Kraken

Winner of the Locus Award for Best Science Fiction Novel, Kraken is a darkly comic, wildly absurd adventure by author of Perdido Street Station, China Miéville. Deep in the research wing of the Natural History Museum is a prize specimen, something that comes along much less often than once in a lifetime: a perfect, and perfectly preserved, giant squid. But what does it mean when the creature suddenly and impossibly disappears? For curator Billy Harrow it's the start of a headlong pitch into a London of warring cults, surreal magic, apostates and assassins. It might just be that the creature he's been preserving is more than a biological rarity: there are those who are sure it's a god. A god that someone is hoping will end the world.

China Miéville is a Sunday Times bestselling author of fiction and non-fiction. His novels include The City & The City, Embassytown, Perdido Street Station and The Rouse. A recipient of the Guggenheim Fellowship for fiction, he has won the World Fantasy, the Hugo, and the Arthur C. Clarke awards, among others. His non-fiction includes a study of international law and a history of the Russian Revolution.