Description

‘Completely without parallel’ – Michael Moorcock, author of The Dancers at the End of Time
‘A magisterial wonder’ – Paul Tremblay, author of The Cabin at the End of the World
‘An extraordinary tour de force’ – Adrian Tchaikovsky, author of Children of Time
‘Every page feels alive’ – Xiaolu Guo, author of Call Me Ishmaelle
‘A monster of a book in every sense’ – Francis Spufford, author of Golden Hill

From the bestselling, award-winning master of uncanny fiction comes a defining work, twenty years in the making – a deeply moving, decade- and continent-spanning epic of grief, global tumult, and grim conspiracy.

Maur’s life has been shaped by an unbearable loss. But in the aftermath of what is an apparently ordinary tragedy, deeper, stranger questions arise . . . Their answers may lie within the dark heart and darker history of an old soldier who shares Maur’s obsessions – and is violently pursued by the same unknown, unquiet forces.

So begins The Rouse, a masterpiece unlike any other: at once a sprawling saga of the bloody twentieth century, and the intimate story of two lives, their loves, regrets and secrets – and a terrifying journey into infinite mystery.

Praise for China Mieville, The Rouse:

‘[An] incredibly ambitious combination of history and the supernatural . . . fans will not be disappointed’ – Publishers Weekly
‘Mieville has been allowed full, free rein in this new work of eldritch dead and haunting dread’ – Booklist
‘A smartly imagined, genre-bending story that readers may find all too real’ – Kirkus Reviews
‘Mieville is back . . . you never want it to end: you want it never to end’ – Boston Review

Publisher Review

The Rouse is a stirring, moving family saga and a dizzying exegesis of the violent and virulent second half of the twentieth century, as well a lament for the brutalist age it has spawned. Complex, consuming, thrilling, terrifying, a feast of language and ideas . . . I could go on and on. A magisterial wonder -- Paul Tremblay, author of The Cabin at the End of the World A richly immersive, sweeping vision of twentieth-century London, capturing the city in all its colours and sounds . . . Every page feels alive -- Xiaolu Guo, author of Call Me Ishmaelle An extraordinary tour de force, poetic, complex and poignant. A true masterpiece of the weird -- Adrian Tchaikovsky, author of Children of Time A monster of a book in every sense: a showing of the ghosts that haunt our real history, and of the power of the fantastic to explore with tender horror the twilight borderland where dogs turn into wolves, and back again -- Francis Spufford, author of Golden Hill