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King Rat
King Rat is incredibly similar to Gaiman's American Gods and Neverwhere -- I've purposefully not looked into the chronology of publication so I don't want to assert who was influenced by whom, but some significant elements of Neverwhere -- London as a setting, the critical presence of rats, a malevolent, almost-unkillable foe -- and American Gods -- a protagonist who loses someone dear to him very early in the work (Shadow loses his wife in AG, while Saul loses his father), and who struggles through a new understanding of his role in the world, a new appreciation for the fact he was born for a specific destiny, and a rebellion against his father. Hell, one character actually appears in both American Gods and King Rat.
There's probably a very strong correlation between people who liked American Gods and Neverwhere and people who'll like King Rat. At the same time, King Rat's tone is incredibly different -- it's not a derivative of Gaiman's work as much as it is a close family relation. It's almost totally bereft of humor, unlike Neverwhere, and not quite as awash in a palpable sense of loss as American Gods (especially given Shadow's ongoing relationship with his wife). Unlike the other two books, I found this one a little slow to get into, reading five pages here, ten pages there, until it finally hooked me.
King Rat's story revolves around Saul Garamond, who comes home one night to find that someone has killed his estranged father -- and the police think it's him. Garamond is broken out of prison by the title furtive character, who lost his dominion over the rats in the Hamlin catastrophe, and who introduces himself as Saul's uncle. So yes, the protagonist of King Rat is, in fact, Prince Rat (who is half man and half rat).
The rest of the book is the detailing of the conflict between the Rat, Bird, and Spider people and the pied piper of Hamlin who, in fact, turns out to be quite evil and fond of killing things.
Music is at the core of King Rat, from the basic most powerful talent of the nemesis, to the particular defenses of Saul (since he's a halfling, neither human-snaring music nor rat-snaring music alone could get him), to the interweaving of Saul's story with that of Natasha, a friend of his and a jungle-music DJ. Parts of the book, discussing the music arrangement and the role of bass in the actual communication of emotion to an audience, felt like they might be lost a little on a reader who hasn't been awash in that rhythm in a club. Thankfully for the vast majority of slashdotters, that's not a huge part of the book and even if you've never gone clubbing, held a rhythm, or danced your ass off, you're not likely to be alienated by it.
Mieville decided to end the book and the conflict in a way that felt more ambiguous than it could have been. While I applaud any author who doesn't bow and scrape to the convention that if you have a battle between good and evil, evil must be completely vanquished by the end of the work, I couldn't help feel that Mieville ended the book in such a way at least partially so a sequel could be written, featuring largely the same characters. It left me uneasy and on the verge of feeling a little cheated.
So that's the downside. On the upside, I found Saul's characterization engaging, interesting, and real. Saul is not as good of a man as we all would like to be, but he's probably as good as most of us get to be. Especially in the beginning, he's pretty wretchedly whiny. He's not exceedingly brave, or truthful, or kind. He's just ... a guy, with some special powers due to his parentage, thrust into a reality that is wildly different from his own, and he does his best to adapt to it. Saul's friends, Natasha Fabian and Kay, can't be drawn with as fine of a stroke because the book isn't about them, but they're still interesting and nuanced. Pete, the piper of Hamlin, is rather less complex. He's evil. He's strong. He is, in Jules' immortal terms, a bad motherfucker. With a flute.
Darn decent book, I'd say. If you liked Neverwhere (and can stand urban fantasy that isn't funny), or American Gods (and can stand urban fantasy that isn't set in the U.S.), you owe it to yourself to check it out.
China Mieville's official website was down last time I checked -- you may have more luck finding stuff about him at his unofficial home page.
You can purchase King Rat from bn.com. Slashdot welcomes readers' book reviews -- to see your own review here, read the book review guidelines, then visit the submission page.
For your next review, perhaps you could start out by saying what the book's about, instead of referring/comparing to other books?
The similarities that the author of the review that alludes to a hint of suspicion of influence and or plaigarism is retarded. Most content is recycled and reissued. There isn't much in original ideas or plots...its how those plots are developed and examined that make the difference.
A billion books probably start off with the protagonist losing a loved one. Hello.
At least with Gaiman's "American Gods" the author was recasting mythological figures in a new light, and while criminally negligent in his characterizations, it was nevertheless a fascinating read.
In this book, however, I find much to despise, and it reminds me of how Julie Taymor butchered Shakespeare's "Titus" by recasting it in a pseudo-fascist-modern period. Or how "Cold Mountain" romanticizes the South and ignores the issue of slavery. Or how Gibson's "Braveheart" becomes an anti-English Scottish propaganda piece, though it has more holes than a pound of Swiss cheese. Can't so-called "artists" leave well enough alone? The same happens here -- the historical town of Hameln is twisted into Hamlin, and an allegory of emigration become an epic battle of good versus evil.
To wit: Hameln is a town in Lower Saxony, Niedersachsen, in Germany. In the Middle Ages thousands of German emigrants, enticed by tax breaks and offers of free land, made the thousand mile trek to Transylvania, then more or less a part of the kingdom of Hungary. Of course, it was the skilled classes that left, and the young, leaving behind the old and the weak.
Thus an exciting and influential event in the course of European history is manipulated for the sake of low-class genre fiction by a Gaiman-imitator.
I think I'll stick with Turtledove.
So, the question is, if you loved Neverwhere, but American Gods left a bad taste in your mouth, how will King Rat fare?
Start a happiness pandemic
Likewise, the Simpsons is superior to huge amounts of other shows, despite being a cartoon. Then again there are crap cartoons that fall well below the mark. The point is, do not discriminate based on the medium, but rather the individual creations If you do not, you are just as narrow-minded as a troll who only loved comics and cartoons.
Did you even watch Titus all the way through? It is absolutely brilliant, aware that most of the audience wouldn't be able to empathize with the true shock and horror as Shakespeare wrote it Taymour grabbed familiar, but horrible things from all over the 1900s to allow modern audiences to fully feel the disgust and discomfort originally intended.
Perhaps you should watch it again with an open mind? This time try going past the first few minutes, okay?
--- I do not moderate.
Please, please stop using the word 'incredibly' to describe things that, incredibly, are really quite credible after all.
The book is similar to Neverwhere? Good. Thanks for the info, but pardon me if my eyes don't exactly widen with amazement.
Mieville's writing style is similar to Gaiman's but different? Fine. It's nice to know, but exactly leave me choking on my sandwich.
Ahh...the scent of freshly picked nits!
**>>BELCH
"made the thousand mile trek to Transylvania"
they must have gone the narvik route then. I think Transylvania and Germany are a little closer together than that