[Power to the J]

I'm about 75% done with Perdido Street Station, my first Mieville novel, and am struggling to continue. It isn't the plot or world, both of which fascinate me in summation, but the writing. I think he tells too much, writes bad action, and packs a lot of loquacious and superfluous descriptions in.

Does anybody else feel the same?

And, if so, has Mieville improved on this with time, or is this pretty much how it is throughout his catalog?

Thanks.

[Stephen Palmer]

His style does "calm down" a bit in his later books, but part of the charm of the Bas-Lag books is that the baroque writing style matches the baroque imagination. Don't give up! The best - The Scar - is yet to come!

Also try his later work, which has different styles - UnLunDun and The City & The City, both fantastic.

[redhead]

Perdido Street Station was also my first Mieville novel, and I too struggled to get through it. In fact, I think it went back to the library unfinished, to be reread the next summer when I knew what to expect.

it's too bad Perdido got all the attention it did, because I feel it's Mieville's weakest work. Yes, Perdido had everything I was looking for in fantasical novel, but it had too much. I was drowning and felt overwhelmed on nearly every page.

It's worth it to finish only because then you can read Iron Council and The Scar, two of the best novels I have ever read in my entire life. King Rat and Un Lun Dun are quite good too.

[hippokrene]

I loved Perdido Street Station.

I never finished it.

[tdnewton]

I loved Perdido Street Station.

I never finished it.

I can relate to this, but my experience was with The City & The City. The writing was brilliant, but the story didn't completely grab me and I had to put it down about 50 pages in. Not a bad book by any stretch of the imagination, just not for me.

[Michigan]

Definitely a challenge to read because it seems like it's written in another language at times, or at least another dialect. I get used to it though and it doesn't bother me. Now if you didn't like the story itself, then I just don't know what to say. I loved Perdido Street Station and The Scar, amazing books, and was terribly let down by The Iron Council, which I found a struggle to read.

[Stephen Palmer]

Great to read all these posts. I reckon Mieville is the best thing to happen to SF/F for 15 years or more.

[Westsiyeed]

Great to read all these posts. I reckon Mieville is the best thing to happen to SF/F for 15 years or more.

I'd have to agree with you there. He would have to be my favourite author with Clive Barker. I read Perdido Street Station first, and was blown away - the book was so original (from what I've read), and his writing style so unique. It probably was a bit overdone - eg there were some sentences with two adverbs in a row, but I felt these were minor indiscretions that didn't upset the book as a whole.

I read The Scar next and on reflection liked it even better. I then went to the Book Depository and bought all of his books! Have now also read The City and the City (which is almost like it's by a different author it's so dissimilar to the two books mentioned already. But the idea was great and his writing made it believable), King Rat (his first book in which his style is already prevalent), and the collection of short stories, Looking for Jake (the Tain was great). Still got Un Lun Dun and Iron Council to go, and The Kraken on preorder!

[the gozzfather]

Perdido Street Station is the only Mieville novel I've read so far and I liked it but it was kind of difficult to get through. I know I would often have to put it down for a couple days before continuing to read on but it wasn't because I disliked it. I thought his action sequences were pretty well written. He could get very descriptive and detailed in describing his world but I don't remember it ever getting tedious. It was such a complex book that its difficult to read it quickly. I had the same experience with R. Scott Bakker.

[owlcroft]

If you do some digging, and find out who Mieville's models are, you come to realize that Perdido Street Station is a striking-out in the general manner and style of a certain few other authors. Its problem is that Mieville has the general idea, but not--at that point--the necessary refinement of technique to bring off what those others had mastered. It is, so to speak, a painting done entirely with palette knife rather than brushes.

It is a raw and crude work, but nonetheless one of power. (Most readers don't seem to really get the point, thinking of Isaac as the chief protagonist, when in reality it is the Garuda-man Yagharek--whose soliloquies open and close the work--whose experiences are the backbone of the tale.) But one would have hoped that Mieville would have learned, and moved on to having more control of his work (as do M. John Harrison, Mervyn Peake, Michael Moorcock, and those others who provided the ground on which New Crobuzon was erected).

Regrettably, Mieville did not mature and grow in style past PSS. He stayed in Bas-Lag for two more novels, explaining away what was best left unexplained, and producing decent work, but work that did not seem to fulfill the promise of PSS (and King Rat before it).