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Miéville’s strength and one reason for his quick rise to popularity is his writing style. His prose is amazing for someone that has written things that can be seen as science fiction. Sci-fi authors are usually scientists by profession or at heart, and sometimes lack strong writing skills. It doesn’t take long in reading “Perdido Street Station” before you realize how good Miéville is. With “King Rat” that skill is there, but not as good. At times it seems like he is trying to hard. Mind you, it is still better then most writers can hope for. Plus I read his award winning and critically acclaimed book, then went back and read his first offering. It is easier to point out flaws when you read someone’s scope of work backwards.
The storyline itself is pretty good. But again I was suffering from comparing it to other works I had read. It takes place in the London underground, acting like another society that exists beyond the normal one we see. I had read “Neverwhere” by Neil Gaiman which uses this basis as well. “King Rat” is not as dense as “Neverwhere”, and I had a hard time putting that out of mind. Which is a shame, because the book is good. There is the addition of using folklore background, pulling these into London today, and he pulls it off quite well. But again, on a lesser level compared to his later work and that of Gaiman’s.
The main character Saul Garamond comes home to visit his father. They have not gotten along almost all his life, so he heads straight to his old room instead of saying hello and good night. The next morning he is woken up by the police demanding entrance to the apartment. His father is dead, laying out in front of the building, having been thrown out the window. Saul is taken into custody, but is sprung by King Rat. But why? That’s where the story goes.
Since the novel is a bit shorter, it didn’t drag too much at all. Though at times it was hard to figure where Miéville was taking us. He pulls it all together, and it makes in enjoyable to read, though I wasn’t overly impressed (nothing like being ambiguous, eh?). The London slang he used sometimes got in the way. Especially when King Rat is explaining the past to Saul. But the strength of this book was the ending. Sides ally together to defeat a common foe, but these allies only exist there. Things are strained through out the story, and get worse as they go. In the end there are no “group hugs” here showing that everything works out in the end. Which was refreshing.
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