Rating: 
Summary: Brilliant debut
Review: King Rat is a highly original urban fantasy. It is also unlike anything you have ever read before. I think that Mieville is single most original writer of urban gothic fantasy, more so even than Clive Barker. You will never see London with the same eyes again!Watch out for 'Perdido Street Station', Mieville's second novel, published in the UK earlier this year. It is set in a really strange universe, mixing fantasy horror and science fiction in a way that is unique and original. It will simply blow your mind. This writer is destined to be one of the biggest stars. Buy this novel now and then buy anything else China Mieville writes.
Rating:
Summary: The best book by one of the best new authors
Review: King Rat is inspired by Neil Gaiman's NeverWhere. But it is not a copy. Mieville has his own voice and vision.
This is not the glitzy West End of the tourists, or the City of Big Business. This is the London of the poor, the outcasts, the shabby projects. The London of the urban tribes outside of society.
An ancient evil has returned to clear up unfinished business. The old King Rat failed to protect his people, and the rats dethroned him. But they are now confused and afraid, and lack leadership. The King Rat sees a chance to regain his throne, and Saul Garamond will be his tool.
Mieville brings new twist to old story plots. There is where I find some of his brilliance. The story is interesting to the end. At no time did I know what was going to happen next.
He writes in a poetic, yet fluent language. I even highlighted some passages because his descriptions rival Dante's.
Rating: 
Summary: Had hoped for more.
Review: King Rat is the first of China Mieville's books that I've read. While it wasn't a great read, it wasn't entirely awful either. I've heard a lot about the author and had hoped for more, but won't be put off from reading his other titles.
The book has a good beginning and I found it engaging. King Rat's relationship with the main character was fun and I loved the mix of disgusting scents and tastes that the main character, Saul, experiences. Nice dark overtones. Unfortunately I just couldn't get into the Piper premise. If you like drum-n-bass music, then this is definitely the novel for you. Found it a bit over the top in the hip-reference to underground music, but I'm not a drum-n-bass fan and after listening to several examples, it really didn't seem to fit the plot as well as, maybe trance music might have. But hey, what do I know...
Mieville's definitely an interesting writer, and I'm looking forward to seeing if I like Perdido Station or some of his others, but King Rat was a disappointment. This particular plotline just dragged for me. I could have done without the other Piper characters as well, like Anansi--just too predictable and weakened the plot further. I would have been much happier if he had just focused on King Rat and Saul and Saul's father. I thought the interactions of those three characters (in the first fifth or so of the book) were far more interesting than the retold fairytale.
This book was definitely influenced by Neil Gaiman's Neverwhere and if you're looking for something comparably dark, slightly tongue-in-cheek, and set in London's subways and Underground, then I'd read Neverwhere first. I think it's a more enjoyable read.
Rating: 
Summary: Dark Urban Fantasy
Review: King Rat is truly great urban underground (and I mean that literally) fantasy in the tradition of novels such as Dark Cities Underground by Lisa Goldstein and Neverwhere by Neil Gaiman. Feeding off the drum and bass culture in London combined with urban myth, King Rat is a very hip but very dark book. Despite liking books very similar to it, I did find it somewhat hard to get into but once I did get fully immersed in the plot, it was hard to put down. Great action, incredible use of language, and an interesting explanation of an age-old myth. For fans of urban fantasy, this one's a must.
Rating:
Summary: This guy can WRITE!
Review: My first impression of King Rat was Wow! China Mieville is a born writer. He is a master of the English language. I love the fantasy in this story. It's simply magical. The only drawback is that you really have to suspend your disbelief. There are several questions that Mieville leaves unanswered. For instance, how in the world are these people rats...but they're also humans? I don't get it. Very well written book. Solid story. Highly recommended. This gets my choice for the best debut novel of 1998-1999.
Rating:
Summary: Elemental-ary, my dear Watson
Review: One theme amongst the other reviews for this marvelous book is to compare it to the author's next, Perdido Street Station which most people seem to have read first. I did not. (In fact I have not yet read Perdido, having recently and reluctantly cancelled virtually all of my magazines due to the sad realization that there was not enough time in my life to keep up with both magazines and books.) Nevertheless, I believe I would still have valued King Rat as highly as I do now. King Rat layers levels of reality the way the physical geography of the book is layered with the surface of London, the downbelow, and occsionally the air when Loplop, King of the Birds is aloft. The portrayal of the Techno - Drum and Bass milieu is perfectly realized as if by someone who must have lived it. The realm(s) of the three Kings, whom I cannot help but identify with Elementals, is both physically well drawn and (intentionally or not) an allegory for the sub-conscious. The characters are exceptionally well portrayed. The reinvention of the Pied Piper is so audacious and effective that every page where he appears is haunted by a different Kind of Music entirely. When I finished it, although probably not even the author would agree with the connection, there was nothing for it but to watch my DVD of The Sweet Hereafter, a different sort of work entirely, but one which also uses the Pied Piper as a significant metaphor. Buy it. Read it. Be moved by it.
Rating:
Summary: ...not by a long shot...
Review: Sorry, folks, but this book does not hold up. It's starts off with a fast pace and characters and a story that just sucks you in. But as more (annoying, pretentious) characters are added...well it goes down hill. This was a chore to finish. The writer is clearly trying to appeal to the hip, cool, gothic youth and is kills what should have been a great book.
Rating:
Summary: Most descriptive stuff I've read since Rice
Review: Texture, scent, colour. I've not read anything this, well, real in a long time. Even when it's not something you'd really want to smell or sense, Mieville lets you have it full on. I enjoyed Ann Rice's early works for the same reason. I knew how the curtains in a room would feel under my fingertips, and how musty they'd smell. Mieville is much in the same vein in that regard, one of the best sensory descriptive writers I've encountered yet. A gripping story, too. Read his newer work!!!
Rating:
Summary: Most descriptive stuff I've read since Rice
Review: Texture, scent, colour. I've not read anything this, well, real in a long time. Even when it's not something you'd really want to smell or sense, Mieville lets you have it full on. I enjoyed Ann Rice's early works for the same reason. I knew how the curtains in a room would feel under my fingertips, and how musty they'd smell. Mieville is much in the same vein in that regard, one of the best sensory descriptive writers I've encountered yet. A gripping story, too. Read his newer work!!!
Rating: 
Summary: Cool dark action and mood, bit pretentious, silly climax
Review: This book reads like a cartoon spin-off movie: it's Batman/X-men/Spiderman (in this case our (tortured disenchanted teen) hero finds he's got super rat powers). It's all about the dark mood. It's very self-consciously visual: at one point Miéville actually describes a scene as looking 'like a page out of a graphic novel'. It almost crosses the line of trying just a bit hard to be cool - and as we all know a definitive thing about cool is that you're NOT trying. OK, it does cross the line with his raptures about 'jungle' as the supreme art form (as opposed to the faddish derivative that it is). But we've got the classic props - troubled rebellious youth telling their elders to stick it, dark, gritty city scenes, gratuitous use of the `f' word, loud music - no sex though, which is a refreshing variation from formula. Although now I think of it, the movies I just mentioned are relatively low on sex too. It feels very cyberpunk even though it's not set in the future: anti-suburban, our hero isn't that heroic (I don't see him using his powers like Superman to set up shop to protect the weak).
The ride is gripping enough, if reliant on moderately frequent almost `horror' violence. The characters are not throwaways, but remember this is not a novel based on relationships nearly as much as special FX style action.
The climax was really annoying (spoiler warning). I can see why he stuck with it even if the obvious OBVIOUS flaw was screaming at him too. It was perfect for Miéville's purposes to have the piper's discovery of multi-tracking in `Jungle' DJ music as his ultimate weapon: a fantastic new art form grants the siren-manipulator the means of entrancing several species at once - even undoing our heroic hybrid (who is saved, hooray, because he gets down on the bass, baby). He built to this and spun it for all it was worth. Now lets, in no particular order - actually, no, I'll save the most numbingly obvious flaw until last - list the problems here:
a) If the piper has always been limited to a single melody through his monophonic instrument, he has always been open to simultaneous attack. At least Miéville anticipates this objection by saying his animals can never take the chance that it will be them who will be targeted in a multiple attack, but there are several places in the book where his birdman, ratman or (his version of) spiderman do place themselves in just such risk. It's not as if Saul makes all the difference - the `animals' are never assured that he's a match for the piper;
b) Jungle music is, I'm sure, innovative in some ways, but hardly the first instance of multi-tracking, something that has been used extensively for decades. Recorded music is hardly a recent development, overdubbing likewise;
c) Indeed, polyphonic music is not an innovation - try some of that hot-off-the-press Bach. What? Several melodies at once? Inconceivable! OK, sure, piano-accordion could hardly be the instrument of choice for a cool arch-villain ... but as I recall Jimi Hendrix looked pretty inspiring with his guitar (something you can even play polyphonic Bach tunes on if you're John Williams). Simultaneous melody is, like, so (centuries) old...
d) Ear plugs (Odysseus picked this a while ago);
e) But leaving all these aside, it just gets way too silly to have all these resourceful enemies of the piper pulling out their hair going, "Oh no, he's using amplified music! Whatever could we possibly do to overcome that??". Um, excuse me, but aren't there just a few ways you could pull out the plug? (Sshhh, don't say that, it'll ruin the whole suspense thing). Nobody even tries to. For goodness sake, you could just throw something heavy at the DAT player, cut through a lead, go outside and pull a fuse, noodle down the street and blow up the local grid. All would seem a wiser course than running towards the piper and away from the ridiculously simple weakness in his obvious weapon.
It's just such a stupid hub for the climax to turn on. I mean, fantastic if you ignore the obvious. It reminds me of the equally stupid climax of Die Hard 2, where - to great visual and emotional effect - Bruce Willis lights up the fuel spill of the escaping hoons, blowing up their plane and providing the lighting to enable all the other planes to land. A great finish - as long as you can stop that little voice from saying, "Um, why didn't someone think of another way of lighting up the runway before this?" Headlights? Flares? Petrol generators? Fires? Dumb, dumb, dumb.
Sorry, but this really hurt. Overall the mood is cool and the pages slide by. I realise I'm being a bit elitist with the music references, but the glorification of `jungle' as the be all and end all did make me gag - as if it's the first time anyone's ever discovered the power of bass. There's some definitive immaturity in the way Miéville praises it by saying, "It's not Everything But the f-ing Girl". Great players in all sorts of styles are often generous in their praise and appreciation of other styles - they can love, say, funk, without having to add, "because Classical is boring, and country is stupid, and jazz is pretentious." Part of growing up is realising there's a world outside your tiny sub-culture, and just because something isn't the same as `yours' doesn't make it `wrong'. If the art you love is really good, it's good enough to not be threatened by the existence of other good art. (Disclaimer: this is an overreaction of someone who teaches music to high-schoolers who think anything that hasn't been on video-hits in the last six months must automatically suck. Including `Jungle').
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