The one major fact that you’ll glean from Perdido Street Station isn’t that the
world is a horrible place or that the rich control the government. What will
become very clear to is that China Mieville is a VERY intelligent person; this
is assuming that you didn’t know that he graduated from Cambridge and has his
Masters and PhD from The London School of Economics.
Sadly, in Perdido Street Station, his intelligence hinders
him, possible for the first time in his life.

Perdido takes place in a steampunk alien world, in a city
reminiscent of Victorian London; it is extremely crowded, filthy, and filled
with seedy characters. It sounds like a great backdrop to some amazing stories.

The city itself is a character in this novel; sadly, it just
isn’t that interesting of a character. Mieville spends a considerable amount of
time describing the city and how it functions; after a few pages of this info
dump my mind was already wandering.

The actual plot is interesting; a jovial physicist takes on
a seemingly impossible task from a stranger from out of town; he must create
for him functioning wings to replace the ones that he lost. He works diligently
on this project until a disaster strikes the city; a menace is overtaking the
city at night and is turning people into vegetables.  This particular menace (which I won’t reveal here) is well
thought out, but more importantly terrifying.

Sadly, this menace is close to the only thing that inspires
any emotional response from the reader. Because Mieville is so intent on
getting his ideas across, the characters don’t get the time and attention that
they deserve; and because we don’t spend much time with them, in the end, we
don’t really care much about them. When bad things befall them, we sympathize
with them but only to the extent that we would with total strangers.

If you’re looking for an intellectual exercise, this book is
fantastic, but if you’re looking for something closer to a story with great
characters you might want to pass on this China Mieville novel.