Perdido Street Station
- 710
- Pages
- about 13 h
- Reading time
- Arthur C. Clarke Award
- August Derleth Award
- NPR Top 100 Science Fiction and Fantasy Books
- Grand Prix de l'Imaginaire for Best Foreign Novel
Affiliate link: buying through it supports BookRank at no extra cost to you.
About the book
Perdido Street Station is a novel by British writer China Miéville, published in 2000 by Macmillan. It is the first in a series set in the fictional world of Bas-Lag, and is followed by the independent works The Scar and Iron Council. It is home to various intelligent races, a form of magic called "thaumaturgy," and a technological and scientific development consistent with the early capitalism of the Industrial Revolution. The novel is set in the city-state of New Crobuzon, a dystopian industrial metropolis characterized by social stratification, economic exploitation, and partial segregation. Xenophobia is rampant, and cruel corporal punishment magically transforms convicts into "remade," a despised class. The dictatorial government is in cahoots with big business and organized crime. The plot centers on the heroes' struggle against colossal winged monsters that threaten the existence of a densely populated city. The protagonist, dissident scientist Isaac Dan der Grimnebulin, seeks a way to destroy the monsters and save his lover, the artist Lin, a member of the beetle-headed khepri race, from a crime boss.
Reading order · Bas-Lag
Full order & progress →- Perdido Street StationThis book
8.08.0 / 10 - The Scar
8.18.1 / 10 - Iron Council
7.67.6 / 10
Where the score comes from
The sources average 8.0 across 608 ratings. With that many, the reader vote carries 80% of the weight and the score stays at 8.0 — the Science fiction average of 7.8 barely moves it.
| Source | Average | Ratings | Weight |
|---|---|---|---|
| Open Library | 7.9 | 24 | 4% |
| Google Books | 8.0 | 26 | 4% |
| Hardcover | 8.0 | 558 | 92% |
Reader voices
The most-liked reviews on Hardcover (credited to their authors).
“I don't know how to to describe this as anything but average. Considering how thick this book is, I would have thought something would actually happen. At best though it ended up being a mess of random ideas thrown together without much care for forming…”
“This is very hard to get into. For the first third or so of the book, I found it mind-bogglingly boring – so boring that trying to read it on the train, I would periodically decide that my own thoughts were more attention-grabbing and my…”
Frequently asked
How long is Perdido Street Station?
It has 710 pages — longer than 93% of the ranked books in Science fiction.
In this book
Themes this book shares with others — each leads to the best books on it.
If you liked this
Same shelf — Science fiction — with scores between 7.9 and 8.0, closest to this book.
