Perdido Street Station

I can also recommend the earlier King Rat and his short story collection Looking For Jake to continue your odyssey.

Scar is considered by several folk here to be superior to Perdido but I still like Perdido the most. Maybe because it's the first time I encountred China's marvellously drawn world.

I have City and the City but haven't read it yet.
 
Indeed but then almost everything China's done to date has been worthwhile....:)

If you like China's world then you'll probably like Jeff Vandermeer's work as well.
 
Well after attending a lecture by him and then getting the chance to chat I was even more impressed. An extremely articulate and likable person.
 
J-WO said:
Hmm, guess I'm going to have to hunt down Vandermeer's books like some literary Slake Moth.

what's a good'un to start with?
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Well you could try his first novel Veniss Underground. It's quite brilliant but also confronting, disturbing and weird with a capital W.

His most famous books are the 3 that make up his imaginary city of Ambergis:
City of Saint and Madmen
Shriek: An Afterword
Finch

If you want to read someone who stretches the boundaries every bit as far if not further than China then this is your man...:)

Cheers.

P.S. He's written several more books than this but this is a good place to start. He's also edited 2 anthologies with his wife Ann, covering Steampunk and New Weird, both worth a look.
 
J-WO said:
From what I saw on Wikipedia Veniss Underground looks like my kind of thing. But I suppose I'll have to think about Saints and Madmen now...
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City of Saints and Madmen is more a compendium of interlinked storyline, vignettes and history of Ambergis. Still highly enteraning but not a linear tale like Veniss. It may depend upon which format you prefer when trying out a new author.

In other words, for a self-enclosed story go wtih Veniss, for more an image or impression of an imagined world will follow up books go for City.

I hope that provides you with a clearer perspective of what you are choosing between.
 
Cheers, Hobbity one. By the sounds of it, probably Veniss then. Madmen seems the sort of thing that gets more of a lustre if you've come to the world through a novel prior to it. I'll simply 'get' more things that crop up that way.
 
Well seeing that that is the first novel in this somewhat loosely based trilogy, that may be difficult ... ;) but I understand what you mean. Go with Veniss then, it's certainly more your traditional novel in a structural sense.
 
Seriously enjoyable story, this. So many memorable characters, like Isaac, the Weaver (one of my favourite literary creations - a giant multi-dimensional spider who talks in endless poetry and is obsessed with scissors - what's not to like?) and the Khepri. The story is so vivid and complex, and the world of New Crobuzon is the ideal setting for it. Very much recommended, the kind of book that makes you want to go out and buy all of Mieville's others in the hope that they are as brilliant.
 
I read this in a start stop start kind of way, but once I got to the moth story line I raced through it. I think he hooked me with the prologue of Yag travelling into the city. My favourite part was hunting the slake moths to their lair in the cactaii dome :)

I too felt like I had temporarily moved to New Crobuzan

I'm taking a break before reading The Scar though
 
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