China Mieville is a British author who is probably best known for his vast Peake-esque Bas Lag books, for which he has received an array of accolades. When describing a Mieville novel, two things that inevitably crop up are nods to Mieville’s in-depth world-building, and his idiosyncratic use of language, both of which are evident throughout his entire oeuvre, and even those pieces of work that depart substantially from the loosely linked Bas Lag trilogy.

Kraken, Mieville’s newest offering, brings together many of the elements evident in the author’s fairly diverse backlog, resulting in a strange and Frankensteinian read that has the uncomfortable appeal of a rather violent car crash. Click here to read the full review.