Short Story Collections

A groundbreaking collection of stories, including four never-before-published tales, from the award-winning author of Perdido Street Station What William Gibson did for science fiction, China Miéville has done for fantasy, shattering old paradigms with fiercely imaginative works of startling, often shocking, intensity. Among the fourteen superb fictions in Looking for Jake , including one set in Miéville’s signature fantasy world of New Crobuzon, are: “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

NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY The Washington Post • NPR • The Guardian • Kirkus Reviews • The fiction of multiple award–winning author China Miéville is powered by intelligence and imagination. Like George Saunders, Karen Russell, and David Mitchell, he pulls from a variety of genres with equal facility, employing the fantastic not to escape from reality but instead to interrogate it in provocative, unexpected ways. 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 Miéville 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] Miéville 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 . . . Miéville 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 “Miéville 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)