Young British speculative fiction writer China Mieville is best known for being a candidate for this year's Hugo Award. He deserves the attention. Perdido Street Station is the kind of novel Zadie Smith would call "baggy" — nearly 700 pages of material that probes into every nook and cranny of an imagined society.

That society is New Crobuzon, a city that arose centuries ago in the shadow of the remains of a partly-excavated leviathan. Huge bones rise above the city and generate unease among those who fly near them or tamper with them. NC is a semi-realistic version of cities as we know them, including poverty amidst affluence, squalor beside beauty and corruption as a companion to order. The citizens, though, are a departure from realism. In addition to humans, they include khepris — creatures with the bodies of human females and heads of beetles, wyrmen — squat birdmen who act as couriers and vodyanoi — an aquactic people who can survive on land if they have a way to keep wet. There are even more exotic denizens available in smaller numbers.

Into this city that would shock Dr. Moreau comes one of those rare specimens — a garuda. He is an elegant, intelligent and sophisticated blend of avian and homo sapiens. The species dwells in a desert more than a thousand miles from New Crobuzon, though a relative handful have immigrated to the city. This garuda, Yagharek, is seeking one Isaac Dan der Grimnebulin. He is obsessed with regaining something he has lost. As punishment for an crime back home, his wings have been shorn. The crippled birdman walks awkwardly on feet never meant to carry anyone continually. He masks his deformity with fake wings to give the appearance of a healthy garuda.

Isaac is a renegade scientist who also has an obsession. He is interested in 'crisis energy.' He believes the heightened energy produced during crises can be harnessed and used as a source of power. Isaac, much impressed with the birdman, accepts a commission to try to return him to the sky.

Isaac's friendship with Yagharek is not his only close relationship with a Xenian — sapient nonhuman species. His girlfriend, Lin, is a khepri artist. But, their relationship is fraught with tension because the interspecies relationship is a source of shame for Isaac. Lin's own new commission, to mold a sculpture of a crime lord, becomes a significant subplot to the story.

The scientist first takes a practical approach to the connundrum of flight. He solicits specimens of flying things so he can study them. Among the panoply of life Isaac acquires is a mysterious multicolored caterpillar. Curious about what the unidentified creature will become, Isaac keeps it after he has moved on to theoretical study of flight. He learns the only substance the caterpillar will eat is a narcotic called 'dreamshit,' which induces waking dreams in humans. Eventually, the caterpillar cocoons.