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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.
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For your next review, perhaps you could start out by saying what the book's about, instead of referring/comparing to other books?
.. has been a long standing problem with everyone. This book is not unique in the way that the outline is so cliche, but it still underlines a big point. It has been extremely rare to find books with completely original themes recently, you seem to have the framed school, the lawyer school, etc. What has happened to the Chuck Palahniuks of the world? Even his books have become too samy samy.. is it me, or do we need another Wodehouse to rise up?
tim
When I saw the title "King Rat" I thought this was another SCO story.
If you like modern, urban fantasy, then check out Tim Powers' Fischer-king series (its not officially called that, but thats what I consider it). Start with 'Last Call' and then work you way up. The whole series predates Gaiman's work by many a year, and I have no idea if the similarities of style and type of story are due to coincidence or influence. Actually, I enjoy just about everything I've gotten my hands on from Tim Powers, including 'Anubis Gates' and 'The Drawing of the Dark' (which could be considered part of the Fischer Kind series, just set in the past by several hundred years).
I will say this though - many of the books have a similar, almost formulaic feel to the main character. The details may be different, but the fact that they just lost someone they love in the begining of the novel tends to be eirily similar. That said, its not always there, and the details of whom, how and why are always very different.
man is machine
This seems to be his new homepage.
I read the other book (Perdido Street Station) a week ago. I though it was pretty good.
(although perhaps with an overdose of unconnected storylines)
There's a sequel to that one out too, called The Scar
The path I walk alone is endlessly long.
30 minutes by bike, 15 by bus.
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.
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...
I assert they were all influenced by Michael de Larrabeiti's The Borribles , which was published in 1976. I'm probably wrong -- it's been years since I read this, and I was quite young when I did -- but I vividly remember London and rats. The Borribles was the first of a trilogy, all of which have been out of print for a long while; however, while Googling for the link, above, I made the happy discovery that they have been reissued (ISBN: 0330490850).
The only other Mieville book I've read, Perdido Street Station, didn't impress me at all. Underneath the hey-wow story setting - a city set amongst the ribs of a giant, dead beast - I found a pretty typical storyline, and some truly godawful writing. I mean, exposition and description are nice, but come on.
Right now, I'm reading a bunch of Elmore Leonard. Does anyone write better dialogue than this guy? No. His books are taut and practically impossible to put down - unlike Mieville's, which I struggled mightily to finish.
I've been a fan of China Mieville since his now-impossible-to-find story "The Tain". He's part of a non-movement in F&SF which owes a lot to Jack Vance, Michael Moorcock and similar. Largely British, mostly urban, and set in worlds where reality's gears are missing a few teeth.
If you like King Rat you'll probably enjoy his other books (Perdido Street Station and The Scar) and books by authors like...
Tim Powers, Jeff Vandermeer, Ian MacLeod, Neil Gaiman, Johnathan Carroll, Alan Moore, M. John Harrison, Forrest Aguirre, Jeffrey Ford, and Jasper Fforde. Mary Gentle, Gene Wolfe, and Borges will almost certainly also appeal.
And of course, if you have $200 just lying around doing nothing you will want to get a copy of the Codex Serafinianus just to squick yourself.
The man who never alters his opinion is like the stagnant water and breeds Reptiles of the Mind -- William Blake