Just finished "King Rat" by China Miéville

Submitted by britishthing t3_z4m4ln in books

And well... I'm not sure how to feel about it. I loved "The City and The City", finding it generally refreshing and a really interesting concept. But King Rat has just left me unsatisfied. The beginning grabbed me straight away, and the concept is sound, but I feel as if it would have succeeded as more than one book. The ending feels rushed, and we're barely finished establishing the world before the narrative starts. The ending was so vague and inconclusive, and I felt like I'd read the first part of a trilogy. Thoughts?

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wihannez t1_ixrop45 wrote

It’s his debut novel and probably his weakest one, still trying to find a style.

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gay_and_spray t1_ixs8ayd wrote

This one should be higher. Yes it is literally the top comment, but it should break through the OP text.

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DarthDregan t1_ixryzat wrote

It's his weakest book by far. For me he still hasn't topped Perdido Street Station or The Scar

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Little_Noodles t1_ixrnt3q wrote

Mieville is an always read for me, but can be hit or miss.

City and the City is the strongest standalone work, imo, which I don’t think is an unpopular one.

But you’re onto something about his strengths - Mieville’s best stuff is actually where there’s room to sprawl a bit into world building. Look into the Bas Lag series.

I’m fully on board with like, half his standalone novels and novellas, and the others were fine.

He also does short stories well.

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1willprobablydelete t1_ixsj48r wrote

He's on of my favorite authors although I agree he is a bit hit or miss. I give him extra credit, since he doesn't fall into a cookie cutter pattern in his books, they are all something different. I think my favorites are the first two Bas Lag books and Kraken

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Little_Noodles t1_ixsjd4b wrote

Kraken was actually a miss for me.

But being part of pioneering a new genre will, by default involve some lesser works. Like I said, it’s an always-read.

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alexjg42 t1_ixrlzx2 wrote

I couldn't finish it. I read it 5 years ago and it felt like a bizarre read. I was also put off by the descriptive eating of trash. Here is my Goodreads review of it:

>I usually have to finish a book. It's very rare for me to drop it half way through. When I decided to stop reading King Rat it was surprisingly an easy decision.
After reading an entire chapter that described a bicycle ride through London that didn't contribute to the story I felt that perhaps this isn't the book for me. I continued reading only to be faced with scenes of overly described places with no real progress in terms of story. To put it straight the story became dull and I had no desire to find out what happens next.
With that said I've always wanted to read the works of Chine Mieville. The synopsis always seem so interesting. I'll give some of his other books a try, but I do hope they don't end up doing the same as King Rat did.

I haven't actually tried another Mieville book as I wanted said I wanted to.

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underratedpossum t1_ixttv41 wrote

I'd recommend trying him again. Rat King was his first novel and reading it after his more mature works feels like reading a talented amateur trying to write like China Mieville but not quite getting there.

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muscleLAMP t1_ixryep3 wrote

I hated King Rat so much I didn’t finish it, and left a bad review in good reads.

In fact, I felt so bad about writing that mean review that I deleted my profile and quit goodreads. King Rat is the book that got me off of goodreads! So that’s a positive.

I really love the New Crobuzon books, and I made the mistake of reading King Rat right after those. It, obviously, wasn’t what I was looking for. Also, the lengthy descriptions of what an amazing DJ the main character was were astoundingly annoying. Like, seriously, I do not care about DJs. I might even say I actively dislike DJs—the cooler they are, the more I hate them! And the DJ in this book is soooooooooop cool. (Eye rolls)

Also James Clavell wrote a way better book with that same title. It’s fictional story about a deadly prison camp in WWII. Clavell himself was interred in that camp during the war.

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Mattparticles t1_ixsixg1 wrote

I recommend starting off with some of his short stories first and then going into the novels. His writing style takes a bit to get used to. I had a hard time with Perdido Street Station at fist because the background and characters were so off the wall

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HowlandSRoward t1_ixu08kx wrote

Mieville is so frustrating to me. I wish his editor would strap him to a chair with every manuscript he turns in and make him cut it in half. The interesting ideas I want him to meander through and take his time are rushed and the boring bits are interminable. In kraken we get three pages of the cool underground freak show with the radio man and a hundred pages of lying low in safe houses and buses doing sweet fuck all. He'll regularly turn out absolute stunners of sentences in seas of drudgery. He'll skirt around his politics and leave his stories amounting to nothing substantial. He'll borrow entire motifs and plots to springboard his ideas off of and then just fail to do so. He understands that magic realism is the fantastical mixed with the mundane but makes his fantasy too fantastical and his mundane too dull. Very dangerous traits for a writer who isn't especially unique to have.

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Ineffable7980x t1_ixud6ox wrote

Haven't read this one, but I have absolutely loved The City and the City, Perdido Street Station, and The Scar. Overall, I think he's a very unique and talented writer.

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D_is_for_Doomsayer t1_ixslzgf wrote

Yeah, it's his debut novel and owes a lot to Gaiman, much like Perdido owes a lot to Harrison. It's more fun than some of his other books, but also more generic, less artful. He's a favorite, but this isn't in my re-read pile like his other works.

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danellender t1_ixv4c5l wrote

King Rat by James Clavell is the one you should have read. It's great!

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