Often described as weird fiction, it is set in a world where both magic and steampunk technology exist. Perdido Street Station is set in the fictional world of Bas-Lag, in the large city-state of New Crobuzon; the title refers to a railway station at the heart of the city. Miéville described the book as "basically a secondary world fantasy with Victorian era technology. So rather than being a feudal world, it's an early industrial capitalist world of a fairly grubby, police statey kind!"