Reddit mentions of Perdido Street Station

Perdido Street Station by China Mieville, if you like genre fiction.

http://www.amazon.com/Perdido-Street-Station-China-Mieville/dp/0345459407/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1396255614&sr=1-1&keywords=perdido+street+station

A clone of the city makes up the bulk of the setting of The Carlucci Novels by Richard Paul Russo.

Perdido Street Station by China Mieville is heavily influenced by KWC, but the city in the book (New Crobuzon) isn't an exact copy of the city like in the other novel, just built similarly.

First off, I got what looks to be some great books from my match. I got Perdido Street Station, Hyperion, The Sparrow, The Little Country, and American Gods. I have never read nor heard of these titles, but I'm excited to start reading them.

Now for the best part. My match sent me an original manuscript for a novel they wrote. How awesome is that? They also included a short story (a side story to the novel) that includes me as a character. I can honestly say that this is one of the best things I've ever received! I think I'll start with the novel first.

http://imgur.com/xVFbm

*update: Thanks for all of the encouraging posts! It seems that I really struck gold on this exchange. I sent a little reddit gold love to my SS for the wonderful gift. It's such a great collection that I feel like the books I sent to my match are woefully inadequate.

<with a french waiters accent>

For madam,

I would propose either china miéville "Perdido..." or Robert Charles Wilson "spin". Both weave interesting believable characters within a good sf plot.

But If you want a page turner, I would say Eliantris or Warbreaker both by brandon sanderson. They're fantasy and really hard to put down.

In the end, I would propose "To say nothing of the dog" by connie Willis. Very clever and funny with a time travel theme.

</with a french waiters accent>

( Damn, I really liked to be a bookseller...)

I'd recommend Perdido Street Station. Not pure, but has some very steampunky stuff and more importantly is a great book!

Perdido Street Station features a scientist in a bizarre and dark cyber-punk universe. http://www.amazon.com/Perdido-Street-Station-China-Mieville/dp/0345459407

I'm so happy my books came in the mail.

Read any of China Miéville's Bas-Lag books - Perdido Street Station being an excellent place to start. Dark, strange urban fantasy in a world of his own design.

Also, if you like fantasy that's based in the real world, more or less, you might like Tim Powers's works; he writes what he refers to as "secret histories", which basically look at some event in recent (e.g. 20th-century) history where the historical record doesn't quite add up, and then he goes "How could I weave this all together by claiming there was magic going on behind the scenes?". Last Call and Declare are probably my favorites of his (although Last Call does use a certain amount of European mythology, it doesn't do so in the same way most fantasy, being set in pseudo-medieval-Europe, does; Declare uses Middle Eastern mythology instead).

If you don't mind things set in our geography but with fantasy worlds added on there's:

The City and The City by China Mieville. I really didn't like it but lots of people do.

Not to give much away but towards your fantasy point [spoiler](/s"The story is set in a city that overlaps with another. There aren't other races etc though.")

Alternatively his Perdido Street Station has those of other species in something like our modern times.

Also I'm surprised to have not seen American Gods in here.

I liked The Scar by China Mieville. It is the second book in a series; you do not need to read the first book to enjoy this one! If you are looking to start from the beginning, Perdido Street Station is the first book.

It blurs the line between genres, but I'd highly suggest Perdido Street Station by China Miéville.

Since you liked Left Hand of Darkness, check out LeGuin's A Wizard of Earthsea, and if you like it, the subsequent sequels.

I've had mixed success in dealing with Amazon recommendations. My interest in Perdido Street Station led me to The Etched City, but my interest in the Israeli author Aharon Appelfeld's Laish led me to a Krupp's coffee maker. The Etched City is an excellent book, but I never figured the coffee maker thing out.

By the way, I think you'd really like those first two.

Perdido Street Station

Top 5 off those shelves would be:
The Yiddish Policemen's Union - Alt History detective novel by a Pulitzer winner
http://www.amazon.com/Yiddish-Policemens-Union-Novel-P-S/dp/0007149832
The Atrocity Archives - Lovecraftian spy thriller and IT hell
http://www.amazon.com/Atrocity-Archives-Laundry-Files-Novel/dp/0441016685/
Books of Blood - A compilation of Clive Barker's nasty little 80s horror anthologies
http://www.amazon.com/Books-Blood-Vols-Clive-Barker/dp/0425165582/
Perdido Street Station - Steampunky fantasy with excellent worldbuilding that's apparently a good example of the New Weird, whatever that is and however it differes from the Old Weird
http://www.amazon.com/Perdido-Street-Station-China-Mieville/dp/0345459407
American Gods - Gaiman's mythology based urban fantasy; a modern classic
http://www.amazon.com/American-Gods-Neil-Gaiman/dp/0380789035

As for the Weird Tales collection, it's Weird Tales: 32 Unearthed Terrors. It sets out to present the best tale from each year of the magazine's original run. Published in 1988 and edited by Stefan R. Dziemianowicz (as if the eldritch gods didn't inject enough unpronounceable names into the mix) you've got everyone from Isaac Asimov to Seabury Quinn to good ol' HPL himself with "The Case of Charles Dexter Ward"
http://www.amazon.com/Weird-Tales-32-Unearthed-Terrors/dp/0517661233
Not quite the $1 deal I got from the library sale, but not as outrageous as some of the out of print prices on Amazon.

Look into China Mieville. Specifically Perdido Street Station.

China Mieville always writes out there science fiction. Try Perdido Street Station and The Scar.

Neil Gaiman's Neverwhere is a great urban fantasy story that takes place in the unseen world below London and includes some magic, adventure and a great mystery.


If you haven't read the Chronicles of Narnia try those. After you get past the Christian allegories in the first book the series is enjoyable. If you have read them check out His Dark Materials. Another great book that has been called the atheists' response to Narnia.

China Mieville's Perdido Street Station would be a good one too. Definitely darker than the fantasy in Harry Potter but well written and a great story.

The Hunger Games trilogy has been mentioned a few times and is enjoyable. It is more Science Fiction than fantasy but is a great dystopian story. Written for YAs, like Harry Potter, but enjoyable for just about anyone.They're making a Hunger Games movie now so you'll be able to say you read it back before it was cool.


Edit: Forgot to mention The Dark Tower Series. A great series by Steven King that combines fantasy, western, science fiction and some horror. That sounds like a hodgepodge but the series manages to walk the line so well you end up staying awake until 2am reading to find out what happens next.

Perdido Street Station is realtively new and quite interesting.

cracks knuckles I have no idea if these have audiobooks. I'm sorry if they don't. Most of these are only three books long or shorter, sorry.

Sandman Slim and the sequel. It wasn't my favorite book, BUT it sounds a lot like what you're looking for. And it was fun.

China Mieville's Bas-Lag series (Perdido Street Station, The Scar and Iron Council. Three (~500 pg) books long, fantastic world building, twisty plots and great characters.

The Baroque Cycle, Neal Stephenson (Quicksilver, The Confusion and The Confusion of the World. Three books long, but you could kill a small animal by dropping one of those books on it. These are good, but his stand-alones are better (Snow Crash and Diamond Age for sure).

Most of Stephen King's stuff has the kind of sprawl you're looking for.

Dune, at least until God Emperor (#4).

Honestly, I think if you liked John Grisham, you'll like The Girl with the
Dragon Tattoo books. I think I'm making that leap based on the last book in the trilogy. They're definitely entertaining.

A bug/human theme?

Well, the obvious answer is Perdido Street Station. One of the main characters, Lin, is from a species that has a human body and an insect head. That would be a costume you could quite easily create.

Some artistic interpretations of Lin can be found at this GIS: https://www.google.com.au/search?q=lin+perdido+street+station&safe=off&espv=210&es_sm=91&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ei=pZEkU9-xMIPDkwXVhYGwAQ&ved=0CAkQ_AUoAQ&biw=2328&bih=1123

Perdido Street Station.

I'm surprised no one has mentioned any of China Mieville's work. Though he has a bunch of stand alone novels, he has 3 in a world he built: Perdido Street Station, The Scar, and Iron Council. All solid, but I think The Scar is the best.

Kind of steam punkish, but completely unlike anything else I've ever read.

Ulysses is Irish. Never, ever, describe it as an American novel in the company of an Irishman.

That being said, read it. You probably won't finish it, and you almost certainly won't enjoy it. I had a whole third-year class based on that bastard, and that was not a pleasant semester. Read it anyhow; who knows, you might love it.

Your question is awfully vague, so I reckon you'll get a range of answers, but if you want a recommendation from me completely unrelated to Orson Scott Card, Faulkner, or James Joyce, go pick up Perdido Street Station.

I would like to recommend this book to you.

Perdido Street Station?

Perdido Street Station by China Mieville. The weird steampunky style of New Crobuzon would look amazing on screen. I think Guillermo Del Toro could do a fantastic job with it.

For strange things, refer to literature. There's an entire sub-genre of fantasy around this. China Mieville is an ideal source for inspiration.

Take Perdido Street Station for example. You have a race of creatures that resemble human hands that act as parasites. They attach themselves somewhere discrete on a host and take over that host. Right hands and left hands have different impacts on the host and there is a caste system.

One of the races is, essentially, Final Fantasy cactuars. Except they practice ritual scarification, can't speak, and sometimes clip their needles. There's a whole network of really strange races and creatures in this book.

Another of his novels, Railsea, features a vast post-apocalyptic wasteland of deep sands. Standard yeah? Except the sands are covered in a criss-cross of railtracks. Thousands and thousands and thousands of them. So much that trains can essentially "sail" on them going in different directions while hunting massive, whale-sized moles. The entire book has a strong Moby Dick theme going on on of some other crazy things.

Corroborating source (and a damn fine book)

You will probably enjoy William Gibson for sci-fi / cyberpunk.

Perdido Street Station by China Mieville also seems right up your alley.

Might try Perdido Street Station by China Mieville

http://www.amazon.com/Perdido-Street-Station-China-Mieville/dp/0345459407

China Mieville does this in Perdido Street Station, and it worked very well. Check out the Look Inside. The dream is the first chapter, then it transitions to 3rd person for the next one. As long as the voice is distinct, and the jump is clearly delineated (new chapter / section), I think you'll be fine.