Title: Perdido Street Station
Author: China Miéville
Date of First Publication: 2000
Place of Publication: Macmillan
Type: Novel
Characters: No Character
Themes: ANDROID; MAD SCIENTIST/MONSTERS; RACE/POLITICS; RETRO SF
Critical Summary: China Miéville’s Perdido Street Station is set in the steampunk/fantasy inspired industrial metropolis of New Crobuzon, where humans and various humanoid races (xenians) grudgingly live alongside each other between luxury and extreme squalor. The Novel follows the character of Isaac Dan der Grimnebuline, a scientist who is shunned by his colleagues for his scientific theories and research in crisis energy. Isaac finds the perfect opportunity to further his research when a garuda (a bird-like humanoid) named Yagharek employs the scientist with the task of restoring his ability to fly. Isaac accepts the commission with fervor and sends word through New Crobuzon’s criminal underbelly that he is in need of winged, or soon to be winged, creatures for his new line of study into flight mechanics. Isaac becomes frustrated with this new line of research when it becomes apparent that he has no applicable skills in the science of the “Remade” or “flesh-sculpting”, a kind of reconstructive surgical process that often intermixes mechanical and organic parts often as a use for punishment. Deciding to scrap this avenue of research in favor of incorporating the more familiar crisis energy, Isaac throws out all his previous test subjects with the exception of a peculiar caterpillar that was smuggled to him through dubious means. Through a series of events, Isaac discovers that the caterpillar in his care can only eat a kind of psychoactive drug that had newly made its way onto the streets of New Crobuzon. With a steady diet of this new drug the mysterious caterpillar flourishes and pupates, eventually metamorphosing into a predatory moth creature that escapes captivity and, alongside four others of its kind, begins to attack and consume the minds of the sentient beings of the city. Having inadvertently caused the whole sordid chain of events, Isaac takes it upon himself to find a way to combat the moth scourge in an effort to protect his friends and loved ones.
During this time, both the governmental bodies and criminal syndicates of New Crobuzon are in turmoil over the freed moths, which had been the source of the psychoactive drugs being pushed around the city. Because of this, government agents, crime lords, and the moths pursue Isaac and his friends, ultimately resulting in the abduction of his lover, Lin. Isaac gains an ally in his battle against the moths in the form of a massive automaton known as the Construct Council who shares a hive mind with various other robotic constructs within the city. The Construct Council is one of the only sentient beings in the city who cannot fall prey to the hunger of the moths. However welcome this help might be, Isaac suspects that the Construct Councils ulterior motive for offering aid is ultimately to gain control of Isaac’s greatest creation and deadliest weapon, the crisis engine; a machine that, with the right mathematical formulas fed into it, can do anything. After the loss of many more of his friends to their many pursuers, Isaac is forced to use the Construct Council’s help to take down the moths. Isaac uses the crisis engine to mentally link the Construct Council with a fantastical being known as The Weaver through the conduit of a human host, thereby destroying the moths in their attempt to feed. One moth manages to survive the assault, and with the crisis engine rendered inoperable after the onslaught, Isaac and his companions must track the last moth down and destroy it by hand. In the process of killing the last beast, Isaac’s lover, Lin, is attacked by the moth, which drains half her mind before Isaac is able to intervene. With the last moth dead, Isaac is faced with all the destruction he had caused. His guilt for betraying the trust of his friends and his breaking his oath to help Yagharek compel him to flee New Crobuzon.
China Miéville’s Perdido Street Station incorporates several themes in connection to Frankenstein. The main character, Isaac embodies the archetype of the Mad Scientists who, in his pursuit of knowledge, disregards the safety of himself and others to further his own ends. In this case, while the story does not conclude in his own death, the monsters systematically destroy everything Isaac loves, including the very fruits of his life-long research, the crisis engine. It is made apparent by characters throughout the novel that Isaac’s direct actions are the catalyst for the terror caused by the moths. This is reminiscent of how in Frankenstein the Creature reminds Victor that all his suffering, and the suffering of his loved ones, is the direct result of his own actions. A parallel to Frankenstein used heavily in the novel is the Android, or more specifically, the man-made being with sentience, intelligence, and a will of its own. This is best exemplified by the Construct Council and The Weaver. The Construct Council and The Weaver are results of unregulated scientific pursuits that caused them to come into being. But rather than become destructive like the moths, these artificial beings have decided to instead subtly reap the benefits of humanities unfettered quest for scientific innovation and greater knowledge. Inversely, the Remade are the disenfranchised victims of that same scientific innovation. Like the creature in Frankenstein, the Remade are individuals who have had their bodies grotesquely assembled, often with the addition of extra limbs or added features. This procedure is preformed by those in positions of power often for the purpose of punishing criminals or sadistically experimenting on the poor and powerless that society takes no notice of. The xenian citizens are also othered in the predominately human run city. As in Frankenstein, prejudice manifests most often when non-human races are treated as alien and savage because of their nature and appearance rather then their intelligence and demeanor, resulting in resentment between all parties that not even a common enemy can defuse.
Administrative Notes: Lee Koehler, CSUF; Kyle Kalmanson (editing)