King Rat, by China Mieville

Well, as part of my documented addiction to books, I was looking at an interview with Neal Stephenson, on Slashdot, and he listed the books he was reading. One of them (After S. Agnon, which was cool, since I read some stuff by him in Ulpan,) was "King Rat", by China Mieville. Wow. In addition to being an interesting book, it is amazingly well written in the literary sense, with absolutely stunning prose that almost, but not quite, overwhelms the dramatic tension and makes one slow down to savor it.

In any case, the book was definitely a top ten for the year, if not top three. I would recommend it to anyone who enjoys fantasy (or Science Fiction, at least in the Neal Stephenson sense of the phrase.) The ideas were very new, and the plot was both compelling and interesting. Five thumbs up.