This is nothing like Perdido Street Station; the story meaners and never entirely comes together. He half explores a lot of ideas here but leans a bit too much on the mysterious side with a lot of it to actually have them come through? I don't know if the disagreements being fought out with the genre here are holding the story back because miéville hasn't finished his thoughts enough to articulate them into a persuasive narrative formulation, or whether he has finished them and is a bit too ready to move on. It is, of course, more bas lag, if the story not entirely coming together doesn't put you off.