[edit] Councils

[edit] The Glasshouse

Armed with various weapons, several ruthless mercenaries, and several constructs gained by the Construct Council, Isaac and his friends journey to the large Cacti collective known as The Glasshouse to kill the slake-moths and end the nightmare plague, as well as the monsters' reign of terror over the city.

[edit] Crisis

[edit] Judgement

[edit] Races in Perdido Street Station

See Races of Bas-Lag

[edit] Books set in the same world

• The Scar
• Iron Council

(both by China Miéville)

[edit] Similar books

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

[edit] External links

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

Novels of China Miéville
King Rat (1998) | Perdido Street Station (2000) | The Scar (2002)
Iron Council (2004) | Un Lun Dun (2007)
Collections
Looking for Jake (2005)
Related articles
Bas-Lag | New Crobuzon | Races of Bas-Lag | Remade