The radio existed to communicate. But here it was failing, it had gone rogue, it had forgotten its purpose like the piano, and the people could not reclaim the city.A few weeks ago I listened to a London Review podcast of Miéville reading a story about the immolation of animals. It was certainly the New Weird, the images clung to me, no doubt enhanced by his nuanced delivery. Miéville said he found the story a child of Austerity. I liked that. I suppose a YA audience would like the milieu of Ki...

Ooboy.Well. Before China became His Chinaness, he wrote King Rat. I found this book hard to read. It’s just so…grim. And I’m not only referring to the gratuitous gross-outs and gore. It’s something about the overall feel of the book. The way the characters behave towards each other is just awful.Now don’t get me wrong. I think I liked it. The book is an immersive experience. The descriptions make you live the story through all five senses - for better or for worse, considering it looks like dirt...

I have read quite a few books by China Miéville by now. Some of them I loved and some I really liked but this one I struggled with. It was all so dark and despairing and frequently disgusting. In parts it was also a bit boring. Some credits are due for originality at least for the parts about the rats. The descriptions of London were good and the ending wrapped everything up nicely. Peter's actual identity was a a nice touch too. So just an okay book which I am glad I did not read as my first by...

One could call this book a grunge fantasy.In “King Rat” by China Mieville’s character, Saul Garamond, is a restless young Londoner aimlessly adrift,,He is wrongly imprisoned for the murder of his father. Saul is snatched from the authorities by a mysterious savior named ‘King Rat’, who claims to be both the deposed leader of the rodent army driven out of Hamelin 700 years before and Saul's real father. Raised as a human, Saul’s mother, was King Rat’s sister. She fled rat-kind, preferring to joi...

After reading this book, I:1. Will never see rats the same way again. I kinda want their superpower, including strong stomach.2. Will save money to visit London. Gosh darn it, Mieville, stop seducing me with your atmospheric description of London and what might lie beneath/in between the city. I acquiesce. 3. Will try to reduce buying paperback editions since it actually hurts my hand to hold it, even though I am already using a book holder. E-books FTW! Save the environment! This is Mieville's

This was the first book by China Mieville I encountered, back in the late 90s when Barnes & Noble still published weekly/monthly genre-specific magazines filled with reviews of new books. I thought the premise sounded intriguing, but I never got around to reading it and then I wound up in the jungle for a few years -- surprisingly, there are no bookstores in the jungle. When I returned, I discovered that Mieville had been crowned the New Gaiman and I was told that I had to read and revere his wo...

3.25 starsThis is Mieville’s first novel and can be described as urban fantasy, set in 1990s London. It also has the feel of a graphic novel. There is an element of fairy tale as it is a retelling of the Pied Piper of Hamelin. Inevitably the plot stretches credulity and the language is strong. Saul shares a flat with his father. He returns one day and his father has been murdered. His is arrested for the crime. Whilst in custody he is broken out by a character called King Rat and sees a whole ne...

WARNING: If the following image causes you to recoil from your computer in terror, King Rat is decidedly not the book for you: SQUEEEEEEEEK! On the other hand, if you can look these horrors in the face without losing your lunch, then I very much recommend China Miéville’s entertaining first book. King Rat tells the story of Saul Garamond, a luckless Londoner who is blamed for his father’s untimely death before you can shake a whisker. Happily for Saul, a mysterious stranger named King Rat bre...

The first time I read King Rat, I was stuck at an airport overnight, waiting for an early flight. I don't know why, but I assumed that airports were 24/7 sorts of things, I had no idea that the whole place would shut down, that flights stopped, and that the daily bustle would dissipate, leaving a strange ghost town populated by a handful of the shambling undead, shuffling between the only open coffee shop at one end of the terminal, and the only open seating area at the other. It's a strange atm...

As far as debut novels go, Mieville's King Rat was pretty awesome. Gritty, unsettling, and at times plain disgusting, it was all the nasty sub-London I could handle haha. Overall it was an enjoyable read, the pace quick, the implementation of drum-n-base awesome, and I loved/despised/feared Mieville's take on the Pied Piper of Hamelin. Creeeeeepy. That said, there were times when I felt the action scenes dominated everything else, and the characters were underdeveloped. Saul was not as relatable...

KING RAT was my introduction to China Mieville, and I was hooked by his writing. This was a great premise and a story that's very well told.

This was the last novel of China Mieville's that I had left to read, which is ironic as it was his first novel. You can tell it is as well, as the book is rather rougher and less polished than his other works.Yet, for all that, you can get the sense of where the author is heading even at this early point. There is an impression I have that he is searching, almost feeling his way towards his later works here. At each point he almost hesitates, a "how far can I push this" moment, before going ahea...

King Rat was first published by British author China Mieville in 1998, his debut novel. A reader in the speculative fiction genre will certainly make comparisons to Neil Gaiman’s work Neverwhere published in 1996. The setting, tone, and unsettlingly charismatic underwordliness of the two books are too similar to escape association. A careful reader will also find similarities with Gaiman’s magnificent American Gods and the somewhat sequel Anansi Boys, but WAIT! American Gods was first published

"Everything starts somewhere, although many physicists disagree." True to Pratchett's wit and wisdom, even China Mieville's frustratingly good writing had to have its beginnings. And so it begins here, in his first novel 'King Rat', which - as many readers have noted - reads like a close cousin¹ to Neil Gaiman's 'Neverwhere'. ¹ A cousin that the elderly relatives mention only in hushed whispers at family reunions. The heavily tattooed one, with piercings in places you don't want to think of,

CRITIQUE:Lessons in Rhythm and HistorySaul Garamonde is meant to be half-man, half-rat, though quite how his state eventuated defies at least my imagination. He looks like a human being, but has rat blood coursing through his veins, and soon acquires rat characteristics, such as the ability to climb up brick walls and tall buildings.His father was a fat (sic) socialist, and once gifted him a copy of Lenin's “What is to Be Done?”Father and son are estranged, and are frequently overheard arguing w...

Here's the deal with King Rat: Neil Gaiman and China Mieville were sitting at a pub one cold 1998 evening, right? And China makes some wager with Neil, a wager that Neil ultimately loses. (Let's say China bets him he can't write a better comic book series than The Sandman.) So for losing, Neil has to write a book for China to sell under Mieville's name. Neil writes King Rat. It's got some typical Gaimanisms: a trip through a fantastical underworld two steps removed from the normal version of Lon...

I tried to keep in mind when picking up King Rat that it was China Miéville's debut novel and the chances of it being on par or better than PSS weren't high. With that in mind, I wasn't too disappointed.Saul Garamond's come home to London after a camping excursion and finds the place quiet, empty of its usual domestic element. Instead of bothering about his father's silence, Saul succumbs to exhaustion and is awakened to a confusion of police officers, caution tape and a broken window. Now under...

Like most people, I had read other books by the author before getting to this, his debut novel.While lacking the excellent world building in his later books, this first effort by China Miéville is still way better than most fantasy on the market and a must for his fans.The protagonist here is one Saul Garamond and he isn’t quite what he appears to be. And thus begins a most imaginative trip through a world within a world populated with all sorts of interesting characters. A typically dark urban

Full Review: http://www.tenaciousreader.com/2014/0...King Rat is festering with atmosphere and drowns you in a cacophony of Jungle Bass and Drum. It takes you to London’s underside, it’s stinking bowels, and gives life to the world below. It does all this in a very good way. I swear. King Rat is my first taste of Mieville and I’m still not sure if it was the best place for me to start, but it certainly isn’t a bad place to start. This is his debut novel and does not seem to be as widely read or