false 33918 230 99
Excerpted from Wikipedia.]]> male Norwich, England 1972/09/06 68494 0345459407 9780345459404 482 <![CDATA[Perdido Street Station]]> http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1255612085m/68494.jpg http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1255612085s/68494.jpg http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/68494.Perdido_Street_Station 4.06 2968
Isaac has spent a lifetime quietly carrying out his unique research. But when a half-bird, half-human creature known as the Garuda comes to him from afar, Isaac is faced with challenges he has never before fathomed. Though the Garuda's request is scientifically daunting, Isaac is sparked by his own curiosity and an uncanny reverence for this curious stranger.

While Isaac's experiments for the Garuda turn into an obsession, one of his lab specimens demands attention: a brilliantly colored caterpillar that feeds on nothing but a hallucinatory drug and grows larger—and more consuming—by the day. What finally emerges from the silken cocoon will permeate every fiber of New Crobuzon—and not even the Ambassador of Hell will challenge the malignant terror it invokes . . .

A magnificent fantasy rife with scientific splendor, magical intrigue, and wonderfully realized characters, told in a storytelling style in which Charles Dickens meets Neal Stephenson, Perdido Street Station offers an eerie, voluptuously crafted world that will plumb the depths of every reader's imagination.


From the Trade Paperback edition.]]> 33918 3.91 10652 1807 2000 68497 0345460014 9780345460011 202 <![CDATA[The Scar]]> http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1170692699m/68497.jpg http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1170692699s/68497.jpg http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/68497.The_Scar 4.16 1698 Perdido Street Station, this latest epic introduces a whole new cast of intriguing characters and dazzling creations.

Aboard a vast seafaring vessel, a band of prisoners and slaves, their bodies remade into grotesque biological oddities, is being transported to the fledgling colony of New Crobuzon. But the journey is not theirs alone. They are joined by a handful of travelers, each with a reason for fleeing the city. Among them is Bellis Coldwine, a renowned linguist whose services as an interpreter grant her passage—and escape from horrific punishment. For she is linked to Isaac Dan der Grimnebulin, the brilliant renegade scientist who has unwittingly unleashed a nightmare upon New Crobuzon.

For Bellis, the plan is clear: live among the new frontiersmen of the colony until it is safe to return home. But when the ship is besieged by pirates on the Swollen Ocean, the senior officers are summarily executed. The surviving passengers are brought to Armada, a city constructed from the hulls of pirated ships, a floating, landless mass ruled by the bizarre duality called the Lovers. On Armada, everyone is given work, and even Remades live as equals to humans, Cactae, and Cray. Yet no one may ever leave.

Lonely and embittered in her captivity, Bellis knows that to show dissent is a death sentence. Instead, she must furtively seek information about Armada’s agenda. The answer lies in the dark, amorphous shapes that float undetected miles below the waters—terrifying entities with a singular, chilling mission. . . .

China Miéville is a writer for a new era—and The Scar is a luminous, brilliantly imagined novel that is nothing short of spectacular.


From the Trade Paperback edition.]]> 33918 3.91 10652 1807 2002 68496 0345495160 9780345495167 368 <![CDATA[Un Lun Dun]]> http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1170692699m/68496.jpg http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1170692699s/68496.jpg http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/68496.Un_Lun_Dun 3.80 1363
It is London through the looking glass, an urban Wonderland of strange delights where all the lost and broken things of London end up . . . and some of its lost and broken people, too–including Brokkenbroll, boss of the broken umbrellas; Obaday Fing, a tailor whose head is an enormous pin-cushion, and an empty milk carton called Curdle. Un Lun Dun is a place where words are alive, a jungle lurks behind the door of an ordinary house, carnivorous giraffes stalk the streets, and a dark cloud dreams of burning the world. It is a city awaiting its hero, whose coming was prophesied long ago, set down for all time in the pages of a talking book.

When twelve-year-old Zanna and her friend Deeba find a secret entrance leading out of London and into this strange city, it seems that the ancient prophecy is coming true at last. But then things begin to go shockingly wrong.]]> 33918 3.91 10652 1807 2007 68495 0345458427 9780345458421 111 <![CDATA[Iron Council]]> http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1170692698m/68495.jpg http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1170692698s/68495.jpg http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/68495.Iron_Council 3.68 1027 Perdido Street Station and The Scar, acclaimed author China Miéville returns with his hugely anticipated Del Rey hardcover debut. With a fresh and fantastical band of characters, he carries us back to the decadent squalor of New Crobuzon—this time, decades later.

It is a time of wars and revolutions, conflict and intrigue. 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 the teeming city to the brink. A mysterious masked figure spurs strange rebellion, while treachery and violence incubate in unexpected places.
In desperation, a small group of renegades escapes from the city and crosses strange and alien continents in the search for a lost hope.
In the blood and violence of New Crobuzon’s most dangerous hour, there are whispers. It is the time of the iron council. . . .

The bold originality that broke Miéville out as a new force of the genre is here once more in Iron Council: the voluminous, lyrical novel that is destined to seal his reputation as perhaps the edgiest mythmaker of the day.


From the Hardcover edition.]]> 33918 3.91 10652 1807 2004 68498 0312890729 9780312890728 69 <![CDATA[King Rat]]> http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1170692699m/68498.jpg http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1170692699s/68498.jpg http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/68498.King_Rat 3.43 731 33918 3.91 10652 1807 1998 4703581 0345497511 9780345497512 229 <![CDATA[The City & The City]]> http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1249341050m/4703581.jpg http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1249341050s/4703581.jpg http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/4703581.The_City_The_City 3.78 576 New York Times bestselling author China Miéville delivers his most accomplished novel yet, an existential thriller set in a city unlike any other–real or imagined.

When a murdered woman is found in the city of Beszel, somewhere at the edge of Europe, it looks to be a routine case for Inspector Tyador Borlú of the Extreme Crime Squad. But as he investigates, the evidence points to conspiracies far stranger and more deadly than anything he could have imagined.

Borlú must travel from the decaying Beszel to the only metropolis on Earth as strange as his own. This is a border crossing like no other, a journey as psychic as it is physical, a shift in perception, a seeing of the unseen. His destination is Beszel’s equal, rival, and intimate neighbor, the rich and vibrant city of Ul Qoma. With Ul Qoman detective Qussim Dhatt, and struggling with his own transition, Borlú is enmeshed in a sordid underworld of rabid nationalists intent on destroying their neighboring city, and unificationists who dream of dissolving the two into one. As the detectives uncover the dead woman’s secrets, they begin to suspect a truth that could cost them and those they care about more than their lives.

What stands against them are murderous powers in Beszel and in Ul Qoma: and, most terrifying of all, that which lies between these two cities.

Casting shades of Kafka and Philip K. Dick, Raymond Chandler and 1984, The City & the City is a murder mystery taken to dazzling metaphysical and artistic heights.]]> 33918 3.91 10652 1807 2009 499415 0345476077 9780345476074 38 <![CDATA[Looking for Jake: Stories]]> http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1175274676m/499415.jpg http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1175274676s/499415.jpg http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/499415.Looking_for_Jake_Stories 3.71 385
“Jack”–Following the events of his acclaimed novel Perdido Street Station, this tale of twisted attachment and horrific revenge traces the rise and fall of the Remade Robin Hood known as Jack Half-a-Prayer.

“Familiar”–Spurned by its creator, a sorceress’s familiar embarks on a strange and unsettling odyssey of self-discovery in a coming-of-age story like no other.]]> 33918 3.91 10652 1807 2005 493072 1902880633 9781902880631 0 <![CDATA[The Tain]]> http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1202747448m/493072.jpg http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1202747448s/493072.jpg http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/493072.The_Tain 4.03 37 33918 3.91 10652 1807 2002 68502 1931859337 9781931859332 2 <![CDATA[Between Equal Rights: A Marxist Theory of International Law (Historical Materialism Book Series)]]> http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1170692701m/68502.jpg http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1170692701s/68502.jpg http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/68502.Between_Equal_Rights_A_Marxist_Theory_of_International_Law 4.17 12 "China Mieville's brilliantly original book is an indispensable guide for anyone concerned with international law. It is the most comprehensive scholarly account available of the central theoretical debates about the foundations of international law. It offers a guide for the lay reader into the central texts in the field."-Peter Gowan, Professor, International Relations, London Metropolitan University.

Mieville critically examines existing theories of international law and offers a compelling alternative Marxist view.

China Mieville, PhD, International Relations, London School of Economics, is an independent researcher and an award-winning novelist. His novel Perdido Street Station won the Arthur C. Clarke Award.

]]> 33918 3.91 10652 1807 2004 77961 3404232453 9783404232451 0 <![CDATA[Perdido Street Station 1. Die Falter]]> http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1170910345m/77961.jpg http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1170910345s/77961.jpg http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/77961.Perdido_Street_Station_1_Die_Falter 1.00 1 Isaac Dan dar Grimnebulin, einst angesehenes Mitglied des Lehrkörpers der Universität von New Crobuzon, hätte es eigentlich besser wissen müssen: Eines Tages klopft ein geheimnisvoller Fremder an die Tür seines Labors und bittet ihn um Hilfe. Das Entgeld, das er Isaac dafür bietet, ist fürstlich, doch die Aufgabe birgt ungeahnte Schrecken: Isaac soll mit Hilfe seiner Kenntnisse von Mensch und Maschine eine Verstümmelung rückgängig machen, die dem Fremden einst als Strafe angetan wurde.

Verzweifelt sucht Isaac die ganze Stadt nach Mitteln und Wegen ab, den Wunsch des Fremden zu erfüllen. Es gibt wenig, was es in New Crobuzon nicht gibt, aber alles hat seinen Preis. Und als ihm schließlich ein merkwürdiges mutiertes Wesen aus den Versuchslabors der Stadtoberen in die Hände fällt, ahnt er nicht, dass er damit einen Schrecken über der Stadt heraufbeschwört, dem ihre Bewohner nichts entgegenzusetzen haben.

Es fast unmöglich, einem Buch wie Perdido Street Station (deutsch in zwei Bänden: (Die Falter und Der Weber), auch nur annährend gerecht zu werden. Das Schicksal Isaacs ist nur ein Handlungsstrang von vielen, die sich durch den Roman ziehen. China Miéville ist ein junger britischer Autor, der seine Leser wie ein alter Meister in eine fremdartige Welt zu entführen weiß. New Crobuzon mag eine Stadt sein, in der man nur äußerst ungern leben möchte. Aber Miéville schildert nicht nur ihre Abgründe, sondern auch die Lebensfreude ihrer Bewohner, ihre Suche nach Wissen, Erleuchtung, Liebe. Und er verfügt über eine Fantasie, die unvergleichlich ist.

Zwar ist es Unsinn, wenn auf dem Buchrücken behauptet wird, dies sei ein Buch "für alle Freunde von Peter F. Hamilton". Miéville weiß sich Mervyn Peake und M. John Harrison, wohl auch Michael Moorcocks London-Romanen und Michael Swanwicks Die Tochter des stählernen Drachen verbunden. Aber es ist gleichgültig, für welche Richtung der fantastischen Literatur Sie schwärmen: Perdido Street Station reißt seine Leser mit und lässt sie nicht mehr los, wie kaum ein anderes Buch der letzten Jahre. --Hannes Riffel

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