Kraken by China Miéville

What do a mild-mannered museum curator, an underground mollusk cult, a statue-dwelling union leader, a supernatural police squad, and a mystical crime lord trapped inside a tattoo have in common? Why, they're just a few of the people scouring London for the formalin-preserved specimen of Architeuthis dux-- the giant squid-- which has mysteriously disappeared from the British History of Natural History. And which may or may not be causing the end of the world.

If that sounds like a crazy grab-bag of warped urban fantasy tropes, you're only just getting started. This novel is densely packed with bizarrities, to the point that you're meeting some new thing ever few pages. This is my first experience with Miéville, and I'm given to understand that his other works are more deliberate and cohesive. But in Kraken, Miéville steps away from any such seriousness, and clearly doesn't subscribe to the idea that less is more-- on the contrary, more is more, and in his alternate London the magical denizens seem to outnumber the normal folks. It's an exercise in pure creativity, and it gives the novel an insane, freewheeling energy that makes it hard to put down. It certainly helps that Miéville is a truly excellent writer, and is able to turn even a minor turn of phrase into a literary gem. (He's also great at inventing new words-- realtheologik and squiddidity.)

But as entertaining as this creativity orgy is, ultimately it bogs down the novel as the narrative ends up taking a back seat to world-building. There's a long, foggy portion in the middle where the main characters just sort of wander around London and talking to strange people. Things picks up speed towards the end, and it has a very action-packed climax, but ultimately I think the book would be better if it was 150 pages shorter. Also, the final resolution rests on some questionable logic. Maybe that doesn't matter so much in a book about a squid-worshipping cult, but if you're a stickler for verisimilitude you'll probably find yourself frustrated.

Oh, and be warned: this book is dense with English slang and pop culture references. I'm sure it's all very clever to people who watch BBC, but a lot of it went way over my head.

Kraken reminds me in a lot of ways of American Gods. It's full of ideas that I absolutely love, and has some extremely memorable scenes, but the narrative itself is meandering and lacks any lasting resonance. And the main characters are patently uninteresting. Just like Shadow, Kraken's Billy the museum curator is a complete cipher who just wanders around this fantastic world without much motivation or character development, or for that matter any real reaction to the crazy magic surrounding them. It's as though Kraken and American Gods follow the same logic as FPS games-- leave the main character a blank slate, so the audience can project their own feelings onto them. The technique is even less effective in literature than it is in video games. The only character I really liked was Wati, a former Egyptian shabti who now lives as a statue-jumping spirit and a modern-day magical labor organizer. He had this authentic working-class indignation, a complete rebellion against the circumstances of his very creation that made him very compelling.

In the end, while I enjoyed parts of American Gods more, on the whole I think Kraken is the better book. Miéville is clearly having fun, and you can't help being swept up in the pure joy of unbridled creativity. If you can forgive the dense slang and muddy middle act, Kraken is definitely worth a read, and I'm very interested in checking out some of Miéville's other works.