Product Description
With this outrageous new novel, China Miéville has written one of the strangest, funniest, and flat-out scariest books you will read this—or any other—year. The London that comes to life in Kraken is a weird metropolis awash in secret currents of myth and magic, where criminals, police, cultists, and wizards are locked in a war to bring about—or prevent—the End of All Things.
In the Darwin Centre at London’s Natural History Museum, Billy Harrow, a cephalopod specialist, is conducting a tour whose climax is meant to be the Centre’s prize specimen of a rare Architeuthis dux—better known as the Giant Squid. But Billy’s tour takes an unexpected turn when the squid suddenly and impossibly vanishes into thin air.
As Billy soon discovers, this is the precipitating act in a struggle to the death between mysterious but powerful forces in a London whose existence he has been blissfully ignorant of until now, a city whose denizens—human and otherwise—are adept in magic and murder.
There is the Congregation of God Kraken, a sect of squid worshippers whose roots go back to the dawn of humanity—and beyond. There is the criminal mastermind known as the Tattoo, a merciless maniac inked onto the flesh of a hapless victim. There is the FSRC—the Fundamentalist and Sect-Related Crime Unit—a branch of London’s finest that fights sorcery
with sorcery. There is Wati, a spirit from ancient Egypt who leads a ragtag union of magical familiars. There are the Londonmancers, who read the future in the city’s entrails. There is Grisamentum, London’s greatest wizard, whose shadow lingers long after his death. And then there is Goss and Subby, an ageless old man and a cretinous boy who, together, constitute a terrifying—yet darkly charismatic—demonic duo.
All of them—and others—are in pursuit of Billy, who inadvertently holds the key to the missing squid, an embryonic god whose powers, properly harnessed, can destroy all that is, was, and ever shall be.
Wulfstan @ 9:10 am
A fascinating new novel by China Miéville, author of Perdido Street Station, which won the 2001 Arthur C. Clarke Award the 2001 British Fantasy Award, and was nominated for the Hugo, Nebula, World Fantasy, Locus and British Science Fiction awards. (He also wrote “King Rat”, but not the “King Rat” that is set in a WWII POW Camp. )
The publishers would like you to think that it’s similar to Neil Gaiman, and sure, two of the villains in this story are reminiscent of “the Old Firm”(but nastier, if that’s possible). But I see more Tim Powers and James Blaylock, with more than a touch of H.P. Lovecraft (or maybe it’s just all those tentacles….).
It’s technically Urban Fantasy, set in more or less modern day London. But it also has more than a little horror. And, oddly enough- it has some rather humorous bits too. Both scary and funny at times. The authors obvious love for and deep knowledge of London gives the book added depth.
Our protagonist is swept along by events and people (and things) he hadn’t any concept of in his prior life as a museum curator. He is forced out of his humdrum existence by the impossible theft of a giant squid pickled in a huge tank of formalin, a kraken that he himself had a hand in preserving.
Enlivened by some interesting and original characters, including a few new deities and religions, it’s entirely a different kettle of cuttlefish than your usual urban fantasy. It’s also not a book you want to read yourself to sleep with. (The tentacles!!!!! Eeeeeeeeeeee!)
It’s different. It’s dark. It’s scary. It’s different. It’s humorous. It’s well written. It’s worth reading. It’s… did I say different?
P. B. Sharp @ 9:33 am
China Mieville writes like nobody else. Exceedingly erudite (he has a PhD) he throws many words you’ve never heard of into this fantastic brew taking place in his London- and London to him is a huge living thing, a great breathing, crouching beast. Windows rattle and bricks speak and of course there’s plenty of swirling fog to top everything off. His writing is quirky, he uses highly inventive similes such as “Bits of rubbish shifted in gusts, crawled on the pavement like bottom feeders.” London is alive if not well.
Mieville carries you with him with great skill. You’re there. You shudder. You shiver. You laugh. He takes you into the bowels of London. He wraps you the reader in a supernatural cocoon where all the ends are tied up and you can’t escape. Where bizarre events and supernatural goings- on appear quite normal. You are plunged into a surrealistic world of strange cults, pagan apocalypses and god-like reptiles.”Kraken” is concentrated New Weird which takes a bit of time to get used to.
The action starts when Billy Harrow, the unassuming curator of mollusks in the Darwin Center is leading a group of visitors on a tour when he discovers the Center’s star attraction, an eight meter long giant squid preserved in a huge tank of formalin, has disappeared tank and all. It is unthinkable, it is impossible but there is a great gaping space where the squid used to be.
Billy embarks on a mission to solve the mystery and he is plunged into a surrealistic world of twisted and peculiar events, and crosses the path of strange cults, all fighting each other to conquer with their own particular apocalypse.
Somehow the disappearance of the giant squid has set in motion a series of horrible events, an Armageddon which will destroy the world. This is a roller coaster ride and the reader finds he is sucked into a world that is impossible yet believable. That’s part of Mieville’s genius: he makes the outré, the fantastic, the surreal quite believable. There is a holy war going on with a giant squid as a god and some are not taking the theft of their god well.
Billy has a large supporting cast, but he remains the pivotal character of the book, unassuming, modest and rather endearing. The local London police have a special division called the Fundamentalist and Sect related Crime Unit, its most illustrious member being the brash, witchy no- holds- barred Kath Collingswood “trendily unkempt.” Dane, who is a worker at the Darwin Museum, belongs to a Krakenist cult and isn’t a bit happy about the theft of the squid-god. Dane and Billy join ranks with Wati, a member of the spirit world who insinuates himself into strange objects, statues, stares through “wooden eyes on a Jesus” He sometimes inhabits nerdy objects, too, such as Star Trek’s Captain Kirk.(Mieville is gently pulling our leg here). Crime lord Tattoo with his terrifying undead henchmen, Goss and Subby is Billy’s chief antagonist.
Will the snarled, convoluted groups of squid worshipers get their giant mollusk back safely in the Darwin Center? Can Armageddon be held at bay? Ah, you have to read the book and you’re in for a different, very different reading experience. The novel is 500 pages long but you’ll be swept into that cocoon where Mieville imprisons you and he’s not going to let you go! You may never have given a thought before to a giant squid, but you will now!
John Bonavia @ 11:34 am
Wow. A coruscating web of fantasies, mostly scary and sinister. All set in a London where ancient gods of a thousand sects are melded into the very fabric of the city, the stones, the shapes of arches, the patterns of light and dark. We have soothsayers, necromancers, experts in “folding” – the art of impossibly reducing the physical space occupied by an object, yet so that the object can “unfold” into our three dimensions again…we have things that could be called “elementals” except that they are not quite like the familiar djinns or nature forces: “the sea” makes an entry but not in any way one might expect: in fact, the whole series of events and characters seems really based on new ways to defy expectations. There is certainly an amazing imagination at work here: from a hundred examples, how about Wati, the disembodied entity who can only inhabit and speak through physical objects – statuettes, dolls, gargoyles – but who has the power to transport from one to the other instantly, so is an invaluable observer of any scene where some objective host is available.
I gather that this magical and disturbing atmosphere is already somewhat familiar to readers of Miéville’s other works – I realize that it resonates with the work of other writers in the genre, if indeed something so bizarre can be named a genre. Certainly there are overtones of H.P. Lovecraft, and indeed the word “cthulhu” appears. But the span of reference is huge…Michael Moorcock to “Dixon of Dock Green” – OMG, that’s ancient Brit TV history!
The trick in this mode of work is, I think, not to go so far in random jumps and additions of weirdness as to lose the reader’s attention. There’s a need for an indwelling kind of metalogical consistency and a continuing relationship of the beyond-reality threads. That’s where Miéville is very good, though at time he comes perilously close to losing his way, especially towards the end, where new aspects of the kraken’s meaning come crowding in, almost too fast. Also, the vast population of motley crews – Londonmancers! Chaos Nazis! Gunfarmers! Angels of Memory! with their ever-shifting roles, can overswarm a reader’s ability to keep track of what the hell is going on….not always a question with an answer, I sometimes found.
There will be some issues with Britspeak for U.S. readers but they are minor in the context of the huge, sprawling opus. I give 4 stars because sometimes I think the sprawl has oversprawled itself.
Harkius @ 2:14 pm
Overview:
This book has generated a surprising amount of complaints. Even in the groups of people who enjoyed it and gave it a high rating complained about the amount of information that they perceived as necessary, the oddity of the characters, and the plot, etc.
In short, I think that they all missed a point somewhere. Yeah, the idea of a baby giant squid being used to fuel an apocalypse is downright weird. Moreover it, admittedly, doesn’t make a whole lot of sense. So, why is the squid so powerful? Because the people THINK that it will. This concept of self-fulfilling power is essential theme of the book, and it creates a lot of interesting moments.
A. Plot
The plot here is a whirlwind. Many others have covered it already, so I will do so very briefly.
In essence, Billy Harrow, a museum curator, stumbles into a room where a giant squid has disappeared. Before he knows what is going on (especially since he doesn’t figure out what is going on until the very end of the book), he ends up in the middle of a police investigation by the Cult Squad, then kidnapped by the Congregation of God Kraken. Yep, you guessed it. Squid worshippers. They are worried that the squid will be used to trigger an apocalypse that will wipe London out forever.
This is where the book goes from “Huh”, to “What just happened?” So long as you can retain your grip on the plot, and you aren’t too demanding about knowing exactly what is going on and why, at least instantly. If you are patient for long enough, it all makes sense by the end. SIn some perverted version of sense at least. In the end, it is obviously worth it, or I wouldn’t give it five stars.
B. Characters
Characters are a place where this novel really shines. So often, we are given the perspective of people who are special. For this novel, that would probably have been Dane’s perspective. But that isn’t the one that we get. Instead we get Billy Harrow.
Billy is a normal person who has just been dumped into the land of the confused. He has just been dumped into a land of bizarre religions (including the Chaos Nazi’s, the Londonmancers (who are a neutral party who attempt to guard London), the aforementioned squid worshippers, and others). There are the dangerous people who abound, including Goss and Subby, a pair of mischief makers and enforcers that are working for the criminal mastermind Tattoo, a sentient being that has been magically encased in the flesh of a poor, poor bystander, Paul.
Dane, Billy’s co-conspirator in trying to find and rescue the squid is an ex-communicant of the Congregation of God Kraken. He is an enforcer for the cult, and, as such, has military training and skills. Moreover, he has some understanding of the mystical side of London that we have been dumped into. As I said, he would normally get the nod for protagonist. However, Dr. Mieville has chosen to go another route. We get to join Billy in being confused, instead. This is a motif repeated when Marginalia, a friend of Billy’s, similarly gets dumped into situations that she doesn’t understand. (Also, I love her name.)
Goss and Subby are interesting villains, and they are the boringest ones. The others, Tattoo, the Teuthex, along with the other good guys (Baron, Vardy, Collingswood, etc.), are all interesting characters, and there’s no one here, except Byrne, who isn’t an interesting character.
C. Setting
The novel is set in contemporary London. While I am sure that it could have been any city, really, China Mieville KNOWS London. So, it was a good choice.
D. Themes
There are a number of themes here. They include the pervasive presence of the mysterious under the familiar. The power of the imagination to give power to the things that we believe. The NEED to BELIEVE. And other universal and important themes.
E. Point of View
The point of view is generally third-person omniscient. For the beginning of the book, it centers mainly on Billy Harrow’s perspective. In bits and pieces, we watch Goss and Subby, Paul, and Marginalia. It’s workman, but it works. A second-person point-of-view, from the perspectives of Billy and Marginalia would have been interesting choice as well, if only provoking more annoyance on the part of many readers.
F. Aesthetics
With a single exception, to be mentioned, the story’s aesthetic is beautiful. That one exception? The Brit speak in the beginning of the book. It DOES cut down later in the novel, but during the first hundred pages or so, where introducing the setting and the novel’s development is so critical, it was a hindrance that was just at the wrong time. Unfortunate.
Conclusion:
Many, many, many people have complained about the detail worked into this novel. Way too many, actually, since the detail is perfect. I am a person who easily gets lost and/or bored with excessive detail. And I thought that it was great.
If you have ever wondered what it would be like to read Alice in Wonderland, without the cultural milieu of already knowing what happened and all of the bizarre things that are there, then this book is for you. If you’ve ever wondered about doing origami with living things, then this book is for you. If you have ever wondered about squid cults, well…that should be obvious. Buy it, read it, enjoy it, share it. It’s a bucket of squiddly fun.
A
Harkius
Ira Laefsky @ 5:07 pm
I will preface this review in saying that my own tastes lean toward the “speculative hard science SF genre”, one that the author satirizes in this book with the statement “It is an admission both shamefaced and proud that some large proportion of scientists claim inspiration from various crude visionary blatherings they loved when young. Satellite specialists cite Arthur Clarke, biologists are drawn to the field by the neuro- and nanotech visions of entertainers.”.
With that said, I should be the last SF-fan to review the Epitome of the “New Weird”, a literary, very British and Sardonic Dark
Fantasy that pays homage to H.P. Lovecraft, and takes place in a Shadow London populated by Magical Cults, Pagan Apocalypses and
Mythical Reptiles.
My impression is one of fine literary, mature (in the sense of dark and complicated), fantasy reminiscent of Lovecraft with occasional nods to modernity (references to CCTV and Clint Eastwood) taking place in a Dark London which simultaneously references
Lovecraft and Harry Potter. I am sure that lovers of the “New Weird” will be enthralled with literary style and vivid imagination
of this author. I was also impressed with greater characterization and dialog than exists in Lovecraft and most of his imitators,
but I am winded at the length of the excursion.
–Ira Laefsky