Ok, on with the review. Kraken is the best book I've read so far this year, and it's in serious running for best book ever. Yes, that's right, I may have finally found a novel that I love more than American Gods. Gaiman, I still love you, honest I do, but you can't expect to keep the AJ's Favorite Novelist throne if you keep writing books for kids.

If you read last month's review, you already know how The City & The City is nothing like Mieville's Bas-Lag Trilogy. Well, Kraken is nothing like either of those, though it is closer to The City & The City than the trilogy, due to being set in an alternate version of our own world. The prose falls somewhere between the two extremes, not as sparse as "City" nor as opulent as Bas-Lag. In some ways it reminded me of my beloved American Gods, so much so that I made a habit of describing it as "Like American Gods but completely different." In fact, if this were a print magazine, and we had fancy titles for our reviews, that's what I would push for as the title of this review. But I digress.

Our protagonist is Billy Harrow. Billy is a normal man, leading a normal life, with a normal job. Well, I guess preserving specimens at the Natural History Museum in London isn't entirely normal, but it's well within the realm of possibility. Billy even worked on the museum's prize specimen, an intact giant squid. But the squid is more than just the prize specimen and the main attraction at the museum - it's also the catalyst of the story, setting everything into motion when it seemingly disappears into thin air, tank full of preservatives at all.

Aside from the seemingly-impossible squid theft, Kraken starts out feeling like it's set in our version of London, that nothing is truly different about the world, that we're just reading a particularly unusual mystery novel. Then there's a moment so weird, so unnatural, that the reader (or this reader, at least) is momentarily pulled from the story and says: "Wait, did that really happen? CAN that really happen?" And that's when you remember, hey, I bought this in the sci-fi/fantasy section. I guess it can happen.

Things just get weirder for Billy as he learns about all of the weird cults that call London their home. No one seems to know who took the squid, but everyone wants to know where it is, and everyone thinks that Billy should know something. So we get a story that's a mystery, a fantasy, and a bit of a suspense story, as Billy is left unsure who to trust, especially once the double-crossing starts.

I had a hard time putting this one down. Not only is it well-paced and well-written, but Mieville's vision of an alternate London overflowing with small, bizarre cults is so compelling that I kept reading to learn more. I wanted to know about the doctrine of each weird sect, and the politics of the interactions between different fringe religions. I wanted an "Encyclopedia of Gods" for the cults of London, so that I could look them up as I encountered them. And at times, I found myself wishing that this was the way the world really was.

It's rare that a book affects me at this level. Oh, I enjoy books. I love them. I devour them. I stack them all over my house, and I lend them out to my friends so I can share the fun. But Kraken was so good that I never wanted it to end, I wanted to remain immersed in that world. And then, when I finally did finish it, I was left with the sad knowledge that everything else I read for the next few months will seem just a little less wonderful in comparison.

Alright, lest you think that I am nothing but a gushing Mieville fan girl, there was one part of this book that I simply could not stand. There's a fantasy trope that I am beyond fed up with - the Infamous Villains. Usually, they work in pairs. Usually, they're thugs for hire. Usually, one is loquacious and the other is dim and/or mute. You know the ones I'm talking about. Croup and Vandemar in Neverwhere. Those two creepy school boys in The Somnambulist (I can't look up their names, I loaned out my copy and no one on Wikipedia liked it enough to provide a handy list of characters). Glaucous and Penelope in The City at the End of Time. And now, Kraken gives us Goss and Subby, or as they are invariably called, Goss-and-f*cking-Subby (never f*cking-Goss-and-Subby. I notice these things).

I could really do without these impossibly long-lived villains with their lengthy lists of horrible crimes dating back to the darkest recesses of history. I could do without the way people fearfully whisper their names, or avoid speaking of them at all. I could do without the authors lavishly waxing on about how horrible they are, and how everyone is afraid of them, and how if they're in town, it's bad news for everyone. I could do without the way the loquacious one is always in love with his own cleverness and frequently spouts off random weird turns of phrase just because he can't stand to go without hearing the sound of his own voice for more than five minutes.

But no. I have to put up with a perfectly wonderful book being bogged down by Goss-and-f*cking-Subby. Every time they showed up I would roll my eyes and think "Great, here we go again. Let's get this over quickly." During the middle part of the book, I started to feel like they might even ruin the entire thing for me, but I eventually got over it and focused on what I enjoyed.

And really, there was a lot to enjoy, which is why I wholeheartedly recommend it to my readers.