How Science Fiction should be read

The Chester (alternative) SF Book Group met in Alexanders' pub garden  to  discuss China Mieville's  Kraken. What a splendid bunch we look in the sunshine armed with pints and freshly squeezed drinks. I'm on the left third from the back.

We liked Kraken, its complex weaved plot, unforgettable characters, lateral thinking and the starting  premise- a body of a giant squid and its preserving tank has disappeared from a London Museum. To solve the mystery we are thrown in the  mystic magic as well as normal police work.  All the tropes  of  fantasy are there as  Mieville parodies them one by one. Most of have niggles over some plot contrivencies but enjoyed the  novel.