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Question about Perdido Street Station (minor spoiler)
(lemmy.world)
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this post was submitted on 29 Mar 2024
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I'm a fan of weird, but I'll be honest that it bugged me. On the other hand, I sat down with it knowing very little about it, but thinking it was SF. Though it has SF elements, it also has magic, so more of a fantasy novel and, for some reason, that makes the thing about the races easier to swallow. There doesn't have to be a valid explanation for fantasy, it just has to be internally consistent.
Okay, thanks for the response.
If you read The Scar it goes into how strange the setting is and how broken reality is in places. Some of the things in there may or may not explain some of the races, lime the cactus people. However, it is all kept very vague.
You should probably take it as a reaction against Tolkeinesque fantasy that draws on northern European myths. There's a wide range of influences as well as Mieville just making up oddities just for the sake of it. So, for example, Kephri is an Egyptian scarab-headed god and then everything is built around that. It doesn't have to be plausible it just has to contribute to the strangeness.
Okay, thanks.
Do you recommend The Scar?
Meiville wrote The City and The City, right? I think that's the only other one currently on my reading list.
I read all three of new crobo books and I feel like Perdido was the best, scar second, iron council I don't Even remember. It's been a while though so forgive my memory
I really enjoyed The City and The City, it was a really novel and interesting concept about how far socially constructed concepts can go.
Perdido Street Station I couldn't get into though.
I bounced off Perdido twice, then tore through The Scar then went on to read his whole back catalog. It's my favorite of the Bas Lag "trilogy".
If you want to read something slightly closer to “normal” SF by him, The Embassy is good. Although my absolute favorite is still The City and The City, which is all about social mores and to a degree, castes.
I read a lot, and it got expensive, so now I use a library app connected to three library cards I'm entitled to. I have The City and The City on hold, but it's apparently pretty popular because the app is estimating seven weeks until it's available. But I'll read it when it comes up.
Hahaha, yeah I only buy books that I know I will be rereading down the line, because otherwise the foundations of my house would crumble under the weight.
My library allows requesting new books 3 months before they come out, so I usually try and be the guy requesting it and getting the first hold on it that way…
Amusingly, it popped up yesterday as available on one of the smaller libraries, so I've started reading it. Interesting.