King Rat | China Mieville
King Rat is a good book.
A fucking fantastic beginning for China.
He's an intelligent writer, who calls for an intelligent reader, his prose are rich, and this was only his first book.
The truth of it though, is that his story, although well written, emotional and action-packed, didn’t stay with me. I found his main hard to relate to? The biggest disappointment for me was totally personal - King Rat didn’t put me on the streets of anywhere in London; it didn’t share any secrets with me or send me down any causeways I might not have otherwise meandered down, and I really wanted that - why else would I pack it with me?
But how the fuck was China to know that I needed him to enhance my trip to London?
Yea, that’s not a tall order at all.
I’ll fuck off now.
Anyone who is a fan of Neverwhere should pick up King Rat – the two complement each other, King Rat could almost be read like a world extended of Neverwhere. Although not as magical and vast, it is darker, grittier, as any story about rat people populating a London not visible to us mere mortals should be.
** Sidenote - going through all the underground tunnels to the platforms - especially during rush hour - you do end up feeling like a rat scurrying through the long narrow sewers - my bet is China wrote what he knew - Parties and the London Underground.
