King Rat

By China Miéville

King Rat blends eerie fairy tale and contemporary urban fantasy in China Miéville's fantastical debut.

Something is stirring in London's dark, stamping out its territory in brickdust and blood. Something has murdered Saul's father, and left Saul to pay for the crime.

But a shadow from the urban waste breaks into his prison cell and leads him to freedom. A shadow called King Rat.

In the night-land behind London's façade, in sewers and slums and rotting dead spaces, Saul must learn his true nature.

Grotesque murders rock the city like a curse. Mysterious forces prepare for a showdown. With Drum and Bass pounding the backstreets, Saul confronts his bizarre inheritance - in the badlands of South London, in the heart of darkness, at the gathering of the Junglist Massive.

Like the DJ says: 'Time for the Badman.'

• Language: English
• Publisher: Pan Macmillan
• Release date: Sep 4, 2008
• ISBN: 9780330466172

China Miéville

China Miéville lives and works in London. He is three-time winner of the prestigious Arthur C. Clarke Award and has also won the British Fantasy Award twice. The City & The City, an existential thriller, was published to dazzling critical acclaim and drew comparison with the works of Kafka and Orwell and Philip K. Dick. His novel Embassytown was a first and widely praised foray into science fiction.

Reviews for King Rat

[jonfaith · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

The radio existed to communicate. But here it was failing, it had gone rogue, it had forgotten its purpose like the piano, and the people could not reclaim the city.

A few weeks ago I listened to a London Review podcast of Miéville
reading a story about the immolation of animals. It was certainly the New Weird, the images clung to me, no doubt enhanced by his nuanced delivery. Miéville said he found the story a child of Austerity. I liked that. I suppose a YA audience would like the milieu of King Rat, whereas I did not. I hated the book. It is lad lit expressing daddy issues. It is a clumsy reworking of a few myths with the virtual art of Drum and Bass spot-welded on board to provide urban edge. I read this as a part of a group read but I was afraid to spoil the collective mood with my face-palming and kvetching. I expected much more from that strangely talented author.

[laurenbdavis · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

This urban grunge fantasy is Mieville's debut novel and the first of his works I've read. This is a riff on the Pied Piper of Hamlin and is imaginative and fast-paced. The language is delightful as is the imagery. The plot, however, is entirely predictable and there is one clear flaw in the plot, having to do with the protagonist's ability to resist the Rat Catcher's tune when no one else can. Still, it's a fun and fast read, and shows Mieville's developing talent. I'll read more of his work.

[questbird · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Saul Garamond's father dies and he finds himself in a shadow London where he is half-rat, half-man, and hunted by a mysterious Piper. Mièville relishes the wastegrounds and unloved places of London, which form the backdrop to this tale.

[altheaann · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

A quicker read than Mieville's later books - less complex, but has a great tone and feel... The Pied Piper of Hamelin meets "Neverwhere"...

[ragwaine · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Mieville is one of my top 5 authors but almost entirely because of his Bas-Lag novels. The others I've found cool and fun but not as good. This one was no exception. It was dark, gritty, disgusting, violent and original but not totally my kind of thing. I loved Lop Lop.I didn't fully understand the entire music angle until the end so it felt like it was just added because he was into that kind of music (Jungle). I was also never sure how Anansi's powers worked.

[tenaciousreader · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

King Rat is festering with atmosphere and drowns you in a cacophony of Jungle Bass and Drum. It takes you to London’s underside, it’s stinking bowels, and gives life to the world below. It does all this in a very good way. I swear. King Rat is my first taste of Mieville and I’m still not sure if it was the best place for me to start, but it certainly isn’t a bad place to start. This is his debut novel and does not seem to be as widely read or recommended. I have also heard that it is a bit different from the rest of his novels. Since I obviously have not read the others, I can’t comment on that myself. But I can share what I thought of King Rat.My largest comment is that I love his atmospheric descriptions. You could just feel the malodorous sludge coagulating and dripping, see the colors and wonders (and horrors) of the city of London, and most importantly, you could hear and feel and practically live the rhythms of the Jungle Bass and Drum music that is prominently featured in the story. Within all of this (and keep in mind, his descriptions work way better than my feeble attempts), I could see brilliance that I am sure is carried over to his other works. In these descriptions, I could easily understand the fan base he has acquired.Now, before anything else, I want to be clear that for a first novel, this really is a great debut. However, I also felt at times some of his scenes drug on for entirely too long. There is a bike ride that is so detailed I think it would put my GPS turn-by-turn directions to shame for being so simple and minimalistic. I think every turn and street name needed was in the book in addition to what felt like an inordinate number of landmarks along the way. It was not a huge deal, but it did pull me out of the story a bit, it seemed to go beyond what was a descriptive setting to an info dump of how to get from point X to point Y in London and everything you might see in between.I also found the accent/dialogue from one of the characters (Anansi) a bit grating and kind of hard to read. I think if I was familiar with the accent he was trying to get across, it would have flowed much better, but since I wasn’t it just read very awkward. Luckily, he did not have much to say. And sometimes, it was short, and I didn’t have a problem. But if he had a paragraph worth of dialogue, chances are, I had to slow down my reading, and would get pulled out a bit to wonder what he was really supposed to sound like versus my awkward attempt at it. But, minor complaint. Really.So, while I didn’t find this book without faults (at least for me as a reader), it was certainly still a positive reading experience. If your in the mood to explore the world below London (and have already read Neverwhere by Neil Gaiman), then definitely give this one try. Especially if you enjoy an atmospheric, descriptive book.

[jescat-1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Let’s head back to London again, where all the best magic hides in its gritty underbelly. Saul Garamond is wrongly imprisoned for the death of his father, but is released by a mysterious stranger who claims to be the king of rats. He tells Saul that he is half-rat on his mother’s side, and that his father was killed by the Rat Catcher who can make rats dance to his music, and wants Saul dead because he can resist, being half-human. Drum n bass music, cockney rhyming slang and lush descriptions of London provide edgy details for this updated version of the Pied Piper of Hamelin.

[watty_1 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Decent early Mieville, showing the germ of what would become the species of Bas-Lag. Tries a little too hard in places, especially with the whole jungle / drum 'n' bass scene, and sometimes you can perceive the ghost of James Herbert in there, but overall enjoyable and entertaining.

[schant-1 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Nowhere near the wild imagination of his later works but still better than most urban fantasy out there.

[finalcut_1 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

This book takes place in present day London and for that reason alone I got a kick out of it because I happened to be in London as I read it. I hadn't been in London since I was five so it was kind of cool to see bits and pieces of London by day and then read about Saul and King rat exploring those very same locales, albeit from a far different perspective, at night. In fact, at one point, as I was reading in my hotel room on High Holborn, Saul and King Rat ran right past my window in the book (page 98). That was pretty cool.

[librarybrandy · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Some time back, I read an essay (or website, or something; it was a long time ago) about the human propensity toward "it's like ... but not" comparisons. We need to compare everything against others of its type; nothing can be evaluated in a vacuum.

With that in mind, King Rat is like Neverwhere, but not. It's like War For the Oaks, but not. It's like so much gritty urban fantasy, but still brings its own flavor. It's got the other-world-a-half-step-from-this-one motif, it's got the musician threads, it's got the slacker protagonist suddenly in a position of power and/or leadership. Despite all this, it doesn't feel like a knock-off or in any way derivative. It's a dark, engrossing story, with excellent pacing and good character development. There are a few instances of Cockney rhyming slang, which I just can't make any sense of, but they're not that frequent and they don't detract.

[ahs7wolfy · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Début novel from China Miéville takes the reader on a dark fairy tale of a story. Neverwhere crossed with the Brother's Grimm if you will with a setting of London's underground both physically and metaphorically speaking. Saul wakes up to the police hammering at his door and is immediately treated like a criminal upon their entry. What's he supposed to have done? Just the small matter of killing his father! Broken out of jail by a mysterious figure who claims to be king of the rats as well as being Saul's uncle, he is taken in and has his mysterious heritage explained to him as well as the fact that someone wants him dead. As Saul's abilities begin to burgeon he finds out that he wasn't rescued for purely sentimental reasons after all and his uncle wants to use him as a weapon against an old adversary and to win back the respect of his disaffected subjects.The vivid pictures that the author paints bring to life a darker and more mysterious London as we clamber over the rooftops and through the sewers with a drum and bass soundtrack playing in our ears. I'm sure a previous knowledge of that particular music scene would add greatly to the story's appreciation but unfortunately it's one that passed me by. It's not something that detracts from the narrative though so don't be put off with that little snippet. Those with a nervous disposition may however be deterred by some of the more gruesome scenes or disturbing events in the book (especially the climactic scene). Excellent first novel that should be enjoyed for what it is and not compared too critically with the author's later works.

[gmehn_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Good, solid first effort.

[libra500 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

A sequel to the Pied Piper of Hamelin, only set in London's Drum and Bass scene. Good fun, nice to see Shy FX get a namecheck! Reminded me of Deadmeat, by Q, but i guess that is showing my age...

[pghdragonman · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

If China Mieville had written only King Rat and had not gone on to write Perdido Street Station, he might have become known as one of those enigmatic, brilliant, reclusive one hit wonder authors. King Rat is good enough that if he had not written anything else, his place in the pantheon of great fantasy writers would have been assured. I am also very glad that there is more to read by China Mieville and he is not a one hit wonder.This King Rat bears more resemblance to Shakespeare’s King Lear, with Mieville’s deep probing of familial relationships and characters going mad, than the Clavell novel of the same name. Mieville’s King Rat is a loose modernized sequel to the classic Pied Piper of Hamlin story, wherein the Rat Catcher is still around and is looking for the One That Got Away.The story is modernized by being set in a contemporary London and an emphasis on contemporary club music that is integral to the plot. The Pied Piper is named Peter and this name kept nibbling at me in relation to obscure music. Delving back into my disc collection, I came up with an obscure jazz disc called Wireless with lots of flute and a track spoofing the Pied Piper story. One of the musicians credited on the album is Peter York, a former member of the Spencer Davis Group. The liner notes are in German, a language I do not read well enough to decipher if Peter York is the flutist, but with China Mieville’s apparent knowledge of music, it is entirely possible there is a connection here.As a fantasy, this falls into the same realm as Gaiman’s Neverwhere: Urban Fantasy. The action takes place in this world’s London, but in places that are largely unknown, unlooked for or over looked. I’ve not been to London, but having the story set in a real city, I was drawn that much more deeply into the tale. In classic fairy tale fashion, the final showdown between good and evil is an epic battle. You think you know there was a decisive victory, but just enough doubt is left that you keep wondering if the boogey man will jump out at you some time in the future.I am going for a full five stars on this. The contemporary plot makes the reading that much more enjoyable, the dynamics between the characters and the pure joy of the language all push this into the ground breaking category for me.

[5eva5 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

What a bizarre mix of demented fairly tale and urban suspense. Although it starts off as a somewhat ordinary mystery novel, it soon veers off into a fantastic, albeit quite gruesome, story about an ancient struggle come to its fruition in modern-day (ground, air, and downbelow) London. Not only does the plot rip you along on a mad and furious ride, but Miéville's vernacular is simply breathtaking. He can really somersault his vocabulary to fit the mood and meaning of his text, and then throw in an array of Cockney rhyming slang to make the image complete. I am in awe.

[llasram_1 · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

Obviously a first/early novel, but obviously Miéville all the same. The setting requires a bit more suspension of disbelief than his later works, but there are a few scenes of solid New Weird payoff.

[sonyaseattle · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

I'm really enjoying Miéville's first book – it's one of his most readable. I've read most of his other novels, and you can draw a clean line between this one and, say, The City and The City. The environment is a major character: rough, dirty streets and sewers, and in them, a sort of fairy tale takes place. The kid who meets the Rat King and his friends sounds like a child's story, but it's much more interesting than that.

[philotera_1 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

I read this book imagining the graphic novel it was meant to be. From the first page, the text and description felt like it should be framed. The letters angled up in corners, the action outlined in thick black. It's rare to find a book so visual.King Rat, a dark revisiting of the Pied Piper, includes the rat king as well as several other mythic characters: Anansi the spider king. Loplop the bird king. And the halfbreed man who causes all the trouble. The setting in modern London's dreary streets, thumping with Drum and Bass, is key to the Piper's plans.Not a pleasant book. People die in extremely nasty ways. No one is very nice. The humans aren't really important, and so there's a bit of a difficulty at times in hanging on to a character (who survives for long) that you can become attached to. Still, it's quick read and I found it lots of fun (in a dark and nasty sort of way) to visit this reimagining of a fairy tale that always struck me as far less pleasant than the illustrations that accompanied it in my children's fairy tale book.

[wandering_star_1 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Early one morning, Saul is woken by the heavy boots of policemen in his house, there to take him in for questioning regarding the mysterious death of his father (who has jumped, or been hurled, through the front window). In the police cell, he feels that his life has already descended into his worst nightmare, but then a mysterious stranger appears in his cell. King Rat is boastful and menacing ('I know when your ships are sinking'), but he springs Saul and introduces him to a parallel world alongside the London that he has always known. Saul is exhilarated at first, but soon it becomes clear that King Rat's grand plan is to use him in a complicated and dangerous act of revenge, and he realises that nowhere is safe for him any more.There are several good things about this book. I love the Dickensian/cockney mashup of the way King Rat speaks: 'By a river we found us a town, not too gentry a gaff, mind, but with silos that fair creaked at the seams'. I like how so much of the book is set in the unprepossessing suburbs on London - places that only people will live in the city will know. The atmosphere is just menacing and horrible enough. And the story is inventive.I wasn't too keen, though, on the scenes set in the human London - this was where the book felt more like a first novel. Saul's mates are all really into jungle music (it is the early '90s, after all) and talk much too much about how important it is in their lives, and of course how rubbish all the other sub-genres of music are. This was kind of boring, and also made the book feel very dated.

[briandarvell_1 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Over the past years I've heard plenty a good thing about China Mieville and his novels. Most popular seems to be his Perdido Street Station yet, as I usually do, I picked Mr Mieville's first novel to begin with: King Rat.Overall I was disappointed with this offering but I can see how this being his first novel it would be unfair to gauge all of his writing solely by this book. There were some strong scenes in the story and the imaginative quality showed potential but I was most aggravated by the style of writing. The many long and over-detailed descriptions found in this book were boring and held little meaning to me. All they did was make me frustrated. It seems that every third sentence had italics on some word and the relationship between the main character and his "mentor" started interesting but fumbled into strangeness about one-third of the way into the story. The characterizations in general I found rather dull and I had trouble actually believing I was reading about a London I know.I would be happy to give Perdido Street Station a try but I would not recommend this novel to fantasy readers. There are many better urban fantasy novels to read.

[faganjc · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

I wish I hadn't known this was Mieville's first novel, because I can't tell if my opinions were unfairly influenced. For example, I could say, "For a first novel, it's pretty good" or, "Some of the seeds of Mieville's later greatness can be found here." As with The City and The City, I am amazed at Mieville's ability to write something impossible and make it seem inconsequential. He's a rat AND a man, and all the problems you might think of such a person going through life with such a double role are nonexistent. And, without any magical explanations. Mieville just writes it into being. Reminded me of the Secret Life of Moscow and Neverwhere. I found the overall end of the book fine, but the past few paragraphs seemed tacked on and didn't have enough support from the rest of the book.

[rebeccaann_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Saul's father has been murdered and he's been framed as the murderer. When he is sprung from jail by a mysterious stranger claiming to be both a rat and his uncle, the mystery increases. And when a stranger arrives playing a flute that can control anyone who hears it, that's when Saul knows he's in way over his head.I really enjoyed this book. It was fascinating to read an urban fantasy take on the Pied Piper legend. This was dark and gritty with quite a few terrifying scenes and I never found the book short of action. I never wanted to put the book down, even when my eyes were drooping from exhaustion.The only part I didn't like about the book was it quite easy to predict the ending. I figured out fairly early what the Piper was going to do to attempt to defeat Saul. This predictability was more than countered by the high energy and horribleness of the final battle. And the scene with the children (that's all I'm going to say to avoid spoilers) when the wall split open almost made me cry.All in all, I highly recommend this book if you have a strong stomach ;-)

[sarah_rubyred · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

You can just imagine China and his mates out at a Jungle club night dancing like crazy and afterwards imagining how the Pied Piper could use that rhythmic music to control the population. Briliiant. I'm a Londoner and this is my town.

[joshenglish_1 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

King Rat was a fast read, but once the Pied Piper of Hamelin story clarified, it ran along rather predictably. The book does delve into the world clearly enough, and takes the reader into the world of Drum and Bass music sympathetically.

[grabbingsand · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

It could be argued effectively that King Rat is little more than a retelling of Neil Gaiman's Neverwhere, only much darker and without the clever repurposing of Tube station names. And yet, I enjoyed it just as much as most anything Gaiman -- my favorite living author -- has done. Why? Good question. (Maybe it was because I was on vacation in London at the time?)

[davidmanheim · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Well, as part of my documented addiction to books, I was looking at an interview with Neal Stephenson, on Slashdot, and he listed the books he was reading. One of them that I noticed (After S. Agnon, which was cool, since I read some stuff in the original by him in Ulpan,) was "King Rat", by China Mieville. Wow. In addition to being an interesting book, it is amazingly well written in the literary sense, with absolutely stunning prose that almost, but not quite, overwhelms the dramatic tension and makes one slow down to savour it.In any case, the book was definitely a top ten for the year, if not top three. I would recommend it to anyone who enjoys fantasy (or Science Fiction, at least in the Neal Stephenson sense of the phrase.) The ideas were very new, and the plot was both compelling and interesting. Five thumbs up.

[angharad_reads · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Not as good as Bas Lag. Wanted to be American Gods Neverwhere. Maybe it was, but it seemed – I don't know – thinner?

[edwardlally · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Can the half man half rat save London's funky underground scene from the Pied Piper? Of course he can. An imaginative story, but not great literature.