June Book Study - Perdido Street Station

I absolutely loved this book.
And I had no problems with suspension of dis-belief. In LoTR, did anyone question what all those orcs in Mordor ate? Nope. And I don't believe Tolkein ever mentioned orc farms. Fenika, I think you are being overly picky, for the sake of being picky. Hunting is a skill. And those Garuda in New Crobuzon were second and third generation immigrants, with no skill at hunting. You might as well try to say Mexican-Americans are descended from Mayan and Aztec warriors, yet here they mow lawns and wash dishes. Why are they not used in the army as superior fighters? (this is an example used to illustrate a point, not representative of my opinion on hispanic immigrants)
Mievile's prose is lushly dark, without becoming 'purple prose'. His characters are believable and sympathetic.
I loved the way he took science and turned it on its head, keeping it somewhat familiar, yet disturbingly different. What science would be in a world filled with magic.
I absolutely loved the bohemians and artists and druggies that he dealt with.
I am tired to death of elves and heroic sword wielding warriors and wizards. Give me sculptors and rogue scientists and drug addicts any day. And politicians dealing with hell? Man, I loved that. That was hilarious.
The story was compelling, and richly told. The ending was a bit of a bummer, I admit. I dont mind sad endings, but this one struck me to the core. Characters dying, fine, I can deal with that. But what happened to Lin? Man, that sucked.
The scheme that the Handlingers came up with was a bit of a stretch for me, I must admit. And the story did drag after a while. Mielvile could have wrapped that up fifty pages earlier if he wanted to. But then, when immersed in such a richly imagined world, I dont want it to end.
If I must look for criticism(so I do more than simply gush), then I would say that the Weaver was a bit of a contrivance. Far to convenient of a plot devise, if you ask me. There was enough interesting stuff in there for two or three books, he did not need to introduce every little cool thing in his city/world in the first book.
And yes, I have read The Scar and Iron Council too, I know there is more to his world.
No, I have to say I loved this book. A lot. My copy is rather worn from re-reading, and I have reccomended it to everyone who cares to listen.

I read this book recently and have very mixed feelings about. Some parts I loved, found gripping, could not put the book down, etc. Other parts just seemed to drag on and on and on. In other words, the pacing was extremely naff. But, dammit, this book has started haunting me. Anytime I see slime, moths, or beetles I think of this book. The slakemoths were fantastic. And that ending was absolutely perfect. So damn sick of happy, happy ever afters.

I too am not done yet, so a general comment. My immediate reaction on picking it up was, over-written. That's a style preference. After about a hundred pages I stopped noticing it and just hunkered down for the story. I'm in the last hundred pages now, so I'll be able to comment shortly with more detail.

One other comment, Mieville prefers his world to be a decaying mass. I don't see the world that way, so it comes off as a bummer. I definitely see the slums, and the down and out, and the druggies, and the bad politicians, and the criminals, and the strikes, and the pollution, and all that jazz, but really even the sty blooms a flower. His world is unbalanced. The city is a great wash of corruption, but there has to be good somewhere, even if only in a child's eyes.

My thoughts.

My opinion:

http://absolutewrite.com/forums/showthread.php?t=167604

Spoiler... maybe.

OK, just finished the book. I wasn't sure throughout, but now I am certain. That's probably it for me and Mieville. His reputation is stellar. I find that I don't like his characters. Grimnublin is a bastard. Yag was wronged, though he too was wrong. And Derkhan was a coward.

The book was relatively satisfying, though not my style, through the last ten pages of the book. Introducing Yag's victim only then to yank away his redemption was a cheat. I could have given Mieville the cheat of killing three moths all at once in an overdone scheme, but I wanted to throw the book when Grimnublin was willing to turn his back without even facing Yag. I hope his boat sinks and gives Lin a way out. Maybe they'll drag Dee to safety. Let the slugs have Grimnublin.

Or maybe I'm overreacting.

Time for a new book to wash off the filth.

I received this book as a present a year or so ago and loved it. Picked it up the other day and seriously struggled to get through certain passages. I ignored the first few pages (I did the same thing the first time I read the story) and found the pacing to be excruciatingly glacial in places.

Still, the world-building was excellent. It would be fair to say that I fell in love with New Crobuzon, despite the wordy descriptions. Part of this may have been that it reminds me of my own fantasy world (though mine is not quite so soul-crushingly depressing).

I'm glad I read it, but it isn't in my annual re-read pile.

I almost forgot I had a copy of this from when it was in the Suvudu free book library last year (fall? winter? I forget when), so I've started reading. I just started Chapter 6, and...well, is it just me, or does New Crobuzon exist in a vacuum? There's no sense of it being part of a larger world. (No, Yagharek isn't enough.) I don't think the constant descriptions of decay, refuse, and outright calling the city a carcass are helping either. Or is this supposed to be a dying city -- and if so, why aren't people leaving?

Maybe I'm just overanalyzing this, but the worldbuilding isn't working for me.

Nope you made some of the same observations I did.

Hmm... Everyone seems to be coming down hard on this book. I read it a good while ago, but I don't remember it having quite the number of problems people here are describing. Every book has its issues, and the ones here include a few characters and a bit of plot, but the world-building is top-notch.

Fenika said:

We seem to pick books that folks either feel strongly about or are divided over or whatnot Is that good or bad, lol

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It's probably good. It reminds us that you can't please everyone, and also that there's someone out there who will enjoy your story no matter what kind of style you use. (To a point.) Definitely positives in my book.

In retrospect, I probably should have phrased my opinion on the book much more clearly. I think I was a little too easy on it at the time. But in my opinion, Mieville's writing is one of the things wrong with modern fantasy, and I'll likely avoid any writer in the future who cites him as an influence.

That said, I dis a lot of the books I read, even if they're enjoyable reads. I think everything deserves a nice helping of harsh criticism. But PSS is aggressively bad.

SPMiller said:

In retrospect, I probably should have phrased my opinion on the book much more clearly. I think I was a little too easy on it at the time. But in my opinion, Mieville's writing is one of the things wrong with modern fantasy, and I'll likely avoid any writer in the future who cites him as an influence.

That said, I dis a lot of the books I read, even if they're enjoyable reads. I think everything deserves a nice helping of harsh criticism. But PSS is aggressively bad.

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Hmm. Don't read any of my shit then, if it ever gets published, because I think China's work is great. Flawed (like everybody else), but still great.

I read part of this book when it first came out. Liked it just fine for the first few chapters: interesting world, interesting characters, interesting cultures. It was dark and dirty, but I can handle that sort of thing. Or so I thought.

At a certain point I started thinking some of the shocking and disgusting scenes were there just for the sake of being shocking and disgusting. Never finished the book.

LoopyLinde said:

I read part of this book when it first came out. Liked it just fine for the first few chapters: interesting world, interesting characters, interesting cultures. It was dark and dirty, but I can handle that sort of thing. Or so I thought.

At a certain point I started thinking some of the shocking and disgusting scenes were there just for the sake of being shocking and disgusting. Never finished the book.

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New Weird does draw a lot of influence from horror...

Liosse de Velishaf said:

New Weird does draw a lot of influence from horror.

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Well there's horrifying or frightening, and then there's just disgusting. Maybe I don't read enough horror or something, but it seemed to me the author was trying to gross people out the same way a kid would. To make us go ewww!

Wow, last day of the study and I finally finished the book! (That's what happens when I try to get through a monstrous 700-page book while trying to move to a new place...)

Okay, here goes...I really loved this book except for the resolution of the Lin plot. A little dark for me, and Meiville loves to reuse certain words in strange contexts (pugnacious, glutinous, lascivious, etc...), but I didn't mind. I was thoroughly entranced by how this world and its critters was completely different from anything I have ever read. Yeah, there were a few places where my eyes glazed over when he was describing the city's layouts, but that was only a minor hitch for me.

I think my favorite part of the book was how the different plot threads intersected and expanded as time went on. I'm going to try to articulate this, but not sure how well I'll succeed... Minor plot threads and Chekov's guns kept joining up with the major plots, and the conflict became this big, complicated, multi-layered thing. I felt like Meiville started by juggling three balls, then kept adding more and more until he was juggling like 10 different oddly-shaped flaming objects and I sat there on the edge of my seat, wondering how this was all going to end.

I also liked most of the characters, who were flawed and believable and (in my eyes) still sympathetic. I was just unhappy with the handling of Lin and Derkhan. I guessed that Lin was still alive, but I was irritated that, due to the nature of her plot, she was out of the picture for literally several hundred pages. Her and her relationship with Isaac was one of the things I loved about the book initially, and suddenly she's just gone. And the only female we're left with in the cast is Derkhan, who was interesting up until Ben died, and then I stopped liking her as a character. I couldn't really feel for her conflicts.

And to get Lin back for two minutes and then to have her reduced to this mentally-challenged child thing, who can't even make art anymore, just seemed an unnecessarily cruel ending for her and Isaac. I kept hoping that Isaac was going to put together a crisis engine that would help Yag fly AND somehow restore Lin. But I was really disappointed.

For the first 95% of this book, I was definitely in the "will re-read" camp. But after the ending, I'm not so sure. It's like how I feel about the Serenity movie.

I also notice that whenever I participate in the book study, I tend to fall into the "really loved it!" camp while other people come down really hard. Makes me wonder if I'm strange somehow...

I come down hard on everything.

Fenika said:

Not according to all the other folks that loved whichever book we're discussing

Good points about Lin. Derkhan didn't add too much either, imo. I hope the author doesn't have all his female leads play such dwindling roles!

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Yeah...I got my hopes up because Lin and Isaac's relationship at the beginning seemed really interesting, and I thought the two were going to be equally the main characters. I don't see a lot of that in stories, where the MC's start out in a steady relationship, so I got all excited--and then Lin disappeared

Etola said:

Yeah...I got my hopes up because Lin and Isaac's relationship at the beginning seemed really interesting, and I thought the two were going to be equally the main characters. I don't see a lot of that in stories, where the MC's start out in a steady relationship, so I got all excited--and then Lin disappeared

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If something seems too good to be true, then it porbably is.