Perdido Street Station

In the sprawling metropolis of New Crobuzon, a stranger arrives with an impossible demand, unleashing an alien terror that will forever change the city and the lives of its inhabitants. Winner of the August Derleth award and the Arthur C. Clarke Award, Perdido Street Station is an imaginative urban fantasy thriller, and the first of China Miéville's novels set in the world of Bas-Lag. For more than a thousand years, the parliament and its brutal militia have ruled over a vast array of workers and artists, spies, magicians, junkies and whores. Humans and mutants linger in the gloom beneath the city's chimneys, where the rivers are sluggish with unnatural effluent, and factories and foundries pound into the night. Now, inadvertently, something unthinkable has been released, and soon the city is gripped by an alien terror. The fate of millions depends on a clutch of outcasts on the run from lawmakers and crime-lords alike. As battles rage in the shadows of bizarre buildings, the urban nightscape becomes a hunting ground. A reckoning is due at the city's heart, in the vast edifice of Perdido Street Station. It is too late to escape this gothic tale of magic, technology, and the dark underbelly of a Victorian-esque world. Immerse yourself in China Miéville's masterpiece of weird fiction and steampunk fantasy.