Review, IB Favorites Edition: Perdido Street Station by China Miéville

Book: Perdido Street Station 

Author: China Miéville

First Published: 2000 by Macmillan, 710 pages

First Line(s): “A window burst open high above the market. A basket flew from it and arced toward the oblivious crowd. It spasmed in mid-air, then spun and continued earthwards at a slower, uneven pace.”

Genre: Steampunk/fantasy

Bookslut who hearts this book: Rob

Rob’s review, as told through interpretive interview:

Interviewer: What is the scariest book you’ve ever read?

rob: Perdido Street Station.

I: Um…what?

rob: Perdido…Street…Station.

I: But…I don’t recall Stephen King writing a book with that title.

rob: That’s because King didn’t write it, you cretin.

I: Heh…may I ask who did?

rob: China Mieville.

I: Um…who?

rob: Chi-na Mie-ville.

I: (laughs nervously) Heh…that’s his real name?

rob: Let me guess, the ‘I’ there stands for ‘Idiot’, your real name, right?

I: Heh…you’re funny.

rob: No, I’m a bitch. In any case, you asked what the scariest book I ever read was and I told you – Perdido Street Station by China Mieville.

I: He must be a new to the Horror genre, then? Since I know everyone in that genre.

rob: I bet you do. No, he doesn’t write Horror. If you’re one of those who must put all things in their corresponding cubbyholes, he is generally referred to as a writer of what’s called ‘Steampunk’.

I: Oh! I’ve heard of that!

rob: Congrats. One is truly impressed.

I: (big grin) Are you really?

rob: No.

I: Oh.

rob: Next question?

I: What? (looks around vaguely)  Oh! Next question, yes. Um…so, China Mieville, eh? Can you tell us something about him?

rob: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/China_Mieville

I: (pouts) That’s cheating.

rob: Is it? I think of it more along the lines of not wanting to waste time.

I: (sighs) You’re giving me a headache.

rob: Tsk.

I: Can you maybe…please…tell us about the book?

rob: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perdido_Street_Station

I: (bashes head on the table several times)

rob: (slips a pillow under Mr Idiot’s poor head) There, there…

I:  Can you at least tell us why it’s scary?

rob: (gives Mr Idiot a look of pity) Heard of ‘spoilers’, have you?

I: Oh…(pleads)…can’t you tell us anything?

rob: (sighs) Well, if I must…

Ever pick up a book that answers every sort of wish-fullfilment you’ve ever wanted as a reader? If you have, you know what I’m talking about; if you haven’t, well then, Perdido Street Station is where you are likely to find it. Exciting, terrifiying, baffling, funny, and unbearably moving, PSS serves it all, and then some. Mieville is a virtuoso of writers. Keep your dictionary handy, as you’ll find words you’ve never heard of before. He’s a master of prose narrative, a story-teller of such imaginative power that finishing PSS is like waking up from a days’ long coma of disturbing dreams.  Be prepared to be sucked into its brilliant and grim poetry. And oh yes–make sure you have a clear schedule when you start it, ’cause it will suck you in, you will not pay any attention to anyone or anything; you will neglect your spouse, forget your kids’ names, and starve your little pets until you are finally done. New Crobuzon will be your new home. The weird and the wonderful will be your new neighbors. You will never look at spiders the same way again. Or sewing. Or toe shoes. Or swirling colors. Or cacti. Or spit.

Mind-bending, extraordinary, disgusting, painful, glorious, filthy, and fascinating, it’s an adventure you never want to end.

Go read the damn thing now.

There. How’s that?

I: (pouts) It’s still not Horror.

rob: Horror tends to make me laugh. Heard of Bentley Little, have you?

I: (grins and bounces in his chair in excitement) Oh, yeah!

rob: I find him hilarious.

I: (sighs) Why does that not surprise me?

rob: Heh…one learns so much during these interview thingies, doesn’t one?

I: I learned they make my head hurt.

rob: I can’t imagine why.

Triple-Decker Review, pt. 2: 11/22/63 by Stephen King

This is the third review of our triple-review of 11/22/63, the first parts of which were posted here yesterday.

 Book: 11/22/63

Author: Stephen King

Published: November 8, 2011 by Scribner; 849 pages

First Line: ”I have never been what you’d call a crying man.”

Genre: Science fiction/alternate history

Rob’s rating: 2.5-3/5 magic Mannlicher-Carcano bullets

Rob’s review:

con•spir•a•cy [kuhn-spir-uh-see]
noun, plural -cies.
4. Law – an agreement by two or more persons to commit a crime, fraud, or other wrongful act.

Well, it’s nice to know that some things never change…

I haven’t read Stephen King in, um…(counts on her fingers)…23 years. IT is the reason for that. I, by some miracle of fortitude, managed to get through three-quarters of that damn book before I came to my senses and realized that I did not care one miserable iota what happened to these characters – in fact, I hoped the spider-clown thingy massacred them all and good fucking riddance to them. So I flung my copy out my bedroom window, where all books I hate and consider unreadable go to their ignoble death, and since it was winter I had the unspeakable joy of watching it rain and sleet and snow all over it so that by spring it was little more than the pulpy, disintegrating mess it deserved to be.

I cackled when I finally picked it up and chucked it into the garbage. (smiles beatifically at this very pleasant memory…)

(coughs) Anyway, that is why I have not read King in twenty-odd years, but 11/22/63 could not be ignored as easily as the rest of his work has been since IT was destroyed. Anything JFK and RFK has always been a pull for me, and I was curious about King’s take on it all.

Question One: Was it a good book?

In its way…page-turning, certainly. But he usually is, as far as my memory reminds me.

Is he still in possession of his many irritating writerly habits?

Oh, God…yes. He’s still aggravatingly windy, still repetitious in a way that I always found insulting; phrases that he repeats and repeats and repeats, over and over and over until you want to hunt him down and beat him to death with his own hardback – which is entirely possible with this damn brick of a book. Go ahead, drop it on your socked foot. I double dog dare you.

Yes, I get what he’s doing. I get that it’s a narrative device, one he thinks is pretty fucking nifty, and in the right hands can be useful keeping the theme front and center in the reader’s mind, blah blah…it doesn’t make it any less annoying, repetitive, or insulting – to me, a writer uses it only when he expects his readership to be made up entirely of cretins.

‘Life turns on a dime.’
‘The past harmonizes.’
‘The past is obdurate.’

Get used to them now.

Next question: Did I find King’s take on time-travel plausable?

Eh, well…are any of them? Standing stones, complicated contraptions, rips in the air, flying DeLoreans…none of them are, really, but some fit more smoothly than others. Was King’s scenario smooth? heh, well…possibly more so than the flying DeLorean, but it was clever enough, as these things go, so points for that.

Next: And the story?

Ach…it wasn’t bad, all in all. However, I could have done without his endless nattering and repetitious rhapsodizing of the 1950s…yeah, yeah, they were swell, peachy-keen, yowsa…can we now move the fuck on, please? He bogs himself down in this shit like a plesiosaur in a LeBrea tar pit so that the story doesn’t move already. It’s maddening.

And Jake Epping? Our adventurous protag?

(sighs) He made me tired…especially from the halfway mark on. Some writers just don’t know when to shut the fuck up. Dickens had this same problem, so I suppose Stephen thinks he’s in good company.

Yeah, well…I don’t like Himself* either.

Was it well plotted, well-thought out, blah blah?

Huh…I suppose it was, (sneers) the past harmonizes, after all. Or so we’re told endlessly.

What about King’s research?

Hard to say, since he doesn’t include a bibliography, which is rather bad form for any book using history as its framework. But I get the impression that it’s spotty. There’s plenty on the assassination, on Oswald, on the faboo 50s – there seemed to be far less though on JFK himself, on RFK, on Jack’s presidency. You want to study the man’s death, you have to study his life and his work, because therein lies the answers. otherwise you’re getting only half the picture which makes one more susceptible to the likes of Gerald Posner.

So, did I buy King’s version of 11/22/63?

Not. I’m a ‘contrarian’ like his wife. Though since far more people believe something other, that would make King himself the ‘contrarian’, not his wife..

Oh, and Posner’s book?

Discredited long since by those who know what they’re talking about. But King is the new kid on the block on this subject, so you can almost forgive him. Almost. But using Posner’s book as a template for your opinion that was obviously already decided on the subject is just sloppy research with a good dose of wishful thinking. Was he using Posner’s book purely for fictional reasons? No, he makes that quite clear in his afterward. He buys what Posner was selling.

What about Occam’s Razor?

(snorts) Please…William of Occam always seems to be trotted out when the other side doesn’t have a plausible argument of their own to render for public consumption. ‘All things being equal’. Sure. ‘The simplest answer is usually the right one.’ You bet. Simple is nice, and convenient, especially for the novelist writing a big book on a complicated subject. But ‘all things’ are never equal, and there is nothing simple whatsoever about that damn magic-bullet theory – if it was, Posner would not have needed 640 pages to explain it.

Was the damned thing entertaining, at least?

Sure. King usually is. But if you’re a student of JFK’s assassination, wait for the paperback because there’s nothing new here. But if you’re just a King fan I doubt you’ll be too disappointed. (Eyes her blog partner’s review above) or maybe you will.

For myself, will I read more King? Possibly backtrack and read all the stuff I’ve missed in the last twenty-odd years?

Um…no. I think not. Why? Because some things do not change. And here I was all worried, but not very, that I might have been missing out. Thanks for setting my mind at rest on that, Stephen.

One more question. Do I believe there was a conspiracy, myself?

Well, let’s just say that I don’t believe Oswald was there all by his psychotic lonesome – or that the bullet from his rifle was the money shot. Posner, and many others who believe in the one man, one rifle, one bullet business, tend to ignore some wery simple impossibilities, and some equally simple physics. As well as their own eyes.

Occam’s Razor, indeed.

*my affectionate title for Charles Dickens.