The Last Days of New Paris Paperback – 8 Feb 2018

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Review ------ A dazzling scholarly fantasy . . . The bestiary of surrealist manifs, or manifestations, that Miéville parades before us is dazzling . . . the effect is exhilaratingly precise and serious, as though Albert Camus had rewritten Raiders of the Lost Ark . . . At the story’s climax it turns out to be satisfyingly horrible, but not as bad as what follows – a brilliantly eerie apparition that it would be invidious to reveal here . . . This intense, scholarly fantasy speaks to our age. (Guardian) Treading the line between beauty and horror, history and fantasy, Miéville filters a clash of art and philistinism through the medium of wartime fiction. This dense, clever book’s flights of fancy are grounded in details such as “a miraculously uneaten cat” dashing for cover, the whole thing rounded off with a knowing satirical wink. (Financial Times) [The Last Days of New Paris] has a hallucinatory jeu d’esprit . . . Fun, very inventive and thoughtful, particularly for readers interested in Surrealism’s revolutionary politics. I loved it. (Daily Telegraph) If anyone were to write a sequel to Invisible Cities, Italo Calvino’s dreamlike catalogue of fantastic places, then China Miéville might well be the man for the job . . . Miéville has always had a knack for visions of the uncanny . . . Here he is evoking other people’s imaginings, still with precision and grace. (Times Literary Supplement) Initially joyous, fundamentally chilling book . . . Riotous . . . With its fractured sitions, bad taste, demagoguery and monstrous alliances it seems all too relevant. (Spectator) There's so much absurd beauty among the fauna in this story of surrealist art come to life in Nazi-occupied France, in fact, that the author's subtler points about imagination and oppression arrive as a surprise . . . The finale of The Last Days of New Paris is both moving and disturbingly timely: Imagination has often been used to puncture fascism; now Miéville asks whether fascism can defeat and subvert art. (Newsday) A fine introduction to [Miéville's] unique imagination (Chicago Tribune) A strange and compelling tale. (New York Post) A novel both unhinged and utterly compelling, a kind of guerrilla warfare waged by art itself, combining both meticulous historical research and Miéville's unparalleled inventiveness. (Los Angeles Times) Hauntingly poetic, strangely beautiful . . . The characters, especially Sam the journalist, are vividly drawn into life. This is a book that deftly balances thumping action with quiet contemplation. (San Francisco Book Review) Book Description ---------------- A thriller of a war that never was. In The Last Days of New Paris, China Miéville entwines true historical events and people with his daring, uniquely imaginative brand of fiction, reconfiguring history and art into something new.