Author: China Miéville

Publisher: Macmillan

Genre: Fantasy

Pages: 867

Rating: 4/5

Blurb: 

Beneath the towering bleached ribs of a dead, ancient beast lies the city of New Crobuzon, where the unsavory deal is stranger to no one–not even to Isaac, a gifted and eccentric scientist who has spent a lifetime quietly carrying out his unique research. But when a half-bird, half-human creature known as the Garuda comes to him from afar, Isaac is faced with challenges he has never before encountered. Though the Garuda’s request is scientifically daunting, Isaac is sparked by his own curiosity and an uncanny reverence for this curious stranger. Soon an eerie metamorphosis will occur that will permeate every fiber of New Crobuzon–and not even the Ambassador of Hell will challenge the malignant terror it evokes.

Here’s a book you don’t come across often.

Before I get into it, a bit of backstory: I went through this phase where I was fascinated by the -punk genres. Steampunk, cyberpunk, dieselpunk, whathaveyou. It took me a few seconds of Googling to find this novel, which I would say falls nicely into the dieselpunk fantasy genre. It’s a long book, and part of the Bas-Lag series, although you don’t need to read other novels to be able to understand this one. It can stand alone.

This book gave me whiplash with every page. The main character, Isaac, is a scientist who is dating some kind of…I guess the best way to put it is ‘insect woman’. Because the best I understood it, Lin is literally a human-sized anthropomorphic insect–of a race called the ‘khepri’. She is an artist, and they are deeply in love.

Next, there’s Yagharek, a Garuda. Those of you accustomed to South Asian mythology are familiar with this word, but in the desi context, Gardua is a great mythical bird (or bird-like man). In Perdido Street Station, the Garuda are a race of mostly desert-dwelling birdmen with an intensely fascinating set of ethics and philosophies.

The one thing that stuck out to me the most was the world-building. In fantasy, that’s always crucial, and this book has some of the best world-building I’ve ever seen. The sheer amount of detail packed into each page is awe-inspiring, not just in how it displays the writer’s attention to detail, but also in how readable it is. I never found this book boring.

I also really enjoyed all the characters, though I did think that they would have done with a little more development. That’s not to say that they’re underdeveloped or bad–quite the contrary. But personally, I respond to intimately crafted characters, and I didn’t get a sense of that here.

I took a very long time reading this novel. I started in September of last year, and I finished it in January 2019. This is because I was only reading a few pages at a time. The world-building detail I mentioned before? That did make things a bit overwhelming. This book is a bit like extra-rich chocolate cake. It’s so good, but you can only have it in increments, or you feel ill.

Would I read this again? Yes, absolutely. But…not any time soon. I finished it feeling like I’d climbed a mountain. I need a break.