Kraken is a cyberpunk/fantasy novel by British author China Miéville

China Miéville

China Tom Miéville is an award-winning English fantasy fiction writer. He is fond of describing his work as "weird fiction" , and belongs to a loose group of writers sometimes called New Weird. He is also active in left-wing politics as a member of the Socialist Workers Party...

. It is published in the UK by Macmillan, and in the US by Del Rey Books

Del Rey Books

Del Rey Books is a branch of Ballantine Books, which is owned by Random House and, in turn since 1998, by Bertelsmann AG. It is a separate imprint established in 1977 under the editorship of author Lester del Rey and his wife Judy-Lynn del Rey. It specializes in science fiction and fantasy...

. The book bears the subtitle "An Anatomy" on the title page.

Miéville has described the book as "a dark comedy about a squid-worshipping cult and the end of the world. It takes the idea of the squid cult very seriously. Part of the appeal of the fantastic is taking ridiculous ideas very seriously and pretending they’re not absurd."

Plot

An inexplicable event has occurred at the British Museum of Natural History—a forty foot specimen of giant squid in formalin has disappeared overnight. Additionally, a murder victim is found folded into a glass bottle. Various groups are interested in getting the squid back, including a naive staff member, a secret squad of London police, assorted religious cults, and various supernatural and mostly dead criminal elements. The wondrous squid represents deity to the Church of Kraken Almighty. Did they liberate their god, or could it have been stolen by a rival cult?

Reception

In a review for The Guardian

The Guardian

The Guardian, formerly known as The Manchester Guardian , is a British national daily newspaper in the Berliner format...

, Damien G Walter says:
Similarly, in a review originally published in The Sydney Morning Herald

The Sydney Morning Herald

The Sydney Morning Herald is a daily broadsheet newspaper published by Fairfax Media in Sydney, Australia. Founded in 1831 as the Sydney Herald, the SMH is the oldest continuously published newspaper in Australia. The newspaper is published six days a week. The newspaper's Sunday counterpart, The...

, James Bradley

James Bradley (Australian writer)

James Bradley is an Australian novelist and critic. Born in Adelaide, South Australia, he trained as a lawyer before becoming a writer.His books include three novels and a book of poetry...

observes that while Kraken is: