Looking for Jake
Stories
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4.0 • 5 Ratings
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- $4.99
Publisher Description
“Miéville 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
What William Gibson did for science fiction, China Miéville has done for fantasy, shattering old paradigms with fiercely imaginative works of startling, often shocking, intensity. Now from this brilliant young writer comes a groundbreaking collection of stories, many of them previously unavailable in the United States, including four never-before-published tales—one set in Miéville’s signature fantasy world of New Crobuzon.
Among the fourteen superb fictions are:
“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.
“Reports of Certain Events in London”—In which a writer named China Miéville receives a package containing clues to a vast and ongoing—yet utterly secret—war . . . a war about to turn a most unexpected corner.
“The Tain”—In this major story, winner of the Locus Award for Best Novella, a postapocalyptic London is overrun by vampires and monsters, alien yet weirdly familiar—and one man holds the future of humanity in his hands.
Plus ten other tales—including “On the Way to the Front,” a graphic short story illustrated by Eisner Award–nominated Liam Sharp
BONUS: This edition contains an excerpt from China Miéville’s Embassytown.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
London is a dangerous and demon-haunted place, at least for the characters in the dark, finely crafted tales presented in Mi ville's first story collection. Mi ville, who has won Arthur C. Clarke, British Science Fiction and British Fantasy awards, writes of a city besieged by exotic forms of urban decay, monsters, sadistic and ghostly children, as well as, on a lighter note, the Gay Men's Radical Singing Caucus. In the novella "The Tain," the city has been conquered by vengeful creatures who have erupted from every mirror and reflective surface. In "Details," a story with subtle connections to H.P. Lovecraft's Cthulhu mythos, a young boy meets an elderly woman who has looked too deeply into the patterns that underlie the universe. In "Foundation," perhaps the most powerful story in the book, a veteran must come to terms with the horrors he helped perpetrate during the first Gulf War. Though lacking the baroque complexity and extravagance of Mi ville's novels (Iron Council, etc.), these 14 stories, including one in graphic-novel form, serve as a powerful introduction to the work of one of the most important new fantasy writers of the past decade.
