Kraken by China Mieville – review

Nobody writes like China Mieville.  It’s a simple and somewhat unfortunate fact of life.  There is only one of him, and he’s absolutely the only person on this planet who could produce a book like Kraken. 

I’ve read several of Mieville’s books, and I’ve enjoyed all of them.  The thing is that all of his books are difficult to describe, especially to someone who probably wants a summary of exactly what happened.  The scope of the plot in any given book he’s written makes it difficult to explain what happened without giving away entirely too much.  As it is with any good story, the main plot leads to explanations that lead to tangents that lead to–well, you get the idea.

The basic idea behind Kraken is that London is a city teeming with magic.  Billy Harrow is an ordinary man, working under ordinary circumstances at a museum.  His crowning achievement, thus far in his life, has been the preservation of a specimen of a giant squid.  One day, as he’s leading a tour through the preserved specimens in the museum collection, he discovers that the squid has been stolen.  Billy promptly ends up in way over his head as various factions attempt to discover why someone would want to steal the squid, what use they could possbily have for it, and why the squid seems to be the thing that triggers the end of the world.

If the book sounds a little on the bizarre side, it is.  Mieville’s writing style has an almost hallucinatory quality about it.  It’s very vivid and makes for intense reading.   There’s also a certain level of grit that a reader must be comfortable with in order to really appreciate one of his books.  If you get done and don’t immediately wish to jump into the nearest shower then you should probably go back and read it again, because you missed something. 

No one builds a creeping sense of paranoia and horror like China Mieville.  He populates his books, and this one in particular, with hideously unsavory characters.  I can’t think of another book in which a sentient tattoo could be quite so terrifying, but the one in this book is one of the most effective and repulsive villains I’ve ever had the privilege to encounter in print.  And, to be honest, that tattoo is the least of Billy Harrow’s worries when he finds himself on the lam. 

I think that the most enjoyable part of Kraken is that Mieville keeps the reader guessing throughout the entire book.  There are a smattering of things that readers can figure out along the way, but up until the end you really aren’t sure exactly what’s going to happen, because you aren’t quite sure how Mieville is going to bring this long, strange journey together.  He does, admirably, with a very satisfying conclusion.  While there are surprises, none of them are nonsensical.  The plot does make sense, and it does unfold rather than clumsily tromp to its ultimate finale. 

The way that Mieville uses language is certainly unique to him.  He builds with colloquialisms and slang and uses it to create patterns of dialogue that ring very true for the characters he creates.  Even the characters that play brief supporting roles in the book still seem to have an enormous amount of depth to them that the reader just doesn’t get to share in this story, at this point in time.  There’s a great sense that many other stories intersect the one Mieville is telling, but as the author, he had to make the choice as to which ones the readers got to see.  It makes for a rich world, full of details, and that makes it that much easier for a reader to get lost in the book.

Kraken could count as a dark urban fantasy, but it shouldn’t just be pigeonholed into a subgenre.  It’s a very good book. Fans of horror novels, odd fiction, fantasy, and suspense should be able to find things to enjoy about this book.  It’s a mystery as well, with nothing less than the end of all existence at stake. 

However, there does need to be a word of caution, or, really, a few words of caution.  Mieville does not write normal stories.  He does not shy from gore or grotesqueries.  Neither of those elements are gratuitous.  No one in the book dies arbitrarily, but Mieville does not stint on description, even when that description is unpleasant.  The book is peppered with very strong language.  Again, it isn’t gratuitous–the characters who speak using swear words are the kinds of characaters you would expect to use such language.  If such epithets upset you, however, you’d be better off finding yourself a different book to read.

I enjoyed Kraken immensely.  Personally, I think it’s the best of Mieville’s books that I’ve read.  However, since he does improve from book to book, I have to say that I’m very anxious to read the next book he writes.