Un Lun Dun by China Mieville

Curt Holman loaned me this book, a favorite of his daughter’s.

My only experience with China Mieville thus far has been Perdido Street Station, which is a quirky but engrossing book. Mieville seems like the writer that the term “speculative fiction” was coined for, as one hesitates to call it fantasy or science fiction.

Un Lun Dun is a surprising and creative book intended for kids, but entertaining for adults.

Jumping between what I’ll call an Un-World and this world, it has a down the rabbit hole feel, but more grounded than the Alice surrealism. The world of unLondon thrives on the cast-offs of the real London, where animated garbage and eccentric creatures abound. A crisis that threatens unLondon and London alike can seemingly only be thwarted by a prophesied young girl, but Mieville is not so pedestrian to allow that to play out as you would expect.

The vivid description of the action and oddball characters is crying out for a movie adaptation.