Summerbook #7: Kraken

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 Kraken, by China Mieville

Billy Harrow, inoffensive curator of molluscs, is leading a tour around the Natural History Museum in London.  His prize showpiece is the preserved giant squid in the Darwin Room -- but it is vanished, tank, preservative, and all.  How could a gigantic specimen, larger than the door itself, simply disappear?  And then Billy is thrown out of his quiet, rational life into the world of London's underground cults, and all the  knackers, criminals, and strange creatures that go with them.  The end of the world is on its way, and nobody knows how to stop it.  , 

The Church of God Kraken is convinced Billy is the prophet to solve their problems.  A terrifying murderous duo is on his track, and so is the police department that works on cultic crimes.  A dead sorcerer is perhaps back in the game? and his rival, a living Tattoo on a poor schlub's back, is determined to get there first.  Everyone wants the kraken but nobody is sure why, and the road to finding out is an extremely dangerous one.  Billy himself is practically helpless, but luckily he has one friend in this new world, Dane the exiled Krakenist, and so off they go into the underground.

China Mieville is slightly grim and gritty for my taste, but I sure enjoy his imagination.  This is the second book I'm read by him, and both are extravagantly strange.  Good stuff.

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