King Rat (Paperback)

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Review
China Mieville makes a startling debut in King Rat. Sci-fi and fantasy are often unfairly ignored by 'serious' critics, but when a first novel as good as this one appears it deserves to transcend all genre labels. Set in a dark London underworld of back alleys, rooftops and underground chambers, the human participants in this strange tale are drawn from the club culture of hip-hop and jungle music. Saul is dragged willy-nilly into this world when his father is brutally murdered and he is the main suspect. Birds and spiders have their semi-human kings, so do rats - and he is the heir. And who should be the principal enemy of these kings but the Pied Piper, who is taking an altogether ungodly interest in multi-tracking and jungle rap. Mieville's piper becomes a memorable figure of modern malevolence as he battles with the city's animal kingdoms and their shaman kings - the man-shaped monarchs of the birds, spiders and rats of London. Mieville's book is perhaps, not especially original, but it has endless powerful climaxes and some fabulous convolutions of plot. (Kirkus UK)

Distinctive grunge fantasy from a British newcomer. Saul Garamond, bewilderingly arrested for the murder of his father, is spirited out of jail by an oddball who claims to be the King of the Rats. Saul's mother, apparently, was King Rat's sister. She fled rat-kind, preferring to join humanity, and married Saul's father. As King Rat conducts him through London's reeking underbelly, Saul finds latent rat-abilities stirring: he can eat garbage, move soundlessly and unseen, squeeze through impossibly tiny openings, and climb vertical walls. One individual alone daunts King Rat: the Piper of Hamelin, who, playing his flute, can force all rats, even King Rat, to dance to his tune. The Piper murdered Saul's father, mistaking him for Saul. But why? Saul, being half-rat, half-human, is immune to the Piper's summons - so the Piper must kill him. King Rat was the sole survivor of the debacle at Hamelin, and the rats have refused to obey him since. Saul encounters and barely escapes the stronger, quicker Piper, but he does learn that King Rat lied: he raped Saul's mother, and he is Saul's father. (Problem is, Saul's therefore all rat - so why is he immune to the Piper's call?) Having enslaved Saul's musician friends Natasha and Fabian, the Piper forces them to record new and irresistible music - and challenges Saul and King Rat to a showdown. Provided you can ignore the troublesome flaw: a bold, pounding, down-and-dirty debut. A working knowledge of Cockney rhyming slang helps. (Kirkus Reviews)

Product Description
Dazed and confused in a cell, and charged with the killing of his father, Saul is visited by King Rat who leads him on a roof-top escape route. Saul finds he is half-rat himself, and having met Anansi, Lord of the Spiders, and Loplop, Bird Superior, he learns of the legendary Piper of Hamelin.

15 Reviews 5 star:  (4) 4 star:  (4) 3 star:  (6) 2 star:  (1) 1 star:    (0)           Average Customer Review 3.7 out of 5 stars (15 customer reviews)		Share your thoughts with other customers: Create your own review
Most Helpful Customer Reviews   5 of 5 people found the following review helpful: 3.0 out of 5 stars Unusual, but not his best, 27 Jul 2001 By  "oamazonka" - See all my reviews This review is from: King Rat (Paperback) What you can't deny Mr Mieville is his talent in having exuberant fantasy and coming with the most original ideas possible. In this book he blends persuasively urban folklore, fairytale characters, modern rhythms and poetry of London dehumanized city hectic. The plot is rather simplistic, but has enough of little twists and grisly descriptions. However, the drawls of dialects his characters use are hardly intelligible sometimes, and detailed descriptions of Jungle music may bore you (if you're not the fan). A promising "try of the pen", but to enjoy China Mieville's talent to the last drop, read the superb Perdido Train Station (completely different in plot and settings)! Comment Comment | Permalink | Was this review helpful to you? Yes No (Report this)   5 of 5 people found the following review helpful: 5.0 out of 5 stars Brilliant!, 15 Sep 2000 By  Matthew Ingrouille "M" (Vernon, BC, British Columbia Canada) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)    Absolutely amazing story-telling. After reading Perdido Street Station I decided to backtrack to Mr. Meiville's first book. I wasn't disappointed. He spins a web of adventure and spans the imagination. I'll be definately keeping an eye on this man's future work. Comment Comment | Permalink | Was this review helpful to you? Yes No (Report this)   17 of 20 people found the following review helpful: 3.0 out of 5 stars Deep in the Dark, 17 Mar 2003 By  Patrick Shepherd "hyperpat" (San Jose, CA USA) - See all my reviews (TOP 50 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)    This review is from: King Rat (Paperback) For all the many words and apt phrases that Mieville uses, there may be only one word that describes Mieville's works: dark. All of his novels to date have this sense of being written at the bottom of a dank, odiferous, and pitch-black well, to where the tiny bits of color that he allows shine through like the sun after a cloudburst. For this, his first work, he confines himself to the comparatively mundane setting of underground London, underground in both the physical and slang senses of the word, as we follow the story of Saul Garamond, heir apparent to the King Rat of Pied Piper fame. From the sewers to the rifling of garbage heaps for dinner, Mieville delights in offending your hygienic senses while enticing you with glimpses of a musical sub-culture that is just as strange to the average person as the rarified air of sub-atomic research. Bringing the characters of the ancient fairy tale to life is no small task, and Mieville succeeds admirably in the persons of King Rat and the Pied Piper himself. The Pied Piper comes across as a truly sadistic being, as shown by his actions, though at one point he specifically denies that characterization, while King Rat is easily identified with as the whining, downtrodden person who can never quite reach his goal of revenge. Their conflict is very real and very understandable, couched in a thousand years of remembrances of wrongs done, and is an effective mirror of all too many human interactions. What is not so well crafted is the character of Saul. His reactions to the impossibility of the reality of King Rat, or to the murder of his father, come across as much too accepting, reactions that no normal person would have. But it is even hard to judge just how close to normal Saul is, as his background, his emotional makeup, his normal life are only sketched in before being plunged into the midnight realm of rats and sewers. The emotional impact of this book would have been greatly enhanced had Saul been given much more development prior to the start of the fairy-tale action. The secondary characters are also given short shrift, and as these characters have important roles to play in the final outcome, this once again subtracts from the full power this story could have had. For a first novel, this is excellent, already showing signs of Mieville’s imposing command of the English language to evoke mood and feelings, but the necessary cohesiveness between story and character that would make this a great novel is lacking. Still a very entertaining read, worth the time and effort, and very much recommended before tackling his later works of Perdido Street Station and The Scar, where he shows how much more he can accomplish. --- Reviewed by Patrick Shepherd (hyperpat) Comment Comment | Permalink | Was this review helpful to you? Yes No (Report this) Share your thoughts with other customers: Create your own review › See all 15 customer reviews...		Ad feedback   Most Recent Customer Reviews 4.0 out of 5 stars My 100-word book review First novel by inventive left-wing fantasy author China Mieville, in which young Saul Garamond comes to terms with his true identity as a half-rat superhero, after the murder of... Read more Published on 7 Mar 2006 by A. J. Cull 4.0 out of 5 stars Mieville's debut novel Saul returns home to his communist father’s tower block flat. Not wishing to confront the oddly-strained relationship he has with his father he goes straight to bed, only to... Read more Published on 20 Feb 2006 by Rod Williams 4.0 out of 5 stars My life as a rat… This novel follows the antics of a man who discovers he is half-rat, as he is thrust by his heritage into a hidden war in the midst of London. Read more Published on 1 Jun 2003 by dogbarkssome 3.0 out of 5 stars Good start, but not his best... Just finished reading King Rat, and I have to agree with most of the other reviews - the ideas are certainly inventive, points awarded for use of myth/fairytale in combination... Read more Published on 31 Dec 2002 by Mr. J. Sam-La Rose 3.0 out of 5 stars We know he's capable of more than this Really not a patch on Perdido Street Station - but at least this is earlier so we can assume he's getting into his stride rather than being a one-trick pony going downhill fast... Read more Published on 18 Aug 2001 5.0 out of 5 stars Praise for a new master. China Mieville has a talent with words that I can't even find words for. I was simply astonished from the first page. Read more Published on 8 May 2001 3.0 out of 5 stars Interesting ideas held in a strait jacket China Mieville is quite frighteningly inventive, and the synthesis of myth (used in the inclusive sense) and culture in King Rat is interesting, but I found that the scale of the... Read more Published on 16 Oct 2000 4.0 out of 5 stars Excellent debut novel A very good book and deserves a place on a fantasy lovers bookshelf. This novel has compelled me to read future Mieville novels and I am really looking forward to Mieville's... Read more Published on 25 Mar 2000 3.0 out of 5 stars An unusual blend of fairy tale and horror For a new writer he's very good. The story has a very strange but intriging plot. I wish he wouldn't keep writing about the rhythm of Jungle music, how the notes soar and dive and... Read more Published on 24 Feb 2000 5.0 out of 5 stars A fresh infusion of new blood Try to remember all the nursery rhymes and stories you used to know when you were very young; The Pied Piper of Hamlin, Incy Wincy Spider, etc. Read more Published on 7 Feb 2000 by Mr. C. Barker Search Customer Reviews Only search this product's reviews › See all 15 customer reviews...

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