Weird fiction is no longer the domain of H.P. Lovecraft and fantasy is no longer trapped under the archetypal yoke of swords and sorcery in China Mieville’s stellar novel, Perdido Street Station.

Revolving around the city of New Crobuzon—a desert metropolis built within the towering, bleached ribs of a gargantuan, semi-interred fossil—Perdido Street Station mixes elements of steampunk, mystery, horror, and science fiction with a strong sense of leftist politics when he weaves the tale of Isaac Dan der Grimnebulin, a freelance research scientist faced with a mysterious patron and a strange task that will turn the whole city upside down. Bas-Lag, the world in which New Crobuzon resides, is incredibly rich and well developed. Some critics of the novel argue that Mieville’s world building occasionally disrupts the narrative, but this reviewer pointedly disagrees.

Mieville, a lifelong Londoner, makes both his urban outlook on life known from the first slice of dialogue all the way to the climactic rooftop finale of the book. A student of economics and Middle Eastern politics, Mieville craftily weaves in the various esoteric influences provided by his early education to create a truly original world in which his painfully realistic, urbane characters thrive. Unlike common fantasy tropes of aristocratic heroes or street urchins rising to fame and fortune, Mieville’s bohemian characters exist in a social tier all their own, somewhere in a limbo between lower middle class and bona fide working class; this status spices their dialogue with a sort of flippant joie-de-vivre normally lacking in fantasy novels of the epic set, specifically in the world of steampunk.

Mieville’s unique take on fantasy and weird fiction alone is worth more than the price of admission. For the unconvinced and uninitiated, there are more than enough verbal pyrotechnics, birdmen, hideous monsters, and scenes of extra-dimensional action to hold your interest.