New Releases by China Mieville

THE INSTANT SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER - A mind-blowing epic from Keanu Reeves and China Mieville, unlike anything these two genre-bending pioneers have created before, inspired by the world of the BRZRKR comic books. 'An exceptionally innovative collaboration from two remarkable minds.' William Gibson, author of Neuromancer 'What an extraordinary book! China Mieville's brilliance as a writer combined with Keanu Reeves's quite magnificently wild imagination make for a compulsive read. Unlike anything else. Boom!' Stephen Fry 'Reeves and Mieville's novel turns a (literally) comic book into a meditation on what it means to be truly alive that's both affecting and enigmatic.' SFX ------------------------------- She said, We needed a tool. So I asked the gods. There have always been whispers. Legends. The warrior who cannot be killed. Who's seen a thousand civilizations rise and fall. He has had many names- Unute, Child of Lightning, Death himself. These days, he's known simply as "B." And he wants to be able to die. In the present day, a U.S. black-ops group has promised him they can help with that. And all he needs to do is help them in return. But when an all-too-mortal soldier comes back to life, the impossible event ultimately points toward a force even more mysterious than B himself. One at least as strong. And one with a plan all its own. In a collaboration that combines Mieville's singular style and creativity with Reeves's haunting and soul-stirring narrative, these two inimitable artists have created something utterly unique, sure to delight existing fans and to create scores of new ones.

Filled with beauty, terror and strangeness, This Census-Taker is a poignant and riveting exploration of memory and identity. "One of our most important writers." Independent on Sunday In a remote house on a hilltop, a lonely boy witnesses a traumatic event. He tries - and fails - to flee. Left alone with his increasingly deranged parent, he dreams of safety, of joining the other children in the town below, of escape. When at last a stranger knocks at his door, the boy senses that his days of isolation might be over. But by what authority does this man keep the meticulous records he carries? What is the purpose behind his questions? Is he friend? Enemy? Or something else altogether? PRAISE FOR CHINA MIEVILLE 'You can't talk about Miéville without using the word "brilliant".' Ursula Le Guin, Guardian 'Miéville is gifted with an incomparable visionary imagination.' Financial Times 'Miéville - twice winner of the British Fantasy Award and three times winner of the Arthur C. Clarke Award - is head and shoulders above other writers in this genre.' The Times 'With each book Miéville becomes more and more ambitious, with a profusion of ideas and images on each page that makes other contemporary books look thin and reductive.' Scotland on Sunday

A thriller of a war that never was - of survival in an impossible city - of surreal cataclysm. In The Last Days of New Paris, China Miéville entwines true historical events and people with his daring, uniquely imaginative brand of fiction, reconfiguring history and art into something new. "Beauty will be convulsive. . . ." 1941. In the chaos of wartime Marseille, American engineer - and occult disciple - Jack Parsons stumbles onto a clandestine anti-Nazi group, including Surrealist theorist André Breton. In the strange games of the dissident diplomats, exiled revolutionaries, and avant-garde artists, Parsons finds and channels hope. But what he unwittingly unleashes is the power of dreams and nightmares, changing the war and the world forever. 1950. A lone Surrealist fighter, Thibaut, walks a new, hallucinogenic Paris, where Nazis and the Resistance are trapped in unending conflict, and the streets are stalked by living images and texts - and by the forces of Hell. To escape the city, he must join forces with Sam, an American photographer intent on recording the ruins, and make common cause with a powerful, enigmatic figure of chance and rebellion: the exquisite corpse. But Sam is being hunted. And new secrets will emerge that will test all their loyalties - to each other, to Paris old and new, and to reality itself.

The multi-award-winning China Miéville has been called 'the equal of David Mitchell or Zadie Smith' (Scotland on Sunday), whose 'inventiveness and precision is awesome' (Independent), and who writes with 'an imagination of immense power' (Guardian). In this extraordinary series of stories, defying definitions and literary stereotyping, he once again proves why he 'is one of the most interesting and promising writers to appear in the last few years in any genre' (Carlos Ruiz Zafon). In these stories, glistening icebergs float above urban horizons; a burning stag runs wild through the city; the ruins of industry emerge unsteadily from the sea; and the abandoned generations in a decayed space-elevator look not up at the stars but down at the Earth. Ranging from portraits of childhood to chilling ghost stories, from dystopian visions to poignant evocations of uncanny love, with beautiful prose and melancholy wit, this breath-taking collection poses searching questions of what it is to be human in an unquiet world. It is a humane and unsentimental investigation of our society, our world, and ourselves.

Dial 4-3-7-6 to call on…Boy Chimney! Iron Snail! Human Virus! Shamanticore! Captain Lachrymose! Overweight, unemployed slacker Nelson Jent is not a hero. But with the twist of a dial, he can become one. A broken-down payphone down a forgotten alley holds the power to transform anyone with the right number into a host of different superheroes. And Nelson knows the number: 4-3-7-6. The number that spells HERO. Award-winning novelist China Miéville (winner of the World Fantasy Award, the British Science Fiction Award, the Hugo Award and the Arthur C. Clarke Award) and artists Mateus Santolouco (AMERICAN VAMPIRE) and Alberto Ponticelli (UNKNOWN SOLDIER) breathe new life into a classic Silver Age series with this surrealist masterpiece. This special Deluxe Edition includes the complete series of DIAL H as well sketches from the artists and afterword by China Miéville. Collects DIAL H #0-15.

A brand new series by best-selling and Hugo Award-winning novelist China Mieville! What would happen if you discovered the H Dial, an unbelievably powerful artifact that turned you into a super hero? What if you found out that the very device that's become your uncontrollable obsession threatens the entire world?

From the award-winning author of Perdido Street Station and The City & the City "Richly conceived." The New York Times Book Review Embassytown: a city of contradictions on the outskirts of the universe. Avice is an immerser, a traveller on the immer, the sea of space and time below the everyday, now returned to her birth planet. Here on Arieka, humans are not the only intelligent life, and Avice has a rare bond with the natives, the enigmatic Hosts - who cannot lie. Only a tiny cadre of unique human Ambassadors can speak Language, and connect the two communities. But an unimaginable new arrival has come to Embassytown. And when this Ambassador speaks, everything changes. Catastrophe looms. Avice knows the only hope is for her to speak directly to the alien Hosts. And that is impossible. PRAISE FOR CHINA MIEVILLE "[Mieville s] wit dazzles, his humour is lively, and the pure vitality of his imagination is astonishing." Ursula K. Le Guin, The Guardian (on Three Moments of an Explosion) "Dark and thought-provoking." The San Diego Union-Tribune (on The City & The City) "Mieville more than delivers." San Francisco Chronicle (on Kraken) "Compulsively readable." The Washington Post Book World (on Perdido Street Station)

Special over-sized issue! An all-star creative cast leaves five new holiday tales under the tree—including Brian Azzarello, Jamie Delano, China Mieville and more! See what the season has in store for the always-naughty, never-nice John Constantine.

"Beautifully evocative language, social conscience, a clear sense of history, romantic longing, intelligence, despair. This is, very possibly, greatness." The Boston Globe A novella and thirteen short stories of brilliant diversity, from a master of literary fantasy. Step into a London ravaged by unearthly creatures at once utterly alien and chillingly familiar. In China Mieville's award-winning novella The Tain, we learn the reason for the invaders' terrible revenge. One survivor must trek through the ruins of the city with a desperate plan to stand against their assault. In addition to The Tain, this superb collection contains thirteen short stories, of visionary cityscapes and urban paranoia, ghosts, monsters and impossible diseases. Several of the stories are published here for the first time: these include one set in New Crobuzon, the location of the award-winning series of novels that began with Perdido Street Station; and one in comic-strip form, illustrated by top graphic artist Liam Sharp. This collection displays the sheer imaginative scope of China Mieville's work. PRAISE FOR CHINA MIEVILLE "[Mieville s] wit dazzles, his humour is lively, and the pure vitality of his imagination is astonishing." Ursula K. Le Guin, The Guardian (on Three Moments of an Explosion) "Dark and thought-provoking." The San Diego Union-Tribune (on The City & The City) "Richly conceived." The New York Times Book Review (on Embassytown) "Mieville more than delivers." San Francisco Chronicle (on Kraken) "Compulsively readable." The Washington Post Book World (on Perdido Street Station)

WINNER OF THE 2005 ARTHUR C CLARKE AWARD "Mieville moves effortlessly into the first division of those who use the tools and weapons of the fantastic to define and create the fiction of the coming century." Neil Gaiman The third novel in China Mieville's amazing imaginative sequence focused on the fabulous city of New Crobuzon. With economic slump and growing social unrest, New Crobuzon has become a fraught and dangerous place. The militia patrol in uniform, there is tension between its myriad races, there are even rumours of war. In an attempt to spur trade, a major company is building a railway across the continent, but the project involves brutal suppression of both the workers and the native inhabitants they pass. As mutiny grows among the slave labourers, one train is hijacked on the half-finished line. They tear up the track for a few miles behind them, then begin to rebuild it in front of the train -- diverging from the original route and disappearing into the desert. This renegade train, 'The Iron Council', soon becomes an icon of freedom to the repressed urban population, till the city government has no choice but to hunt it down and destroy it. Whatever happens, they cannot allow it to escape-and so begins a desperate pursuit across alien wild lands filled with bizarre populations, monsters and hazards. PRAISE FOR CHINA MIEVILLE "[Mieville's] wit dazzles, his humour is lively, and the pure vitality of his imagination is astonishing." Ursula K. Le Guin, The Guardian (on Three Moments of an Explosion) "Dark and thought-provoking." The San Diego Union-Tribune (on The City & The City) "Richly conceived." The New York Times Book Review (on Embassytown) "Mieville more than delivers." San Francisco Chronicle (on Kraken) "Compulsively readable." The Washington Post Book World (on Perdido Street Station)

From the author of Perdido Street Station, an epic and breathtaking fantasy of extraordinary imagination A colossal fantasy of incredible diversity and spellbinding imagination. A human cargo bound for servitude in exile... A pirate city hauled across the oceans... A hidden miracle about be revealed... These are the ingredients of an astonishing story. It is the story of a prisoner's journey. Of the search for the island of a forgotten people, for the most astonishing beast in the seas, and ultimately for a fabled place - a massive wound in reality, a source of unthinkable power and danger. PRAISE FOR CHINA MIEVILLE "[Mieville's] wit dazzles, his humour is lively, and the pure vitality of his imagination is astonishing." Ursula K. Le Guin, The Guardian (on Three Moments of an Explosion) "Dark and thought-provoking." The San Diego Union-Tribune (on The City & The City) "Richly conceived." The New York Times Book Review (on Embassytown) "Mieville more than delivers." San Francisco Chronicle (on Kraken) "Compulsively readable." The Washington Post Book World (on Perdido Street Station)

"Compulsively readable." The Washington Post Book World "A work of exhaustive inventiveness ... superlative fantasy" Time Out The metropolis of New Crobuzon sprawls at the centre of its own bewildering world. Humans and mutants and arcane races throng the gloom beneath its chimneys, where the rivers are sluggish with unnatural effluent, and factories and foundries pound into the night. For more than a thousand years, the parliament and its brutal militia have ruled over a vast array of workers and artists, spies, magicians, junkies and whores. Now a stranger has come, with a pocketful of gold and an impossible demand, and inadvertently something unthinkable is released. Soon the city is gripped by an alien terror - and the fate of millions depends on a clutch of outcasts on the run from lawmakers and crime-lords alike. The urban nightscape becomes a hunting ground as battles rage in the shadows of bizarre buildings. And a reckoning is due at the city's heart, in the vast edifice of Perdido Street Station. It is too late to escape. PRAISE FOR CHINA MIEVILLE "[Mieville s] wit dazzles, his humour is lively, and the pure vitality of his imagination is astonishing." Ursula K. Le Guin, The Guardian (on Three Moments of an Explosion) "Dark and thought-provoking." The San Diego Union-Tribune (on The City & The City) "Richly conceived." The New York Times Book Review (on Embassytown) "Mieville more than delivers." San Francisco Chronicle (on Kraken)

Something is stirring in London's dark . . . "A startling debut" Kirkus Something is stirring in London's dark, stamping out its territory in brickdust and blood. Something has murdered Saul's father, and left Saul to pay for the crime. But a shadow from the urban waste breaks into his prison cell and leads him to freedom. A shadow called King Rat. In the night-land behind London's façade, in sewers and slums and rotting dead spaces, Saul must learn his true nature. Grotesque murders rock the city like a curse. Mysterious forces prepare for a showdown. With Drum and Bass pounding the backstreets, Saul confronts his bizarre inheritance - in the badlands of South London, in the heart of darkness, at the gathering of the Junglist Massive. Like the DJ says: 'Time for the Badman.' PRAISE FOR CHINA MIEVILLE "[Mieville s] wit dazzles, his humour is lively, and the pure vitality of his imagination is astonishing." Ursula K. Le Guin, The Guardian (on Three Moments of an Explosion) "Dark and thought-provoking." The San Diego Union-Tribune (on The City & The City) "Richly conceived." The New York Times Book Review (on Embassytown) "Mieville more than delivers." San Francisco Chronicle (on Kraken) "Compulsively readable." The Washington Post Book World (on Perdido Street Station)