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China Meiville - Kraken
Posted: Fri May 28, 2010 10:51 pm
by stonemaybe
The blurb:
Deep in the research wing of the Natural History Museum is a prize specimen, something that comes along much less often than once in a lifetime: a perfect, and perfectly preserved, giant squid. But what does it mean when the creature suddenly and impossibly disappears?
For curator Billy Harrow it's the start of a headlong pitch into a London of warring cults, surreal magic, apostates and assassins. It might just be that the creature he's been preserving is more than a biological rarity: there are those who are sure it's a god. A god that someone is hoping will end the world.
A review I like:
Don't know what to think of it. It's like a modern day Anubis Gates, on acid
Just ordered it
Posted: Fri May 28, 2010 11:02 pm
by I'm Murrin
Saw it in the bookstore last week, realised I could get it much cheaper online, then promptly forgot to order it. Thanks for posting this, heh.
Posted: Sat May 29, 2010 3:39 pm
by aliantha
That looks pretty cool...
Posted: Sat May 29, 2010 3:52 pm
by Horizonscan
Hmm, never read anything by him. Is he good? That blurb does sound very interesting.
Re: China Meiville - Kraken
Posted: Sat May 29, 2010 4:59 pm
by Vraith
Stonemaybe wrote:
A review I like:
Don't know what to think of it. It's like a modern day Anubis Gates, on acid
Heh...One of the books I constantly forget about, then when someone mentions it remember thinking it was great, have to get a copy and see if it still is.
Just ordered some Meiville on Watcher recommendations...better be good, peeps.
Posted: Sat May 29, 2010 5:56 pm
by stonemaybe
...better be good, peeps.
Start at Perdido Street Station. Be prepared to weirded out and hooked all at once.
Posted: Fri Jun 04, 2010 11:16 pm
by stonemaybe
oh
I'm only on page 37 and I'm getting paranoid about my KW avatar!
Posted: Sun Jun 13, 2010 10:45 pm
by stonemaybe
I'm disappointed so far. It's just not grabbing me the way his other books did.
When I read Perdido Street Station for the first time, I thought it was pretty obvious that New Crobuzon was based on London. Kraken reads like some sort of idea list that CM had for when he was writing Perdido. Or like a first book that he thought wasn't good enough, but Perdido sprung from its ashes. There's just too many groups and organisation with dodgy justifications for existence. The characters are Mieville-wierd, but that's all - I'm feeling nothing for the good guys and the bad guys are tame. It does remind me a bit of a modern-day Anubis Gates, but imo vastly inferior.
Posted: Sun Aug 15, 2010 5:43 am
by duchess of malfi
This book was OK, liked his last one (
The City and the City) a lot more. Now that book was brilliant...
For gods in a modern urban setting, I prefer Gaiman's American Gods.
Posted: Sun Jul 15, 2012 8:43 pm
by I'm Murrin
I just finished Kraken. I had these responses in mind a little when I started, so was surprised to find I enjoyed it a lot. It's a very fun book, with a lot of inventive weirdness, unashamedly full of magic and gods and cults &c without trying to be plausible (metaphor as magic - it only has to sort of make sense, on a symbolic level). It's about a hidden London, much like his YA UnLunDun, but one on the surface, in plain sight. That same creativity applied to an adult work.