Perdido Street Station

Perdido Street Station is a novel by the British writer China Miéville, published in 2000 by Macmillan. It is the first work set in the fictional world of Bas-Lag, followed by the independent novels The Scar and Iron Council. It blends elements of fantasy, science fiction, horror and steampunk, and it has become one of the best-known books of the so-called New Weird.

Most of the action takes place in New Crobuzon, a crowded industrial city-state that recalls the early days of the Industrial Revolution. Its economy runs on steam engines, gas lamps, airships and railways, but also on a practical magic called thaumaturgy, which is closer to engineering than to wonder. The city is home to humans and several intelligent non-human races, known collectively as xenii, among them the beetle-headed khepri, the amphibious vodyanoi and the bird-like garuda. Nominally a parliamentary state, New Crobuzon is in practice a authoritarian oligarchy. Its society is sharply stratified, racism is pervasive, and its penal system subjects convicts to "alteration", a magical and surgical transformation that turns them into a despised class known as the remade, who are exploited as labour or for public spectacle.

The plot follows Isaac Dan der Grimnebulin, a dissident scientist who seeks a way to destroy colossal winged monsters threatening the city, and who also wants to rescue his lover, the khepri artist Lin, from a crime boss. The story unfolds largely in the city's great central station, a monumental building in an almost Gaudí-like style, which functions as both a transport hub and a labyrinthine world of shops, workshops and hidden corners.

The novel received positive reviews and won several awards, including the Arthur C. Clarke Award. Critics praised the characterisation of New Crobuzon, the scale and inventiveness of the book, its convincing world-building and its engaging storytelling. Academic readers have interpreted it as a left-wing critique of postmodern capitalism, a reflection on cultural diversity, urban life and racism, and a revision of classic totalitarian dystopias in the form of an "urban dystopia".