Welcome to Shark Week at Suvudu! Inspired by the Discovery Channel’s annual week of sharktastic programs, we at Suvudu will be covering not only sharks, but all sorts of other dangerous aquatic creatures. From as close as the nearest beach to as far as the banks of an alien shore, if it has a nasty bite, a bad attitude and calls the ocean home, then you’ll find it here at Shark Week at Suvudu.
China Mieville has been on top of his writing game since the very beginning.
I remember back when Del Rey Books first acquired China’s Perdido Street Station. It was a really big deal. I happened to be invited to the San Diego Comic Con where Del Rey rolled China out to the public for the first time and after talking to him for a mere few seconds knew I’d be a lifelong fan. He wore a muscled black shirt, ten earrings in one ear, shaved his head into badassery, and was one of the smartest writers I’d met. He was also exceedingly kind, became deeply invested in whatever conversation was at hand, and maintained a cool rock start mentality while putting you at ease.
Then I read Perdido Street Station and was blown away. It was so good China almost kept me from my own writing pursuits. “If there is something out there like this, what the hell do I have to offer?” I thought. “And this guy is going to keep producing books. Shit.”
I got over my fears obviously. And luckily for all of us, China kept writing.
Fast forward almost ten years. China is now one of the best writers in the business. He’s still humble and still brilliant. He works hard at his craft and is a constant source of inspiration—not only to me but countless fans. He’s also won numerous awards as of late, including the vaunted Hugo Award for The City & the City, and there is a lot of buzz across the internet(s) that he could win another Hugo Award for his new book, Embassytown.
The City & the City and Embassytown have gotten a great deal of attention and for good reason. Both are fantastic. But there was a book published between them that I feel doesn’t get nearly the attention it should and is just as great.
That book is Kraken.
Here is a bit more about it:
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.
Sounds strange, right? Even for China it’s a bit weird. Squid worshipers that make the largest Great White shark swim away! But I assure you, the story works. And I’m not the only one who believes that. Author Terry Brooks absolutely loved Kraken, reviewed it on his website, and posted it on his Goodreads account. Here is what Terry had to say:
This month I am recommending a book that has been out for a year or so, China Mieville’s Kraken. No one writes books like China. Some have said this is a good thing because China’s prose is dense and complex and his language might require that you keep a dictionary close at hand. But this is a really wonderful, compelling story. It possesses elements of science fiction, fantasy, horror and myth, and it is impossible to describe here. But I will take a shot at it anyway.
Kraken is an end of the world story centered around a stolen Kraken corpse, a Kraken worshipping cult, strange collections of magic wielders both good and bad, a paranormal police unit, a gaggle of odd heroes and a couple of really terrible villains. It reminded me of Stephen King, among others. You have to work at this book, but even given that I had to put some effort into reading it I could not put it down. It builds as it goes and thunders to a surprisingly satisfying ending. It made me envy China’s storytelling skills, and that doesn’t happen very often.
Pretty great praise from someone who does’t give praise unless it is absolutely deserved. Kraken by China Mieville is in fine bookstores now! To read its Chapter One excerpt, click HERE!
Enjoy! And let the Kraken rise!
