Kraken in 2010

[Stephen Palmer]

Then The Scar - might as well make it two!

 

[witchfynder]

I'm reading The Kraken right now and I'm finding it hard work.
I lived in London for thirty years (I'm thirty five now) and I couldn't help feeling that all these references to various neighbourhoods were a little forced. The thing about London is, if you know the place, the areas have a flavour; if you don't, they don't. Kraken only knows what it's like to read if you don't know your "Dalston sandwich shop" from your "Clapham carpet warehouse".

I think he achieved sublime weird with Bas-Lag but this time around, weird just got silly.
But hey, it's not a bad book by any means, and I will always salute the mighty China for his other works... I'm just not sure this one worked out as well as it should have done.

 

[Stephen Palmer]

Agreed - I couldn't finish it, a first for me & Mieville.

 

[Thadlerian]

I'll have to go with the tendency here. Just finished Kraken, and it hardly did anything for me. If asked, I couldn't really account for the story. As mentioned earlier, the protagonist seems to get pulled through the plot (whatever it was all about) by other characters.

Lots of advanced prose, little advanced plotting. I can't get any feeling of character interactions, and most obstacles seem to solve themselves easily until the finale.

 

[Magnus85]

I think Embassytown was a much more coherent (and thus enjoyable) book, barring one major narrative fault.

Read it, but I must have missed that...?

 

[Red 13]

I don't read science fiction but i enjoy China Mieville's books alot. Should i read Embassytown?

 

[gully_foyle]

I don't read science fiction but i enjoy China Mieville's books alot. Should i read Embassytown?

Yes. It's still China and it is much better and tighter than Kraken.

 

[Red 13]

Yes. It's still China and it is much better and tighter than Kraken.

Cheers gully, i'll give it a go.

 

[Ursa major]

I've just read the book (see http://www.sffchronicles.co.uk/forum/1535292-post7.html), and found it a relatively easy, and fun, read. Not that the book lacked faults, not the least of which was that the plot seemed to be driven by a need to add ever more inventive "religions" and forms of magic.

 

[Thadlerian]

... the plot seemed to be driven by a need to add ever more inventive "religions" and forms of magic.

My thoughts exactly.

 

[odangutan]

The characters in the book were all typical London personalities, having lived in London for three years myself i could associate with them.

This is one of the main reasons why I didn't like it, far too much 'gor luvaduck we're all warlocks wot lissen to dubstep innit' nonsense going on instead of actually spending time creating novel characters (and not just nicking them from Neverwhere).

Didn't anyone else think the ending was total 'It was Old Man Withers all along!!' Scooby-doo rubbish? Very, very weak writing from possibly one of my favourite authors.

 

[Anthony G Williams]

(An extract from my SFF blog: Science Fiction & Fantasy)

China Miéville is one of the most interesting writers around, and unlike most modern authors who just drop into a comfortable series groove, he has produced a remarkably varied body of work. The City and The City (reviewed on this blog in March 2012) just blew me away, and is the finest new work categorised as SFF to come my way in many years. I say "categorised as" because I'm not really sure what genre it fits into, but it certainly isn't mainstream! On the other hand, I have been less impressed by his other work I have read so far, and didn't even finish Perdito Station.

Kraken ticks important boxes, as it's one of many "parallel supernatural contemporary London" books (and series) kicked off by Neil Gaiman's Neverwhere, although the origins could arguably be traced to Christopher Fowler's Roofworld and Rune (all of which I really must read again sometime), if not even further back. Other authors to have published novels recently in what has virtually become a sub-genre of its own include Tony Ballantyne, Kate Griffin, Ben Aaronovitch and Benedict Jacka. If anyone knows of any others, please tell me!

So I settled down to read Kraken with great anticipation. The protagonist is Billy Harrow, a biologist and an expert on giant squid. He is responsible for the preservation and care of a remarkable specimen on display in the Natural History museum – which disappears one night, complete with its huge tank of preservative. Billy discovers that there is a previously unsuspected magical underworld in the city, including a Church of the Kraken that worships the giant squid as a god. There are many others who are interested in discovering what happened to the Kraken, as well as a very special branch of the police who are well aware of the supernatural underworld. Billy is hunted through London by various evil and highly baroque villains including the Tattoo and the horrifying Goss and Subby, as they believe that he knows where the Kraken may be found and that the fate of the giant squid may presage that of the entire world.

I initially found the story hard to get into, partly because I was short of reading time and rarely managed to read more than a few chapters every now and then. Since the story is complex with many characters, this made remembering who was who and what they were doing to each other a considerable struggle each time I picked up the book. At one point I nearly stopped reading, but remained sufficiently interested to persevere, which is just as well because the pace gradually picked up and the flow of twists, turns and surprises held my attention to the end. Although I did have a few nagging doubts about the internal logic of the conclusion…

In summary; worth persevering with, but make sure that you can devote the time to give your full attention to it.

 

[althea]

I have tried a couple of China Mieville's books,but didn't take to them.
I decided to try Kraken and I'm so glad I did.
The premise of the story is preposterous,but I can't put it down.
His humour and his use of words is glorious.