Sunday 21 February 2010

Extended blurb for Miéville's 'Kraken'

A new, extended blurb for China Miéville's Kraken that I came across on Westeros (no idea as to where it originated):

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.


Is it possible for this book to sound any more awesome?

6 comments:

Nick said...

It's from the Random House website: http://www.randomhouse.com/catalog/display.pperl?isbn=9780345497499

Sounds amazing but I'm concerned about Meiville's writting. Loved PSS and the scar but haven't loved anything else. Just picked up City & the City so haven't started it yet.

James said...

Thanks Nick. Know what you mean - I loved the Scar but didn't enjoy TCATC much really. Think this sounds wicked though.

Fuzz said...

Oh dear.. I was looking forward to this one, before all we had was a little blurb with no mention of 'London' and it sounded good, something ressembling Bas Lag if not in setting at least in caracter and atmosphere, and now it looks like King Rat, and I didn't like King Rat :( (I've not actually finished The City and the City, but I didn't dislike what I did read of it).

At least Alastair Reynolds is putting out something Steamy-remotely-punky-ish this year..

And China, well, China needs to return to Bas Lag! Been ages...

(then again I'm also glad he's not milking a franchise for all it's worth and actually sticking to writing what he wants)

Unknown said...

No, James.

No, I don't think it could.

Anonymous said...

That does sound awesome. I haven't read any Meiville yet, but have three of his novels sitting on my bookshelf. But this one sounds so badass I might just make it my first.

Adam Whitehead said...

The previous blurb did mention the British Museum, which did put its location firmly in the real world (or an alt-history version of the same).

Mieville said a while ago that his next, post-KRAKEN book should a return to Bas-Lag. No idea if that is still the plan though.