When a murdered woman is found in the city of Beszel, somewhere at the edge of Europe, it looks to be a routine case for Inspector Tyador Borl of the Extreme Crime Squad. To investigate, Borl must travel from the decaying Beszel to its equal, rival, and intimate neighbor, the vibrant city of Ul Qoma. But this is a border crossing like no other, a journey as psychic as it is physical, a seeing of the unseen. With Ul Qoman detective Qussim Dhatt, Borl is enmeshed in a sordid underworld of nationalists intent on destroying their neighboring city, and unificationists who dream of dissolving the two into one. As the detectives uncover the dead woman's secrets, they begin to suspect a truth that could cost them more than their lives. What stands against them are murderous powers in Beszel and in Ul Qoma: and, most terrifying of all, that which lies between these two cities.

Now a stranger has arrived, with a pocketful of gold and an impossible demand. And something unthinkable is released.

The city is gripped by an alien terror. The fate of millions lies with a clutch of renegades. A reckoning is due at the city's heart, in the vast edifice of brick and wood and steel under the vaults of Perdido Street Station.

It is too late to escape.

In February of 1917 Russia was a backwards, autocratic monarchy, mired in an unpopular war; by October, after not one but two revolutions, it had become the world's first workers' state, straining to be at the vanguard of global revolution. How did this unimaginable transformation take place?

In a panoramic sweep, stretching from St. Petersburg and Moscow to the remotest villages of a sprawling empire, Miéville uncovers the catastrophes, intrigues and inspirations of 1917, in all their passion, drama and strangeness. Intervening in long-standing historical debates, but told with the reader new to the topic especially in mind, here is a breathtaking story of humanity at its greatest and most desperate; of a turning point for civilization that still resonates loudly today.

In the Darwin Centre at London's Natural History Museum, Billy Harrow, a cephalopod specialist, is conducting a tour whose climax is meant to be the Centre's prize specimen of a rare Architeuthis dux--better known as the Giant Squid. But Billy's tour takes an unexpected turn when the squid suddenly and impossibly vanishes into thin air.

As Billy soon discovers, this is the precipitating act in a struggle to the death between mysterious but powerful forces in a London whose existence he has been blissfully ignorant of until now, a city whose denizens--human and otherwise--are adept in magic and murder.

There is the Congregation of God Kraken, a sect of squid worshippers whose roots go back to the dawn of humanity--and beyond. There is the criminal mastermind known as the Tattoo, a merciless maniac inked onto the flesh of a hapless victim. There is the FSRC--the Fundamentalist and Sect-Related Crime Unit--a branch of London's finest that fights sorcery

with sorcery. There is Wati, a spirit from ancient Egypt who leads a ragtag union of magical familiars. There are the Londonmancers, who read the future in the city's entrails. There is Grisamentum, London's greatest wizard, whose shadow lingers long after his death. And then there is Goss and Subby, an ageless old man and a cretinous boy who, together, constitute a terrifying--yet darkly charismatic--demonic duo.

All of them--and others--are in pursuit of Billy, who inadvertently holds the key to the missing squid, an embryonic god whose powers, properly harnessed, can destroy all that is, was, and ever shall be.

In desperation, a small group of renegades escapes from the city and crosses strange and alien continents in the search for a lost hope.

In the blood and violence of New Crobuzon's most dangerous hour, there are whispers. It is the time of the iron council. . . .

The bold originality that broke Mi ville out as a new force of the genre is here once more in Iron Council the voluminous, lyrical novel that is destined to seal his reputation as perhaps the edgiest mythmaker of the day.

Award-winning author China Miéville began his astounding career with King Rat--now in a new Tor Essentials edition--a mix of a young man's search for identity with a pulse-pounding story of revenge and madness.

With a new introduction by Tim Maughan, author of Infinite Detail.

Something is stirring in London's dark, stamping out its territory in brickdust and blood. Something has murdered Saul Garamond's father, and left Saul to pay for the crime.

But a shadow from the urban waste breaks into Saul's prison cell and leads him to freedom: a shadow called King Rat. King Rat reveals to Saul his own royal heritage, a heritage that opens a new world for him, the world below London's streets.

With drum-and-bass pounding the backstreets, Saul must confront the forces that would use him, the ones that would destroy him, and those that have shaped his own bizarre identity.

Tor Essentials presents new editions of science fiction and fantasy titles of proven merit and lasting value, each volume introduced by an appropriate literary figure.

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER

In the far future, humans have colonized a distant planet, home to the enigmatic Ariekei, sentient beings famed for a language unique in the universe, one that only a few altered human ambassadors can speak. Avice Benner Cho, a human colonist, has returned to Embassytown after years of deep-space adventure. She cannot speak the Ariekei tongue, but she is an indelible part of it, having long ago been made a figure of speech, a living simile in their language. When distant political machinations deliver a new ambassador to Arieka, the fragile equilibrium between humans and aliens is violently upset. Catastrophe looms, and Avice is torn between competing loyalties: to a husband she no longer loves, to a system she no longer trusts, and to her place in a language she cannot speak--but which speaks through her, whether she likes it or not.

London awakes one morning to find itself besieged by a sky full of floating icebergs. Destroyed oil rigs, mysteriously reborn, clamber from the sea and onto the land, driven by an obscure purpose. An anatomy student cuts open a cadaver to discover impossibly intricate designs carved into a corpse's bones--designs clearly present from birth, bearing mute testimony to . . . what?

Of such concepts and unforgettable images are made the twenty-eight stories in this collection--many published here for the first time. By turns speculative, satirical, and heart-wrenching, fresh in form and language, and featuring a cast of damaged yet hopeful seekers who come face-to-face with the deep weirdness of the world--and at times the deeper weirdness of themselves--Three Moments of an Explosion is a fitting showcase for one of literature's most original voices.

Praise for Three Moments of an Explosion

China Mi ville is dazzling. His latest collection of short stories, Three Moments of an Explosion, crowds virtuosity into every sentence.--The New York Times

You can't talk about China] Mi ville without using the word 'brilliant.' . . . His wit dazzles, his humour is lively, and the pure vitality of his imagination is astonishing.--Ursula K. Le Guin, The Guardian

A] gripping collection . . . Mi ville expertly mixes science fiction, fantasy and surrealism. . . . Amid the longer stories are more cerebral, poetic flash pieces that will haunt the reader beyond the pages of this exceptional book.--The Washington Post

The stories shine . . . with a winking brilliance.--The Seattle Times

Mind-bending excursions into the fantastic.--NPR

Bradbury meets Borges, with Lovecraft gibbering tumultuously just out of hearing.--Kirkus Reviews (starred review)

Three Moments of an Explosion is a book filled with fabulous oddities.--Entertainment Weekly

Mi ville moves effortlessly among realism, fantasy, and surrealism. . . . His characters, whether ordinary witnesses to extraordinary events or lunatics operating out of inexplicable compulsions, are invariably well drawn and compelling.--Publishers Weekly (starred review)

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 Andr 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.

Praise for The Last Days of New Paris

Beautiful, stunningly realized . . . The Last Days of New Paris] is a brief vacation in alien latitudes, a midnight layover in an imaginary place.--NPR

A thoughtful, highbrow novella . . . Mi ville's self-assured style offers up a strong sense of humanity, while the strange Surrealist monsters give Last Days a fun and complementary mad-science component.--USA Today

A] testament to the necessary, progressive power of art . . . Both moving and disturbingly timely.--Newsday

A novel both unhinged and utterly compelling, a kind of guerrilla warfare waged by art itself, combining both meticulous historical research and Mi ville's unparalleled inventiveness.--Chicago Tribune

An extraordinarily original work that foregrounds Mieville's considerable ingenuity and innovation.--The Millions

Hauntingly poetic, strangely beautiful, and erratically intense.--San Francisco Book Review

Dazzling . . . quite a feat.--The Guardian

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

What is Un Lun Dun?

It is London through the looking glass, an urban Wonderland of strange delights where all the lost and broken things of London end up . . . and some of its lost and broken people, too-including Brokkenbroll, boss of the broken umbrellas; Obaday Fing, a tailor whose head is an enormous pin-cushion, and an empty milk carton called Curdle. Un Lun Dun is a place where words are alive, a jungle lurks behind the door of an ordinary house, carnivorous giraffes stalk the streets, and a dark cloud dreams of burning the world. It is a city awaiting its hero, whose coming was prophesied long ago, set down for all time in the pages of a talking book.

When twelve-year-old Zanna and her friend Deeba find a secret entrance leading out of London and into this strange city, it seems that the ancient prophecy is coming true at last. But then things begin to go shockingly wrong.

Praise for Un Lun Dun

Mi ville fills his enthralling fantasy with enough plot twists and wordplay for an entire trilogy, and that is a good thing. A-.--Entertainment Weekly

For style and inventiveness, turn to Un Lun Dun, by China Mi ville, who throws off more imaginative sparks per chapter than most authors can manufacture in a whole book. Mieville sits at the table with Lewis Carroll, and Deeba cavorts with another young explorer of topsy-turvy worlds.--The Washington Post Book World

Delicious, twisty, ferocious fun . . . so crammed with inventions, delights, and unexpected turns that you will want to start reading it over again as soon as you've reached the end.--Kelly Link, author of Magic for Beginners

A] wondrous thrill ride . . . Like the best fantasy authors, Mi ville] fully realizes his imaginary city. --The A.V. Club

Mieville's compelling heroine and her fantastical journey through the labyrinth of a strange London forms that rare book that feels instantly like a classic and yet is thoroughly modern.--Holly Black, bestselling author of The Spiderwick Chronicles

Riveting . . . a great adventure.--NPR

Wildly inventive . . . Every sentence is packed with wit.--The Guardian (London)

Something is stirring in London's dark, stamping out its territory in brickdust and blood. Something has murdered Saul Garamond's father, and left Saul to pay for the crime.

But a shadow from the urban waste breaks into Saul's prison cell and leads him to freedom. A shadow called King Rat, who reveals Saul's royal heritage, a heritage that opens a new world to Saul, the world below London's streets--a heritage that also drags Saul into King Rat's plan for revenge against his ancient enemy, . With drum 'n' bass pounding the backstreets, Saul must confront the forces that would use him, the forces that would destroy him, and the forces that shape his own bizarre identity.

China Mieville's King Rat was nominated for both the International Horror Guild and Bram Stoker Awards for best first novel.

NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY NPR

In a remote house on a hilltop, a lonely boy witnesses a profoundly 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?

Filled with beauty, terror, and strangeness, This Census-Taker is a poignant and riveting exploration of memory and identity.

Praise for This Census-Taker

China Mi ville is a magician . . . who can both blow your mind with ideas as big as the universe and break your heart with language so precise and polished, it's like he's writing with diamonds.--NPR

The book haunts the reader; what actually happened seems always just out of reach, glimpsed in shadow as it rounds a corner ahead of our vision.--Los Angeles Review of Books

Mieville's] been compared to Karen Russell and George Saunders, and rightfully so.--The Huffington Post

Marvellous.--The Guardian

Lingers in the mind like an unsettling dream.--Financial Times

A thought-provoking fairy tale for adults . . . This Census-Taker] resembles the narrative style, quirkiness, and plotting found in the works of Karen Russell, Aimee Bender, or Steven Millhauser.--Booklist

Brief and dreamlike . . . a deceptively simple story whose plot could be taken as a symbolic representation of an aspect of humanity as big as an entire society and as small as a single soul.--Kirkus Reviews

--Named to Kirkus Reviews' Best Books of 2016

This is a child's imagination come to life, where a good thing can be the greatest thing in existence and a minor inconvenience snowballs into the most horrendous, atrocious, appalling, not good, very bad meal you've ever had. --San Francisco Book Review

Two sisters sit down one morning and begin describing all of the really gross things that were in the worst breakfast they ever had, until all they can picture is a table piled sky-high with the weirdest, yuckiest, slimiest, slickest, stinkiest breakfast possible. And then they have the best breakfast ever . . . almost.

In February of 1917 Russia was a backwards, autocratic monarchy, mired in an unpopular war; by October, after not one but two revolutions, it had become the world's first workers' state, straining to be at the vanguard of global revolution. How did this unimaginable transformation take place?

In a panoramic sweep, stretching from St. Petersburg and Moscow to the remotest villages of a sprawling empire, Miéville uncovers the catastrophes, intrigues and inspirations of 1917, in all their passion, drama and strangeness. Intervening in long-standing historical debates, but told with the reader new to the topic especially in mind, here is a breathtaking story of humanity at its greatest and most desperate; of a turning point for civilization that still resonates loudly today.

China Miéeacute;ville's riveting engagement with the Communist Manifesto offers a lyrical introduction and a spirited defense of the modern world's most influential political document.

Few written works can so confidently claim to have shaped the course of history as Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels's Manifesto of the Communist Party. Since first rattling the gates of the ruling order in 1848, this incendiary pamphlet has never ceased providing fuel for the fire in the hearts of those who dream of a better world. Nor has it stopped haunting the nightmares of those who sit atop the vastly unequal social system it condemns.

In this strikingly imaginative introduction, China Miéville provides readers with a guide to understanding the Manifesto and the many specters it has conjured. Through his unique and unorthodox reading, Miéville offers a spirited defense of the enduring relevance of Marx and Engels' ideas.

Presented along with the full text of the Communist Manifesto, Miéville's guide has something to offer first-time readers, revolutionary partisans, and even the most hard-nosed skeptics.