Kraken: A Novel

China Miéville

Jun 2010 · Sold by Del Rey

About this eBook

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.


BONUS: This edition contains an excerpt from China Miéville’s Embassytown.

Ratings and reviews

The story is a mystery. The protagonist is Billy Harrow, museum curator, who goes through a transformation due to teleporting. The Tattoo, a wiseguy magician skin animation, is an antagonist. Marge is another main character. There is a doomsday cult who thinks that the missing alien-like squid is a god. Setting is in London. Perspective is third person. The style is unique. There are seven parts for eighty-two chapters each having multiple scenes. Can also recommend previous books Perdido, Iron Council, Scar, and City.

I wanted to like this book, but in the end, I couldn't. Tho very well written, I felt it was a bit too over the top & pretentious. I had the feeling Mieville really couldn't care less if the reader "got" the world he/she was taken into. I spent a lot of the time trying to make sense of ALL the otherworldy, magical, supernatural, etc "stuff," that the story itself would get lost - I was ready for it to end many times before the end...for me, Mieville did not succeed in getting me to willing suspend my disbelief.

Mieville can be deeply weird and quite dystopian, but that doesn't stop him from making some of the most inventive and spine-tingling urban fantasy around. Goss and Subby, the Tattoo, these are characters that won't be forgotten soon, and while the plot roller coasters a little too much, it's enjoyable to the end. Coming out of one of Mieville's worlds can be a downer, simply because the strangeness of it all is so darn fascinating.

About the author

China Miéville is the author of King Rat; Perdido Street Station, winner of the Arthur C. Clarke Award and the British Fantasy Award; The Scar, winner of the Locus Award and the British Fantasy Award; Iron Council, winner of the Locus Award and the Arthur C. Clarke Award; Looking for Jake, a collection of short stories; and Un Lun Dun, his New York Times bestselling book for younger readers. He lives and works in London.