TBR #14. King Rat by China Mieville.
First sentence: “The trains that enter London arrive like ships sailing across the roofs.”
Saul is an ordinary guy. Then all of a sudden he gets arrested for supposedly pushing his father out the window to his death; and then he gets sprung from jail by a strange figure called King Rat who plans to teach Saul the ways of subterranean London. But there’s someone called the Ratcatcher who wants to kill them, or maybe just Saul, or something. And no one will explain anything to anyone.
And that’s why I got frustrated and stopped reading halfway through. I really like weird fiction, and China Mieville writes really good weird fiction–The City & the City blew my mind away. Only this particular story didn’t work for me. I’m sure it’s my fault that I can’t quite pinpoint why, but it might have to do with the vague feeling I had that if only everyone sat down and had a conversation, a lot of this confusion could get cleared up.
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