King Rat is a contemporary urban Fantasy which sort of sees the Pied Piper of Hamelin story from the viewpoint of the rats. It also brings in Drum and Bass music and the culture based on it. Miéville was interviewed on GLR on 24 March 2000 (about his new novel Perdido Street Station); the interviewer, Robert Elms (who should really know better) admitted at first off that he disses Science Fiction. Miéville: "that's because people's perception of Science Fiction is via tacky media SF and not literature, besides, my books aren't Science Fiction, they're Fantasy". Elms: "my perception of Fantasy is crap big-trilogy Fantasy." Miéville: "that's a bit like saying you hate romance because of Mills and Boon, and ignoring that Wuthering Heights and Jane Eyre are romances." He describes what he writes as Weird Fiction, suggests Mervyn Peake as a main influence and true enough, the one reference to Gormenghast in King Rat suggests Gormenghast as a huge structure whose edges are indeterminate; far more what Peake actually described than the Gothic pile which may be the popular perception. [later note - 'structure whose edges are indeterminate' is a recurring theme in my own work. Wonder where I got it from?]