Kraken: A Novel

Kraken is standard Miéville: totally imaginative taking place in an intriguing world with a very slow pace. Unfortunately this novel is slow even by Miéville's standards. I found it fascinating and interesting, yet it was still a slog until the last 80 pages or so when the pace picked up. The only reason I kept going was because I knew the ending would be worth it. And it was.The basic premise is not original: there's a secret magical underworld in London coexisting with the "normal" world. I've read a number of novels with that theme, several even taking place in London. Miéville takes this boilerplate idea and makes it something new with the unique cast of characters, types of magic, etc. I have no idea how he came up with this stuff.The story begins when the preserved corpse of a giant squid disappears from a museum along with the embalming fluid and cylindrical tank it resided in. The theft is puzzling, because there isn't really any stealthy way to remove such a large tank from the building, yet it happened without anyone noticing until the next morning. The exhibit's curator becomes the protagonist and is forcibly thrust into London's magical underground because 1) the squid corpse is an important magical artifact related to an upcoming apocalypse, and 2) the major players all think he knows where it is.There are kraken cults, unionized familiars on strike, an embassy for the ocean, fatal teleportation, tachyonic fire, incubating bullets, sentient tattoos, sentient ink, Londonmancers, ghostly police, and much more.A wonderful read, but I give it 4/5 stars because of the ultra-slow pace of the first several hundred pages.

It took me a long time to read Kraken, but that shouldn't be seen as negative. The story was just so dense, so filled with imaginative world building that it took a long time to digest. And while it is not a horror novel, there are horrifying parts that require time to recover from. But by the last third of the book I couldn't put it down.

For the past few years I've been hearing the name China Miéville without ever having read any of his works. This, then, was my first foray.Oh man. OH MAN. I absolutely LOVED this book!You've probably read the blurbs: The impending apocalypse is kicked off when a giant squid is abducted from the Natural History Museum in London. Except that having the world end in one way means it won't end in another; for instance, the Krakenists may find themselves exultant, but other cultists are decidedly less pleased and want to usher in their particular Armageddon instead. Yes, instead of the usual sci-fi trope of battling the apocalypse, Kraken raises the bar by pitting our heroes against dueling apocali!And this is the sort of madness that makes Kraken such a wonder to behold: Like all the best sci-fi, it takes ludicrous concepts and treats them with deadly seriousness; a particular thrill came early in the novel, with protagonist Billy Harrow on the run from seemingly everyone, when I realized that this story, utterly INSANE and patently ridiculous, was being styled - at least in part - like a horror novel. And yet the situations that occur are so wildly, unpredictably bizarre that it beggars belief! It's rare for a novel to be both terrifyingly suspenseful, and laugh-out-loud funny, yet this one surely succeeds.But terror and comic relief couldn't support a 500-page novel if the characters weren't there - and, thankfully, they are. Billy may spend more of the story than we'd like being staggeringly overwhelmed, but we can't deny that the circumstances (ludicrous piled on unbelievable piled on Doomsday) would be enough to knock anyone off their feet. The paranormal crime unit that's investigating both Billy and the squid are interesting as both protagonists of their own, and antagonist to Billy, with the foul-mouthed and spiky Agent Collingswood a particular delight; she may be the most enjoyable character of the bunch, and almost certainly steals nearly every scene in which she appears. Throw in characters like Wati, an ancient Egyptian spirit who can only manifest in carved or created figures (like statues or dolls) and is now a union leader for mystical familiars, or Simon, a teleporter who is the world's biggest Star Trek fan (and dresses accordingly, complete with working phaser), and you begin to get a sense of just how large this world is that Mr. Miéville has constructed.In the end, the novel is impressive just for how well it maintains this balancing act between the terrifying and the hilarious, the sublime and the bizarre, always going nearly almost just-about-too-far ... but never quite over the edge. Impressively, the sense of terror and being lost in a world far far weirder than one could have ever imagined is kept simmering through the length of the novel, and as events speed toward their climax the headlong rush towards doom is deeply felt. As befitting an apocalypse, not everyone will survive, and the actual resolution is something that will either impress or enrage you, depending on how much you're able to buy into the conceit. I personally found it entirely satisfying; several other readers, however, seem to have been far less forgiving of the conclusion.After reading this novel (and having begun some of his more recent works), I get the sense that China Miéville is not for everyone; I suspect that many of his plots may be weirder than some readers wish to entertain, and his writing style can be byzantine in a way that I find impressive - I LIKE an author that makes me look up words I didn't know - but which might be off-putting to those who wish to completely immerse.However, though China's writing may not be for everyone, it certainly works for me. Now I have just the rest of his already-prolific backlist to start working through...!

The positives: this book is filled with wild fantastical invention and wordplay, and once grasped in its entirety, the scope is massive and comes to a satisfying climax. The downside is that this book is almost too fantastical: every few pages another wild concept is introduced, and despite being putatively set in London, there's almost no reality in which the reader can ground oneself. For all the wild magical stuff occurring, it can be difficult to actually care about any of the characters, and the whole thing feels slightly frivolous.The first time I attempted this, I put it down after about150 pages in, realised I didn't care about anything enough to pick it up for a couple of weeks, and had to start again after forgetting everything. If you can stick with it, the payoff does ultimately reward the journey, but this is a fantasy novel that is probably too rich and overstuffed for its own good.

I first read this about six years ago; I'm not a fan of Meiville generally, and actively dislike Perdido Street and the adjacent novels, so I was pleasantly surprised when it turned out that I really enjoyed Kraken. Twice.Is it overstuffed, a little flabby, a bit masturbatorily-written? Yes.Does the Neverwhere-ish setting wear a little thin at times? Yes.Were there dozens of passages which I had to re-read four or five times, because sometimes the author's preference for affectation proves stronger than his desire to communicate clearly? Also Yes.However, overall, it's a fun read - occasionally pulpy but also often thoughtful. Also, there are some stand-out characters and scenes which are so good that I'm inclined to forgive some of the ropier stuff.Overall, 4 out of 5; some of the book is perhaps more of a 2.5 out of 5 - but just try to power through those bits.

I know he gets very mixed reviews for a lot of his work, so I've been careful to research other people's opinions on his books. I read Perdido St. Station, and I reckon it was good, but had a few downsides. Kraken, though, is something else. I found it to be a perfect balance of horror and humor. The inventiveness of some of his creations was just so off the wall that this book had me hooked all the way through. I liked most of his characters, even Collingswood, who was somewhat OTT as a policewoman/witch, and poor old Billy, the hapless "hero", was pretty good. I actually felt the horror of the Goss/Subby characters like very few other characters in other horror stories I've read. (Not a direct comparison, but similar in effect to Pennywise and the walking dude in the Stephen King books).On another note, it's easy to compare Kraken to the Ben Aaronovitch "Rivers of London" series, which I read before I found Kraken, but Kraken for me conjured up more of a gritty atmosphere, whereas the RoL series are a bit lighter, though still very good.I guess I'll still have to choose my next Mievlille carefully, but I will certainly be looking for one or more, based on this excellent story.

I really couldn't get on with this. Two thirds of the way through I decided I really couldn't stick it any longer and now it's gone, deleted, tossed into the Android equivalent of the rubbish bin.Make no mistake - this capitulation is a rare occurrence. I always finish books, particularly when I've sunk five quid into them.So, why didn't I love it like I loved The City and the City ?Three things killed it - the amount of fantasy (too much), the amount of plot (too little) and the characters (?).The fantasy is just relentless. Barely a page gets turned without some fantastical new thing being introduced in the larky, lairy, Londony prose which dominates the book. So we have mancers and adepts and squids and familiars and talking statues and hexes and time shifting and living tattoos and angels and sects and spirits and God knows what else. There are tribbles in there as well and phasers, but I really started to lose it with the introduction of some sort of spirity, agenty things reconstructed from the discarded memes of 80s cop shows (guv).Fantasy works best when it's firmly rooted in reality but in the Kraken, reality is soon nowhere to be seen. It's just gone, the story literally spiralling off into a world of its own, and with nothing to hold it in check it unfortunately gets a bit silly.As for plot, it can be boiled down to this: no one knows what the hell is going on. The principal characters wander from scene to scene bumping into the latest fantasy contrivance and saying stuff like "we must contact the squid worshippers / magic squirrels / flood brothers / dead angels / talking statue / stoned Trekkie / etc / etc so we can ask them to explain the plot". Which they then, without exception, fail to do. After two thirds of a pretty lengthy books worth of this I had to admit defeat.In the face of so much breathlessly expounded business the characters didn't really stand a chance. If I'd been desperate to find out what happened to them (Billy, Dane, the cops and the rest) I would have ploughed on despite everything else, but sadly I just didn't care.That's why I didn't love it like I loved The City and the City.That book took an intriguing but simple premise and wove a classic noir story around it, populated with interesting and believable characters.The Kraken has the premise and then some, but not nearly enough of everything else.

This book seems to divide opinion. I thought it was great, but I see from the reviews that others have compared it disfavourably to other "London magic" books like  A Madness of Angels (Matthew Swift 1) . Frankly I think that's almost an insult to Miéville: "Madness" is OK but it's bit laboured - this is magnificent. But there you go.Anyway, the story - Billy Harrow has a problem. His prize giant squid - curated with care, preserved in a glass tank and shown to carefully selected tour parties at the Natural History Museum in London - has gone missing. Impossible, but true.But that's not Billy's real problem. Unfortunately, everyone seems to think that Billy knows something about the disappearance. There's Kath Collingswood of the Metropolitan Police's cult and occult crime squad. There's the Church of God Kraken, who worship said squid. There's the Tattoo (don't ask). Then there's Goss and Subby (don't ask, PLEASE - you won't want to know). In short, a whole weird other side to London, composed of criminals, "knackers" (those who have a knack, i.e. magicians of various sorts), cults and heretics - they all think Billy knows something. And since all prophecies suggest the world is about to burn - because of the squid - they all want to know what he knows. Billy needs to find out what he knows, before anyone finds him.The story that emerges from this is a chase, or a quest, as Billy, helped by a few friends - Dane, a renegade from the CoGK, Wati, the spirit of an Egyptian tomb ornament become a union organiser for magical familiars, the Londonmancers (who carry out divination by delving into the entrails of the city) and Marge, who is almost normal (to begin with) - try to stay ahead of the pursuit, and the Law. It is variously gross, hilarious, touching, scary and thought provoking. The pace of the book barely lets up for a moment and though fairly long it really seems too short. I'd previously read Un Lun Dun by the same author to my son, and this is in some ways an adult version of the same thing, but it's also a kind of literalist version of Peter Ackroyd or Iain Sinclair, as the layers of London history and mystic geography come alive, and metaphor rules all (so, a key dropped and pressed into the tarmac of the street can "open the road" and by finding the right ink, you can rewrite the rules of the world).Immensely entertaining, many stranded, a joy to read. In short, superb. A Madness of Angels (Matthew Swift 1)