The story begins with the impossible disappearance of Architeuthis Dux— a gigantic squid – from London’s Natural History Museum. To some, that squid is simply a bizarre natural phenomenon. To others, it is an enigmatic divinity and a harbinger of the End of Days. The drama that arises from its disappearance illuminates the varied array of magical forces that live—have always lived—beneath the quotidian surface of London. The result is a visionary narrative of men and their gods, of magic, murder, and apocalypse.
The story begins with the impossible disappearance of Architeuthis Dux— a gigantic squid – from London’s Natural History Museum. To some, that squid is simply a bizarre natural phenomenon. To others, it is an enigmatic divinity and a harbinger of the End of Days. The drama that arises from its disappearance illuminates the varied array of magical forces that live—have always lived—beneath the quotidian surface of London. The result is a visionary narrative of men and their gods, of magic, murder, and apocalypse.
Cover Artist: Vincent ChongIllustrator: Vincent Chong
Dust jacket by Vincent ChongIn such novels as Perdido Street Station and the groundbreaking SF thriller The City & The City, China Miéville has astonished and delighted an ever-growing body of readers. In Kraken, he gives us his most absorbing creation to date, an eschatological epic that reaffirms his position as the foremost urban fantasist of the modern era. The story begins with the impossible disappearance of Architeuthis Dux— a gigantic squid – from London’s Natural History Museum. To some, that squid is simply a bizarre natural phenomenon. To others, it is an enigmatic divinity and a harbinger of the End of Days. The drama that arises from its disappearance illuminates the varied array of magical forces that live—have always lived—beneath the quotidian surface of London. The result is a visionary narrative of men and their gods, of magic, murder, and apocalypse. Densely imagined, enormously funny, and filled with unforgettable images, Kraken is a work of baroque grandeur and great originality that only China Miéville could have written. Limited: 500 numbered copies, hardcover, by authorLettered: 26 copies, bound in leather, by author, housed in a custom traycaseFrom Library Journal (Starred Review):“. Miéville’s sprawling saga calls to mind the works of H. P. Lovecraft and H. G. Wells, with a distinctive 21st-century spin and should draw a large crossover audience as well as genre fans. Highly recommended. ”From Publishers Weekly:“British fantasist Miéville mashes up cop drama, cults, popular culture, magic, and gods in a Lovecraftian New Weird caper sure to delight fans of Perdido Street Station and The City & the City. ”From Booklist:“Miéville’s fantasy is a rich literary work, full of wordplay and imagery that will appeal to literary-fiction fans as much as to fantasy readers. ”From SF Crowsnest:“[Kraken] is told with a great deal of dark humour and there is a lot of playfulness in the language and the style. Kraken is a long book, at five hundred pages, yet the narrative always seemed fresh and exciting, never once flagging or getting dull. ”From The San Francisco Chronicle:“Kraken finds Miéville, the author of The Scar and The City & The City in a more playful mood than usual. There’s plenty in the novel that’s grotesque and frightening, particularly an exquisitely creepy pair of killers known as Goss and Subby… The reader is primed for a memorable payoff, and Miéville more than delivers. ”
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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.
