Oh, and the long dialogue with the killer at the end seemed a bit Scooby-doo to me – kind of like the way a D’Onofrio Criminal Intent episode wraps up. It reminded me of The Dark Knight where Joker is hanging upside down lecturing Batman, belaboring the major point of the movie which was already obvious to anyone who wasn’t comatose, while batman just waits around & listens. If you were paying attention to the book, I don’t think the long exposition of what happened was necessary, even if you did like the ending.

So I’ve just finished reading this book. With a few reservations, I really enjoyed it, mostly for the reasons you stated. The premise is really interesting, the characters aren’t flat, it reads easily, and the writing is just fine. I really can’t emphasize enough how much I liked the premise, the setting was excellent (though I wish he gave me more of a picture of the cities). Also, I was really pleased the author didn’t try to wrap everything up neatly – for example, an explanation of the split or convergence of the cities, where breach organization came from, and more – would’ve been contrived, unnecessary, and disappointing. Kudos to him for avoiding these pitfalls.

I have a few caveats. The writing was good, but not great. The characters weren’t flat, but they were remarkably undeveloped – their personalities were OK but I didn’t know anything about them as people. But that’s no big deal, it read just fine. My big complaint was that I thought the ending – who killed the woman and why, who was behind it and why, and what happened to our protagonist – was disappointing. I’m trying to be generic about it so as not to give spoilers, but I thought it was just really unconvincing, no one’s motivations made sense from a broader perspective, it was all very hurried and too neat.

I’m glad I read it, it was a nice diversion from finals stuff. And I did enjoy it, especially the first 4/5ths. Thanks for the suggestion!

@ IceBrain:
Didn’t see it, but it seems unfinished.

@ Liudvikas:
In the blog’s homepage there’s a link in the “My Pages” list to Luke’s Reader² profile.

He is a great, great world builder. Excuse me for using a cliche, but the settings are really the main characters in his books. I concur with copperfish about Perdido Street Station, and will also add The Scar. Great books, both.

@ Alphast:Agreed. Perhaps they should do this. then they can have the places they claim are theirs and still work just fine. but im sure out of lack of control they seem to display, they would just end up killing each other again anyway. whatever. Its not my problem.

Luke, could I sell you an idea of registering to goodreads.com to waste your time to rate books, for the benefit of me being able to watch your literature list of the books you don’t review here. :)

Great book. It gets a bit bogged down halfway through (I thought so anyway) but is well worth sticking with. I’ve read everything else Mieville has written (except for Kraken which is in my reading list). He’s a fantastic author. Perdido Street Station really does deserve the praise it gets.

I am sold… ;)
But seriously, how not to think about the absurdity of the Middle-East conflicts, or the craziness of some of the European ones (Balkans, Cold War and so on) not so long ago…