King Rat

Published May 1, 2011 by Pan Publishing.

ISBN:
978-0-330-53421-5
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4 stars (35 reviews)

A London man is enrolled by the King of Rats to assassinate the Pied Piper of Hamelin who dethroned him. The man is Saul, whose rat mother joined humanity, making him immune to the piper's call. In his rat persona Saul eats garbage and climbs walls.

7 editions

reviewed King Rat by China Miéville

Accidentally finished it in one day

4 stars

A darker, more modern sequel to a classic fairytale, but with drum n' bass, set in the late 90s in London. I'm less familiar with London, but loved all the lovely descriptions of its personality and architecture. It has its own personality. All the characters are fleshed out, flawed, and feel like they have their own stories which would easily fill a few other novels.

Review of 'King Rat' on 'Goodreads'

4 stars

Very good. China leads on a drum and bass exploration of the London underworld. If you've read Neverwhere, you'll get strong echoes of it throughout, but this is darker and makes some hard turns from the story you might expect.

It's also more obvious that this is early writing from China - there are some unfired checkov's guns, some cheats at the very end, but overall it's a great book.

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