China Miéville – författare

Den unga studenten Mahalia Geary hittas brutalt mördad i den förfallna staden Besźel, någonstans i utkanten av Europa. När inspektör Tyador Borlú tar sig an fallet ser det först ut som ett rutinfall. Men i Besźel, och dess modernare tvillingstad Ul Qoma, är inget vad det först verkar vara. Städerna är belägna på till största del samma yta och delar vägar, hus och invånare. Men de är ändå två helt separata städer och dess befolkning gör sitt bästa för att inte se den andra staden. Över allting svävar en hemlig osynlig makt som håller medborgarna i schack och hindrar dem från att göra intrång i den andra staden. Spåren leder snart till en märklig och våldsam värld fylld av konspirationer och politiska motsättningar. För att lösa fallet måste Borlú samarbeta med polisen i Ul Qoma, den enda stad i världen som är lika märklig som hans egen, och resa över en gräns som inte liknar någon annan. VINNARE AV ARTHUR C. CLARKE AWARD! VINNARE AV WORLD FANTASY AWARD! VINNARE AV HUGO AWARD! VINNARE AV LOCUS AWARD! China Tom Miéville föddes i Norwich, Storbritannien, den 6 september 1972 och växte upp i Willesden i nordvästra London. Han är författare, akademiker och politisk aktivist. Hans böcker beskrivs ofta som ”weird fiction” och har vunnit flera prestigefulla utmärkelser, bland annat Arthur C. Clarke Award (tre gånger), British Fantasy Award (två gånger), Locus Award (två gånger), Hugo Award och World Fantasy Award. Staden & Staden (The City & The City), en existentiell thriller, fick fantastiska recensioner och jämförs med verk av Kafka, Orwell och Philip K. Dick. China Miéville bor och arbetar i London.

Winner of the Arthur C. Clarke Award for Best NovelWinner of the August Derleth Award for Best NovelPerdido Street Station is an imaginative urban fantasy thriller and the first of China Miéville's novels set in the sprawling world of Bas-Lag.The metropolis of New Crobuzon sprawls at the centre of its own bewildering world. Humans and mutants linger in the gloom beneath its chimneys, where the rivers are sluggish with unnatural effluent, and factories and foundries pound into the night.For more than a thousand years, the parliament and its brutal militia have ruled over a vast array of workers and artists, spies, magicians, junkies and whores. Now a stranger has come, with a pocketful of gold and an impossible demand, and inadvertently something unthinkable is released. Soon the city is gripped by an alien terror – and the fate of millions depends on a clutch of outcasts on the run from lawmakers and crime-lords alike.The urban nightscape becomes a hunting ground as battles rage in the shadows of bizarre buildings. And a reckoning is due at the city's heart, in the vast edifice of Perdido Street Station. It is too late to escape.Praise for China Miéville:‘You can’t talk about Miéville without using the word “brilliant”’ – Ursula K. Le Guin‘One of the most interesting and freakishly gifted writers of his generation’ – The Daily Telegraph‘As intelligent as he is original’ – The Guardian‘The names of Kafka and Orwell tend to be invoked too easily for anything a bit out of the ordinary, but in this case they are worthy comparisons’ – The TimesPerdido Street Station is the first of China Miéville's novels set in Bas-Lag. For more, read The Scar and Iron Council.

In February of 1917 Russia was a backward, autocratic monarchy, mired in an unpopular war; by October, after not one but two revolutions, it had become the world's first workers' state, straining to be at the vanguard of global revolution. How did this unimaginable transformation take place?In a panoramic sweep, stretching from St Petersburg and Moscow to the remotest villages of a sprawling empire, Miéville uncovers the catastrophes, intrigues and inspirations of 1917, in all their passion, drama and strangeness. Intervening in long-standing historical debates, but told with the reader new to the topic especially in mind, here is a breathtaking story of humanity at its greatest and most desperate; of a turning point for civilisation that still resonates loudly today. China Miéville tells the extraordinary story of this pivotal moment in history.

Rebellion and war collide in Iron Council, the award-winning steampunk novel from acclaimed author China Miéville.New Crobuzon is being ripped apart from without and within. War with the shadowy city-state of Tesh and rioting on the streets at home are pushing this teeming metropolis to the brink.In the midst of the city's turmoil, a mysterious masked figure spurs an unconventional rebellion, while a small band of daring rebels escapes in the search for a lost legend.As New Crobuzon faces its darkest hour, there are whispers. It is the time of the Iron Council. . .Set in a desperate world on the brink of revolution, Iron Council is the third book in China Miéville's renowned Bas-Lag series, following the Locus and Arthur C. Clarke award-winning Perdido Street Station and The Scar.

Winner of the British Fantasy Award, The Scar by China Miéville is a colossal fantasy of incredible diversity and spellbinding imagination, set in the richly visualized world of Bas-Lag.A human cargo bound for servitude in exile . . .A pirate city hauled across the oceans . . .A hidden miracle about be revealed . . .These are the ingredients of an astonishing story. It is the story of a prisoner's journey. Of the search for the island of a forgotten people, for the most astonishing beast in the seas, and ultimately for a fabled place - a massive wound in reality, a source of unthinkable power and danger.

________________'This anthology will help turn your intellectual understanding of oppression into an emotional one' - New Statesman'Thanks for being who you are and for giving us such exposure to wonderful people. Palestine is proud of you' - Suad Amiry________________The Palestine Festival of Literature was established in 2008. Bringing together writers from all corners of the globe, it aims to help Palestinians break the cultural siege imposed by the Israeli military occupation, to strengthen their artistic links with the rest of the world, and to reaffirm, in the words of Edward Said, ‘the power of culture over the culture of power’.Celebrating the tenth anniversary of PalFest, This Is Not a Border is a collection of essays, poems and stories from some of the world’s most distinguished artists, responding to their experiences at this unique festival. Both heartbreaking and hopeful, their gathered work is a testament to the power of literature to promote solidarity and courage in the most desperate of situations.Contributors: Susan Abulhawa, Suad Amiry, Victoria Brittain, Jehan Bseiso, Teju Cole, Molly Crabapple, Selma Dabbagh, Mahmoud Darwish, Najwan Darwish, Geoff Dyer, Yasmin El-Rifae, Adam Foulds, Ru Freeman, Omar Robert Hamilton, Suheir Hammad, Nathalie Handal, Mohammed Hanif, Jeremy Harding, Rachel Holmes, John Horner, Remi Kanazi, Brigid Keenan, Mercedes Kemp, Omar El-Khairy, Nancy Kricorian, Sabrina Mahfouz, Jamal Mahjoub, Henning Mankell, Claire Messud, China Miéville, Pankaj Mishra, Deborah Moggach, Muiz, Maath Musleh, Michael Palin, Ed Pavlic, Atef Abu Saif, Kamila Shamsie, Raja Shehadeh, Gillian Slovo, Ahdaf Soueif, Linda Spalding, Will Sutcliffe, Alice WalkerWith messages from China Achebe, Michael Ondaatje and J. M. Coetzee________________'Every literary act, whether it is a great epic poem or an honest piece of journalism or a simple nonsense tale for children is a blow against the forces of stupidity and ignorance and darkness … The Palestine Festival of Literature exists to do just that – and I salute it for its work. Not only this year but for as long as it is necessary' - Philip Pullman

Weaving together the historical and the imagined, China Miéville's The Last Days of New Paris is a surreal and extraordinary work, from the author of The City & The City.1941. In the chaos of wartime Marseille, American engineer and occult disciple Jack Parsons stumbles onto a clandestine anti-Nazi group, including Surrealist theorist André Breton. In the strange games of dissident diplomats, exiled revolutionaries, and avant-garde artists, Parsons finds and channels hope. But what he unwittingly unleashes is the power of dreams and nightmares, changing the war and the world for ever.1950. A lone Surrealist fighter, Thibaut, walks a new, hallucinogenic Paris, where Nazis and the Resistance are trapped in unending conflict, and the streets are stalked by living images and texts - and by the forces of Hell. To escape the city, Thibaut must join forces with Sam, an American photographer intent on recording the ruins, and make common cause with a powerful, enigmatic figure of chance and rebellion: the exquisite corpse.But Sam is being hunted. And new secrets will emerge that will test all their loyalties - to each other, to Paris old and new, and to reality itself.

Winner of the Locus Award for Best Fantasy Novel, the Arthur C. Clarke Award, a World Fantasy award, and a BSFA Award.Blending weird fiction with the police procedural, The City & The City is an existential thriller like no other.‘There is no one else writing stuff like this’ – DazedWhen the body of a murdered woman is found in the extraordinary decaying city of Beszel, somewhere at the edge of Europe, it looks like a routine case for Inspector Tyador Borlú of the Extreme Crime Squad.But as he probes, the evidence begins to point to conspiracies far stranger, and more deadly, than anything he could have imagined. Soon his work puts him and those he cares for in danger. Borlú must travel to the only metropolis on Earth as strange as his own, across a border like no other.With shades of Kafka and Philip K. Dick, Raymond Chandler and 1984, the multi-award-winning The City & The City by China Miéville is a murder mystery taken to dazzling metaphysical and artistic heights.'As intelligent as he is original' – The Guardian

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.'

Winner of the Locus Award for Best Science Fiction Novel, China Miéville's astonishing Embassytown is an intelligent and immersive exploration of language in an alien world.Embassytown: a city of contradictions on the outskirts of the universe.Avice is an immerser, a traveller on the immer, the sea of space and time below the everyday, now returned to her birth planet. Here on Arieka, humans are not the only intelligent life, and Avice has a rare bond with the natives, the enigmatic Hosts - who cannot lie.Only a tiny cadre of unique human Ambassadors can speak Language, and connect the two communities. But an unimaginable new arrival has come to Embassytown. And when this Ambassador speaks, everything changes.Catastrophe looms. Avice knows the only hope is for her to speak directly to the alien Hosts.And that is impossible.

China Miéville's brilliant reading of the modern world's most controversial and enduring political document: The Communist Manifesto. 'It's thrilling to accompany Miéville... as he wrestles – in critical good faith and incandescent commitment – with a manifesto that still calls on us to build a new world' Naomi Klein 'Read this and be dazzled by its contemporaneity' Mike Davis 'A rich, luminous reflection of and on a light that never quite goes out' Andreas Malm 'Reading with [Miéville] today sharpens our senses to contemporary internationalist movements from below' Ruth Wilson Gilmore '[Written] with diligence and a ruthlessly critical eye worthy of Marx himself' Sarah JaffeIn 1848, a strange political tract was published by two German émigrés. Marx and Engles's apocalyptic vision of an insatiable system, which penetrates every corner of the globe, reduces every relationship to that of profit, and bursts asunder the old forms of production and of politics, remains a picture of our world. And the vampiric energy of that system is once again highly contentious. The Manifesto shows no sign of fading into antiquarian obscurity, and remains a key touchstone for modern political debate.China Miéville is not a writer hemmed in by conventions of disciplinary boundaries or genre, and this is a strikingly imaginative take on Marx and what his most haunting book has to say to us today. Like the Manifesto itself, this is a book haunted by ghosts, sorcery and creative destruction.

The multi-award-winning China Miéville has been called 'the equal of David Mitchell or Zadie Smith' (Scotland on Sunday), a writer whose 'inventiveness and precision is awesome' (Independent), and who writes with 'an imagination of immense power' (Guardian).In these twenty-eight short stories, glistening icebergs float above urban horizons; a burning stag runs wild through the city; the ruins of industry emerge unsteadily from the sea; and the abandoned generations in a decayed space-elevator look not up at the stars but down at the Earth. Ranging from portraits of childhood to chilling ghost stories, from dystopian visions to poignant evocations of uncanny love, with beautiful prose and melancholy wit, Three Moments of an Explosion is a breath-taking collection that poses searching questions of what it is to be human in an unquiet world. It is a humane and unsentimental investigation of our society, our world, and ourselves.

THE INSTANT SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER - A mind-blowing epic from Keanu Reeves and China Miéville, unlike anything these two genre-bending pioneers have created before, inspired by the world of the BRZRKR comic books.‘An exceptionally innovative collaboration from two remarkable minds.’ William Gibson, author of Neuromancer‘What an extraordinary book! China Miéville’s brilliance as a writer combined with Keanu Reeves’s quite magnificently wild imagination make for a compulsive read. Unlike anything else. Boom!’ Stephen Fry‘A gripping, hugely intelligent and beautifully-realised nightmare. It’s clever, brilliant and horrifying.’ Daily Mail‘A rattlingly good read . . . has much in common with Reeves' best film roles.’ Sunday Times‘A pulpy, adrenaline-fueled thriller, but it’s also a moody, experimental novel about mortality, the slippery nature of time and what it means to be human.’ New York Times‘Exhilarating’ BBC Radio 4 Front Row'Bloody fun.' Telegraph'Reeves and Mieville’s novel turns a (literally) comic book into a meditation on what it means to be truly alive that’s both affecting and enigmatic.’ SFX‘A sprawling blend of hi-octane action sequences and philosophical meditations on life, death and immortality that calls to mind Roger Zelazny’s Lord of Light… An absorbing combination of sci-fi, mythology and teleology.’ Irish Times-------------------------------She said, We needed a tool. So I asked the gods.There have always been whispers. Legends. The warrior who cannot be killed. Who’s seen a thousand civilizations rise and fall. He has had many names: Unute, Child of Lightning, Death himself. These days, he’s known simply as “B.”And he wants to be able to die.In the present day, a U.S. black-ops group has promised him they can help with that. And all he needs to do is help them in return. But when an all-too-mortal soldier comes back to life, the impossible event ultimately points toward a force even more mysterious than B himself. One at least as strong. And one with a plan all its own.In a collaboration that combines Miéville’s singular style and creativity with Reeves’s haunting and soul-stirring narrative, these two inimitable artists have created something utterly unique, sure to delight existing fans and to create scores of new ones.‘A delight . . . let Keanu Reeves punch and shoot his way onto your summer reading list … a philosophical, violent thriller about an immortal soldier pondering the nature of existence, The Book of Elsewhere has an elegance that might surprise you for a pulp thriller.’ Polygon‘Stylistically daring, combining sf, fantasy, parascience, history, and action. It’s violent, propulsive, and introspective, ultimately offering a philosophical exploration of identity and the meaning of mortality, chaos, and entropy. . . whatever it is, it works.’ Booklist‘It’s clear that Reeves and Miéville are having fun with the tale and its often playful, even poetic language. . . a well-written treat for fans of modern mythologizing.’ Kirkus ReviewsSunday Times bestseller, August 2024

The iron wheel began to spin, slowly at first, then faster and faster. The room grew darker. As the light lessened, so did the sound. Deeba and Zanna stared at each other in wonder. The noise of the cars and vans and motorbikes outside grew tinny . . . The wheel turned off all the cars and turned off all the lamps. It was turning off London.Zanna and Deeba are two girls leading ordinary lives, until they stumble into the world of UnLondon, an urban Wonderland where all the lost and broken things of London end up . . . and some of its lost and broken people too. Here discarded umbrellas stalk with spidery menace, carnivorous giraffes roam the streets, and a jungle sprawls beyond the door of an ordinary house.UnLondon is under siege by the sinister Smog and its stink-junkie slaves; it is a city awaiting its hero. Guided by a magic book that can’t quite get its facts straight, and pursued by Hemi the half-ghost boy, the girls set out to stop the poisonous cloud before it burns everything in its path. They are joined in their quest by a motley band of UnLondon locals, including Brokkenbroll, boss of the broken umbrellas, Obaday Fing, a couturier whose head is an enormous pincushion, and an empty milk carton called Curdle.Winner of the Locus Award for Best Young Adult Book, China Miéville’s Un Lun Dun is an extraordinary vivid creation;is populated by astonishing frights and delights that will thrill the imagination.

Winner of the Locus Award for Best Science Fiction Novel, China Miéville's astonishing Embassytown is an intelligent and immersive exploration of language in an alien world.Embassytown: a city of contradictions on the outskirts of the universe.Avice is an immerser, a traveller on the immer, the sea of space and time below the everyday, now returned to her birth planet. Here on Arieka, humans are not the only intelligent life, and Avice has a rare bond with the natives, the enigmatic Hosts - who cannot lie.Only a tiny cadre of unique human Ambassadors can speak Language, and connect the two communities. But an unimaginable new arrival has come to Embassytown. And when this Ambassador speaks, everything changes.Catastrophe looms. Avice knows the only hope is for her to speak directly to the alien Hosts.And that is impossible.

Savage giant moles, rail pirates, and explorers abound in China Miéville's thrilling young adult novel, Railsea.On board the moletrain Medes, Sham Yes ap Soorap watches in awe as he witnesses his first moldywarpe hunt. The giant mole bursting from the earth, the harpoonists targeting their prey, the battle resulting in one’s death and the other’s glory – are extraordinary. But no matter how spectacular it is, travelling the endless rails of the railsea, Sham senses that there’s more to life. Even if his captain can think only of her obsessive hunt for one savage mole.When they find a wrecked train, it's a welcome distraction. But the impossible salvage Sham finds there leads to trouble. Soon he's hunted on all sides: by pirates, trainsfolk, monsters and salvage-scrabblers. And it might not be just Sham's life that's about to change. It could be the whole of the railsea.

Descend to the depths of primal horror with this chilling collection of original stories drawn from H. P. Lovecraft’s shocking, terrifying, and eerily prescient Cthulhu Mythos. In twenty-one dark visions, a host of outstanding contemporary writers tap into our innermost fears, with tales set in a misbegotten new world that could have been spawned only by the master of the macabre himself, H. P. Lovecraft. Inside you’ll find:DETAILS by China Miéville: A curious boy discovers that within the splinters of cracked wood or the tangle of tree branches, the devil is in the details.VISITATION by James Robert Smith: When Edgar Allan Poe arrives, a callow man finally gets what he always wanted—and what he may eternally despise. MEET ME ON THE OTHER SIDE by Yvonne Navarro: A couple in love with terror travels beyond their wildest dreams—and into their nightmares.A FATAL EXCEPTION HAS OCCURRED AT . . . by Alan Dean Foster: Internet terrorism extends far beyond transmitting threats of evil.AND SEVENTEEN MORE HARROWING TALESFrom the Trade Paperback edition.

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.'

Winner of the British Fantasy Award, The Scar by China Miéville is a colossal fantasy of incredible diversity and spellbinding imagination, set in the richly visualized world of Bas-Lag.A human cargo bound for servitude in exile . . .A pirate city hauled across the oceans . . .A hidden miracle about be revealed . . .These are the ingredients of an astonishing story. It is the story of a prisoner's journey. Of the search for the island of a forgotten people, for the most astonishing beast in the seas, and ultimately for a fabled place - a massive wound in reality, a source of unthinkable power and danger.

Winner of the Arthur C. Clarke Award for Best NovelWinner of the August Derleth Award for Best NovelPerdido Street Station is an imaginative urban fantasy thriller and the first of China Miéville's novels set in the sprawling world of Bas-Lag.The metropolis of New Crobuzon sprawls at the centre of its own bewildering world. Humans and mutants linger in the gloom beneath its chimneys, where the rivers are sluggish with unnatural effluent, and factories and foundries pound into the night.For more than a thousand years, the parliament and its brutal militia have ruled over a vast array of workers and artists, spies, magicians, junkies and whores. Now a stranger has come, with a pocketful of gold and an impossible demand, and inadvertently something unthinkable is released. Soon the city is gripped by an alien terror – and the fate of millions depends on a clutch of outcasts on the run from lawmakers and crime-lords alike.The urban nightscape becomes a hunting ground as battles rage in the shadows of bizarre buildings. And a reckoning is due at the city's heart, in the vast edifice of Perdido Street Station. It is too late to escape.Praise for China Miéville:‘You can’t talk about Miéville without using the word “brilliant”’ – Ursula K. Le Guin‘One of the most interesting and freakishly gifted writers of his generation’ – The Daily Telegraph‘As intelligent as he is original’ – The Guardian‘The names of Kafka and Orwell tend to be invoked too easily for anything a bit out of the ordinary, but in this case they are worthy comparisons’ – The TimesPerdido Street Station is the first of China Miéville's novels set in Bas-Lag. For more, read The Scar and Iron Council.

Rebellion and war collide in Iron Council, the award-winning steampunk novel from acclaimed author China Miéville.New Crobuzon is being ripped apart from without and within. War with the shadowy city-state of Tesh and rioting on the streets at home are pushing this teeming metropolis to the brink.In the midst of the city's turmoil, a mysterious masked figure spurs an unconventional rebellion, while a small band of daring rebels escapes in the search for a lost legend.As New Crobuzon faces its darkest hour, there are whispers. It is the time of the Iron Council. . .Set in a desperate world on the brink of revolution, Iron Council is the third book in China Miéville's renowned Bas-Lag series, following the Locus and Arthur C. Clarke award-winning Perdido Street Station and The Scar.

The iron wheel began to spin, slowly at first, then faster and faster. The room grew darker. As the light lessened, so did the sound. Deeba and Zanna stared at each other in wonder. The noise of the cars and vans and motorbikes outside grew tinny . . . The wheel turned off all the cars and turned off all the lamps. It was turning off London.Zanna and Deeba are two girls leading ordinary lives, until they stumble into the world of UnLondon, an urban Wonderland where all the lost and broken things of London end up . . . and some of its lost and broken people too. Here discarded umbrellas stalk with spidery menace, carnivorous giraffes roam the streets, and a jungle sprawls beyond the door of an ordinary house.UnLondon is under siege by the sinister Smog and its stink-junkie slaves; it is a city awaiting its hero. Guided by a magic book that can’t quite get its facts straight, and pursued by Hemi the half-ghost boy, the girls set out to stop the poisonous cloud before it burns everything in its path. They are joined in their quest by a motley band of UnLondon locals, including Brokkenbroll, boss of the broken umbrellas, Obaday Fing, a couturier whose head is an enormous pincushion, and an empty milk carton called Curdle.Winner of the Locus Award for Best Young Adult Book, China Miéville’s Un Lun Dun is an extraordinary vivid creation;is populated by astonishing frights and delights that will thrill the imagination.

Winner of the Locus Award for Best Science Fiction Novel, Kraken is a darkly comic, wildly absurd adventure by author of Perdido Street Station, China Miéville.Deep in the research wing of the Natural History Museum is a prize specimen, something that comes along much less often than once in a lifetime: a perfect, and perfectly preserved, giant squid. But what does it mean when the creature suddenly and impossibly disappears?For curator Billy Harrow it's the start of a headlong pitch into a London of warring cults, surreal magic, apostates and assassins. It might just be that the creature he's been preserving is more than a biological rarity: there are those who are sure it's a god.A god that someone is hoping will end the world.

Step into a London ravaged by unearthly creatures at once utterly alien and chillingly familiar.In China Miéville's award-winning novella 'The Tain', we learn the reason for the invaders' terrible revenge. One survivor must trek through the ruins of the city with a desperate plan to stand against their assault.In addition to 'The Tain', this superb collection contains thirteen short stories, of visionary cityscapes and urban paranoia, ghosts, monsters and impossible diseases. Several of the stories are published here for the first time: these include one set in New Crobuzon, the location of the award-winning series of novels that began with Perdido Street Station; and one in comic-strip form, illustrated by top graphic artist Liam Sharp. Looking for Jake and Other Stories displays the sheer imaginative scope of China Miéville's work.

Winner of the Locus Award for Best Science Fiction Novel, Kraken is a darkly comic, wildly absurd adventure by author of Perdido Street Station, China Miéville.Deep in the research wing of the Natural History Museum is a prize specimen, something that comes along much less often than once in a lifetime: a perfect, and perfectly preserved, giant squid. But what does it mean when the creature suddenly and impossibly disappears?For curator Billy Harrow it's the start of a headlong pitch into a London of warring cults, surreal magic, apostates and assassins. It might just be that the creature he's been preserving is more than a biological rarity: there are those who are sure it's a god.A god that someone is hoping will end the world.

Call me childish, but I love all the nonsense – the snow, the trees, the tinsel, the turkey. I love presents. I love carols and cheesy songs. I just love Christmas™.'It would be a dream come true to be able to celebrate Christmas properly: to wake up to a Stocking™, visit Santa™ and open Presents™ around the Christmas Tree™.But this is a luxury reserved for those with shares in YuleCo – controllers of this joyful season – who don’t agree that it’s a holiday for one and all.In this short story, 'Tis the Season, which also features in the collection Looking for Jake and Other Stories, China Miéville’s astonishing imagination allows us a glimpse of how a dystopian Christmas might be.