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    Kraken
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    Kraken
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    Kraken
    Audiobook16 hours

    Kraken

    Written by China Miéville

    Narrated by John Lee

    3.5/5

    ()

    Currently unavailable

    Currently unavailable

    About this audiobook

    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.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherPenguin Random House Audio
    Release dateJun 29, 2010
    ISBN9780307735942
    Unavailable
    Kraken
    Author

    China Miéville

    China Miéville lives and works in London. He is three-time winner of the prestigious Arthur C. Clarke Award and has also won the British Fantasy Award twice. The City & The City, an existential thriller, was published to dazzling critical acclaim and drew comparison with the works of Kafka and Orwell and Philip K. Dick. His novel Embassytown was a first and widely praised foray into science fiction.

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    Reviews for Kraken

    3.5/5

    1,050 ratings95 reviews

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    • 5/5
      I kind of went tag crazy on this because weirdly (or not) this book featured marine biology, mystery, natural science, and religion in a modern fantasy setting. It reminded me of Harry Potter in that it takes place in the supernatural side of London and I really enjoyed it, but there are no boarding schools here. Nay, as our hapless curator discovers early on, the giant squid specimen at NHM's Darwin Centre suddenly goes missing. With curator Billy, we get pulled into the turbulent waters of cults and crimelords who may have an interest in our squiddy friend.

      The climax came rather unexpectedly for me, but when the true apocalypse is determined, I [i]cackled[/i], because it made sense in hindsight and aaah clever. Sorry. I would be more specific but I hate spoilers.

      I know I'm predisposed to like it because teuthology fantasy elements pop culture nods, but the writing style was also excellent.
    • 4/5
      There has been precious little discussion, in fact none that I've read, about the significance if any of Kraken's subtitle. Anatomy, which now means the science of body structure, derives from Greek roots implying cutting open and, particularly, apart. Kraken is not just about a giant squid specimen in the Natural History Museum (or rather, for most of the book, out of the Museum) but about how it is used to cut open the underbelly of an arcane and corrupt London and expose its putrefying innards.Ultimately this urban fantasy is about the power of words. Words on the novel's pages to conjure up the stuff of nightmare, words in the mouths of characters to change reality, words written on pieces of paper which have awareness. Billy ("don't be a hero") Harrow is the bespectacled protagonist who gets thrown into a, literally, harrowing series of crises for which he didn't volunteer, mixed up with underground cults, unorthodox police, a transmigrating fetish spirit and, most terrifying of all, Goss and Subby. Goss and Subby are, were, the most convincingly menacing personages in the novel, Goss for his gratuitous violence and pally malevolence, Subby for his powerful vacuousness (we realise that Subby probably stands not for subnormality, his outward appearance, but for substitute, his inward role). Of the other characters, Kath Collingswood and Dane Parnell stand out, one a witchy chain-smoking constable, the other a true Londoner who gains Billy's at first grudging and then outright respect. Everyman Billy is a little bit cardboard cut-out for me: he spends the first half of the book as the confused innocent abroad and the second half as urban guerilla, but I never have a sense of him as a scientist, the role we first see him in.In a way, London is the hero: it is there, ever-present, the action never moves beyond the M25, the story doesn't just inhabit the streets, it is the streets. But, other than the Museum, it's not the tourist's London, and apart from the occasional mention of districts or the Thames Barrier this is an anonymous, almost generic, seedy metropolis of faceless buildings and people, all functioning as a backdrop to the action leading inexorably to apocalypse. The supporting characters and even some of the main cast are expendable, ciphers in the narrative's drive to resolution. Is this a great novel? No, and one can argue that it was never meant to be. But it's witty and inventive, dark and humorous at the same time, full of striking concepts and punny language (typically, magic, the mainspring of the action, is never mentioned; instead maguses and adepts 'knack' and magicked things are 'knacked'); and only the characters involved take the situations they find themselves in seriously as a matter of life-and-death. It's my first Miéville novel, and I suspect it won't be my last.
    • 4/5
      While Miéville's obtuse, low/high prose almost drove me up a wall, the ambition and creativeness of the novel kept me going.
    • 5/5
      Giant squid worship - all you need to know.
    • 3/5
      NOT his best, I think, but fun. Difficult to define.....
    • 2/5
      I expected a different sort of book. This veered too far into the fantasy genre for me. Still, the writing is crisp and fun, and Mieville has an eye for characters.
    • 2/5
      I'm done with Mieville. I just don't get the critic's love for this guy, but I suspect that because I'm not British, I'm not supposed to. He has a penchant for taking everything that annoys me about Neil Gaiman and concentrates it, leaving out the concise story line.A giant squid suddenly vanishes from a natural history museum in London. The investigation that follows has all of the coherence of a meandering Britcom without anything really funny. Eventually, suspicion turns to a cult who worships a squid god. (Squid, really? Everyone knows the octopus is the king among tentacled critters!) Mieville's prose really gets in the way of making this any sort of page turner. In America, thanks to Hollywood we equate thick cockney accents with less-educated characters, not scientists, so there is an irritation caused by deviating from the expected. The main plot is often lost in the dialog, I do have to give him props though for name-dropping GG Alin among others. That part at least made me smile.
    • 3/5
      Lost interest half way through. Not bad, just not my cup of tea.
    • 4/5
      China really is my favorite author. I haven't read everything he's written (he writes faster than I read) but just Perdido Street Station and Iron Council are enough to promote him to God-like status. Kraken showed some of that greatness - Goss and Subby were great, Wati was great, the londonmancers were cool, the final revealed plot was cool and not easily guessable, all the cults, the magic mp3 players was funny. But for some reason it all didn't really gel for me. I can't really say what I didn't like about it. Maybe I expected too much, got my hopes up. I did get lost in a lot of the British jargon. Collingsworth left me confused about 80% of the time. I guess I didn't really like the main character. He reminded me of the main character in Neverwhere whom I didn't care for at all. I'd much rather have an asskicker like Dane be the main character instead of a reluctant bungler. That usually gives a completely different tone (a tone I like more). So I would probably give it 3.5 stars because of all the cool ideas and if it sounds like your kind of thing I would definitely recommend reading it. Just didn't blow my mind like his other stuff.
    • 3/5
      I really like Mieville's style but the plot itself got on ny nerves. I will definitely look for other stuff by him, and look forward to basking in his style and worldview but i just don't expect a good story out of him.
    • 3/5
      Billy Harrow is a curator for a London natural history museum. He is particularly proud of the preservation job he had recently completed on a giant squid, affectionately known as the kraken, a legendary sea monster. During a tour one day, he discovers that the kraken has been stolen. Shortly after the police investigation begins, they bring in Patrick Vardy, an investigator for the Fundamentalist and Sect-Related Crime Unit (FSRC) to assist. The police that this theft might have been instigated by apocalyptic-focused cults such as the Toothless Cult or the Krakenists. Before the investigation has really begun, Billy is kidnapped by the Krakenists assuming that he is a prophet. Dane, a disillusioned disciple, assists with Billy's escape to begin a search for the kraken, while a menagerie of characters are searching for Billy, including the police, cultists, and criminals. Confused yet?This well-written farcical novel has hilarious moments, such as when a package delivered to Billy unfolds origami-style to become a pair of bad guys. The novel is also populated with unusual characters including a non-corporeal entity that can only travel around the city jumping from statues or dolls and a crime boss that is tatooed on a human's back. This cast-of-characters science fiction had me chuckling while a quickly turned the pages to see what happens next.
    • 3/5
      The book starts off strong and gets you immersed in a wickedly weird world. As per usual with any Mieville novel the language is convoluted, closed and beyond difficult to access. Especially if you're not familiar with every cultural reference that's obliquely and too casually used. Entire passages were completely unreadable even after re-reading them countless times.This novel felt very similar to Weaveworld by Clive Barker and ironically suffers from the same narrative problem: halfway through, the amount of effort needed to parse every sentence is too much to keep following the plot. The plot at which point isn't going anywhere fast and the main protagonists are simply running around from one (not so shocking anymore) piece of weirdness to the next.In the end it felt like a thick version of The Crying of Lot 49 where we're constantly asked by the author: oooh look at me write.
    • 3/5
      i got a bit jumbled towards the end...and i can't decide if it was because i was reading in bed at night and getting too tired...or if it was the plot that got hole-y?? there were a couple of coincidences in the story and i am not such a fan of that in fiction. BUT...this book was a lot of fun, fantastical and great escapist reading.
    • 4/5
      Kraken is, more or less, the story of Billy. When one of the specimens goes missing from the Darwin Center where he works he's drawn in to an urban fantasy world which works on belief. This book was a little bit of a hard read for me - it is very long, takes a while to get started and tends to meander. There were several points I struggled to pick it up again just because I felt it was wandering. The pace picks up in the second half but it takes a long time from the initial scene to Billy actually becoming embroiled in this alternate London. There is also some very weird use of language. There is one character where it's used very deliberately and effectively but there are several times when people are having conversations and I'm just not sure what the hell conversation they're even having and maybe it's meant to convey the way people actually speak as opposed to how authors tend to write speech, as they are very different things, but mostly it's just confusing and hard to follow. That said, when you get in to the good bit the book is good. It's got a lot of different story threads but I felt they were juggled well and tied of neatly. I liked that as opposed to an alternate London like, to use the eternal example, Neverwhere or Mieville's other book, Un Lun Dun, which is physically abstract from the everyday London, this is a London that exists physically within London and is separated by boundaries of belief and culture. I wasn't a big fan of the end. I'm not going to go on to it because spoilers but I found it unfulfilling. But from where the pace picks up to the last few chapters I enjoyed this book a lot.
    • 2/5
      I'm sorry to have to say that Kraken was a huge disappointment to me. I like what is commonly referred to as "the new weird" and I sincerely wanted to like Kraken, but after about the first 200+ pages I found that I was prepared to do almost anything to avoid reading it. It's close to 500 pages long and so little actually happens in those pages that I found myself wondering why I was bothering.Don't get me wrong, there's a kind of amazing, whacked-out Wonderland quality about Mieville's London. It's teeming with creatures -- human and otherwise -- who move easily through many layers of alternate reality. They're intriguing and bizarre, and they're what carry this story. But they can only do it for so long. Once their appearances became commonplace, I began to notice all the failings of the narrative: too many characters who do very little to advance the plot, too much to-ing and fro-ing with nothing being accomplished. Too many ??? moments with no real attempt at answering the questions, as if Mieville was channeling the writers of "Lost." Mash-ups can be fun, but they have to produce something which is greater than the sum of the mashed-up bits and Kraken isn't that something. Seriously, if someone edited out about two hundred pages and tightened up what was left this might be a five-star read. As it is, it's rambling and often confused; if Kraken was a film, you could go off and make a sandwich and come back knowing that you really hadn't missed anything critical. China Mieville can do better.
    • 3/5
      A giant squid preserved in formaldehyde has been stolen from the British Museum and, the curator specifically associated with the Architeuthis dux, a.k.a. "Archie" is swept up in the search & (if possible) recovery. This starts out with an "X-Files" vibe and, dips a little into the horror of New Weird; but mostly, it's a discursive plot as the author runs with arcane topics & thoughts. It also doesn't help that the cadence & vocabulary of the British vernacular that Miéville employs is rather abstruse-- not impossible, but without contextual clues as to tone, it's challenging enough. Ultimately, pointless waste of ink.
    • 2/5
      Adult fiction/fantasy. Sort of like Neil Gaiman's American Gods, but with squid. Starts off decently with a mystery, trouble from evil deities, pending apocalypse--and then continues for another 400 pages with odd twists and half-revelations; I got to page 300 or so before giving up on the story.
    • 1/5
      can someone please explain to me why China Mieville of all people painted such a sympathetic and unnuanced portrait of COPS?!
    • 5/5
      Amazing urban fantasy that combines the supernatural, with the normal London city life and with religious sects and beliefs. The main character, whom at the start of the book is just a regular person, is dragged little by little in a hidden city which has new rules, powers and dangers. The intrigue is about a theft of a kraken from a museum, that will end up involving local mobsters, special unit of the police, religious sects and city protectors. The story is very captivating and there are several twists that are unexpected but they all make sense. The characters are believable, and you can sense their struggle to cope with the situations they are put in.
    • 4/5
      There were many days when I needed my sleep that I wished this book was not as compelling as it was.
    • 2/5
      I wanted to like this book. It seemed like it contained the type of weirdness that is right up my alley. I expected to enjoy it, but it was a total let down. The characters in this book are utterly forgettable, and the plot was confusing (possibly because I couldn't be bothered to care about what happened to the characters or possibly because the pacing was erratic). I couldn't even get a sense for how the world worked. This was the first time I have read something by China Mieville and based on this experience I don't think I will him again.
    • 2/5
      The first approximately 70 pages of Kraken were building up to be a plausible and interesting mystery with a unique plot. Unfortunately, after turning another page, the whole book suddenly became utterly ridiculous. Despite complete lack of enjoyment with reading the book from that point, I managed to slog through another 200 pages of it, reaching about half-way before I gave up. Those 200 pages read like the unedited stream of consciousness rantings of someone on LSD. My reading time is worth more than that agony.After looking at blurbs about Mieville's other books it appears supernatural aspects are common in his writing. It's too bad in the case of Kraken at least. In the hands of another writer, the basic plot of Kraken could have been a successful mystery thriller without any of the absurd supernatural charms, hexes, and other rot. The various fanatics of goofy religions could stay, because such people and organizations do exist.
    • 3/5
      Not sure really what to say about the writing in this book. I enjoyed it - but I found the amount of dialect in it off-putting. Something akin to Trainspotting meets the Anubis Gates. Set in London in present time, a museum curator gets caught up in an all out magical war between 2 sets of criminals and their henchman, some special magic police, and various cults, mages, and thugs in an underbelly of London that isn't generally known to exist. It keeps your interest, even though I kept getting pulled out of the text by the dialogue that was more challenging to understand at times than I cared for. The book does take one very nice twist right at the end that I should have seen better, but didn't. I had been recommended to read his books for a while from various sources. I liked this one enough to feel that the recommendation was warranted and that I'd like to read more. So, I guess that's a thumbs-up as anything else.
    • 4/5
      This was my first foray into Mieville, and what a delight it was. He's a great storyteller. I'd heard his prose described as "muscular", and how apt that description is! I look up more definitions when I read his books than I do when reading anyone else. I love the strangeness and oddities of his stories. The slightly Lovecraftian undertone to this novel was wonderful. Utterly unique. He wants to revamp the genre, and he's well on his way. Every book is better than the last.
    • 3/5
      Billy is just another guy who works at a museum making certain squids are okay for bottling. But when the largest specimen goes missing, he suddenly gets roped into a dangerous affair involving a completely different side of London that we have never seen before. And as the magic and mystery of finding the lost specimen continues, a burning apocalypse seems to be sparking in the horizon.

      In Mieville's fashion, the Kraken is a rather long, almost tedious read that contains some of the most interesting and new ideas in recent books. Unfortunately, I couldn't really get myself into this world because there was just too much confusion and lack of love for any of the characters. But I am glad I powered through because the ending conclusion was worth all of it.

      Also, in a sad and morbid way, I do like how Mieville isn't afraid to kill off characters.

      But the thing that is so hard to read about Mieville's books is that there is always so much confusion - but the characters don't actually accomplish that much in the end. There are so many twists and turns, but in the long run... how much of it actually mattered? It leaves a little bit of a annoyed sigh from me at the end when I think about what actually happened in the book. The extended plot twists seem to make so many turns that we lose sight of the actual plot.

      I love Billy and his guardian angel towards the end. I love how this main character actually manages to accomplish something.

      One to thing to note in this book is how blatantly unreligious it is despite how much it talks about religion. Or perhaps because it talks so much about religion.

      All in all, it's a book mildly worth reading because of the concept behind the whole thing. I've never really seen some of these ideas - and new things are quite fascinating.

      Three stars because it was decently interesting. Definitely not more because I wasn't really engrossed and there are too many annoying point where I felt like I could have just dropped the book and not cared. But not less, because I did like the ending and most of the story.
      Recommended for those who already know they like Mieville's writing style. If you don't, I'd suggest you read something else of his first. Also recommended for those who like longer, twisty books that don't have a definite goal or aim.
    • 1/5
      As I am an admirer of Mieville's 'New Crobuzon' trilogy (which I think features some of the most imaginative themes and atmospheric description in recent fantasy writing) I had high expectations of 'Kraken'. The book opened promisingly enough with the theft of a giant squid from the Natural History Museum and hints of a deeper mystery, however my initial interest soon waned. Rather than a latter-day tale of Cthulu-style cultists it appears to be a a kind of sub-Pratchett satire of religious belief (or possibly Darwinism)....very disappointing..
    • 5/5
      When I've finished a book and I miss the characters--that's when I can tell I've read a great book. This was a great book!!
    • 4/5
      4.5 stars, really.
      This tale of a magical, modern-day London and a coming apocalypse is both clever and thoughtful. I loved it. However, while it delighted me, I can see that it probably has a limited audience. It's rife with pop culture references. Pop culture references in literature usually annoy me, however, in this book they had what I can only imagine is the usual intended effect: the feeling that "he's writing this just for ME!" Tintin and Star Trek, Peter Sotos and G.G. Allin, Ursula LeGuin and Michael Moorcock... if you've got no idea about any of that, you're going to miss a lot. I also fit into the sub-group of readers who are highly cynical of religion, but fascinated by the operations of belief systems. I love the idea of the interstitial, of hidden streets and occult knowledge. Maps. Arcane and ancient relics. Books. Magic. Science. Oceans. etc. ME!
      He's aiming at a specific age group, and a particular cultural milieu to comment on, and it's on-target.
      It's quite different from most of Mieville's other books, more like Un Lun Dun than anything. At times, it reminded me quite a lot of Neil Gaiman (think 'Neverwhere')- but a much nastier, more disturbing Gaiman; one who pulls no punches.

      Addendum: It's taken me a bit to put my finger on this. Something Mieville does astoundingly well in this book is something I'm not sure I've ever really seen done well before. You know those nightmares/dreams where something OUGHT to be splendiforous and magnificent - but yet it's not? It's almost wonderful - but something isn't quite right, making it either banal, terrifying, or just wrong? The protagonist, Billy, has one of those dreams in the book, and the plot of the book follows that concept as well. It's effectively disturbing. I feel I'm left with the same feeling that one of those dreams gives me.
    • 4/5
      This was a book from my 2015 SantaThing - and it was a good choice. First, its actually a fairly typical Urban Fantasy book, but Mieville manages to make the genre completely his own - No odd romance, no super incompetent characters, no overly competent hero types - it manages to stay human in a very odd world.The back story of this book makes sense, the world is well rounded. London is a as much a character of this book as the others. I especially liked the incorporal Union Leader of the familiars, Wati.
    • 3/5
      Finally! I picked this book up and put it down so many times I lost track. I've been having a terrible time concentrating lately, and I know people who thought this book was amazing, but I was happy to just get through it. So it didn't work for me, but I'm mostly chalking that up to my tired, cranky, stressed state of mind.