I loved its depiction of a complete world, where elements are introduced only for the flavor. It made it feel so lively, while destructuring the usual “Chekov’s gun” expectation. Most of the side stories also tie back into the immigration/discrimination theme that runs through the book.

I would wholeheartedly recommend it.

I'll probably get around to reading it, just to see. I kind of like "weird."

I think it was a forerunner, I kept seeing it referred to as "the New Weird", and in that sense I can see that it was influential. More influential than good, I think.

But the followup, "The Scar", I thought was excellent, and was just as "New Weird" as Perdido Street Station. All round a better book, really blew my mind at the time - but seems to be rarely as mentioned because Perdido Street Station gets all the attention for being first.