Post by Mark T. Locker.

Kraken by China Miéville

Happy Cephalopod Week! Let us celebrate the wise and mysterious octopus, squid, and cuttlefish with some tales of my favorite tentacled monster: the giant squid.

As an avid audiobook listener, sometimes I’ll branch out and try out a book based solely on the narrator. One of my favorites is a rich-voiced Englishman named John Lee. He’s got a fantastic repertoire of voices and does gritty crime novels and humor with equal adeptness. I’ll listen to just about anything he reads. I’m pretty sure I never would have happened upon this book had it not been read by John Lee. I’d seen the name China Miéville in bookstores but never picked one up. I was surprised to discover that China is a burly bald British dude. Not that makes a difference.

Kraken is a bizarre story of a man named Billy Harrow, who works for the Darwin Centre at the British Museum of Natural History. His particular specialty is the giant squid, Architeuthis dux, which he lovingly preserved himself. When the squid goes inexplicably missing, Billy is drawn into a strange underground world of a squid-worshipping cult known as the Church of Kraken Almighty. In their literature, the body of their god going missing is a harbinger of dark times, possibly the end of the world. Riddled with strange gods and magical creatures, weird unearthly villains and cops with special extra senses, this novel is super weird but oddly tantalizing. If you have a taste for the strange, or are, like me, a fan of the giant squid, give this book a whirl. Better yet, listen to John Lee’s reading and let his rich voice lull you into dreams of squid gods.