The Rouse

Miéville’s command of his prose is phenomenal. There is a real sense of life throughout as he seamlessly slips between styles . . . This is a world that you can truly swim in, and few authors can achieve that' * The Times *
What Miéville has crafted in The Rouse is an intimate epic, a controlled sprawl of history and emotional resonance. I felt it in my bones, the undeniable power of a jagged masterpiece * The New York Times *
The Rouse is affecting, intelligent and, in more than one place, very, very frightening. “Life,” as Miéville writes, “is just a prologue to a ghost story.” This is a novel destined for a rich afterlife * The Guardian *
[An] incredibly ambitious combination of history and the supernatural . . . Miéville renders the winding, complex plot that ties these two characters together in characteristically robust prose and provides a satisfying ending for readers who persevere. Fans will not be disappointed * Publishers Weekly *
Miéville is back . . . [The Rouse] is a book of the dead and the superpositioned living. A lament configuration that grieves and is aghast. It is monumental and exhaustive yet concise . . . you never want it to end: you want it never to end * Boston Review *
China Miéville is one of our great contemporary writers, master of the weird and author of masterpieces * New Scientist *
Miéville 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 *
I cannot say how much I love this book both for its humanity and its originality. The Rouse is a classic of modern weird literature . . . and goes beyond genre to put Miéville in the forefront of modern British novelists -- Michael Moorcock, author of The Dancers at the End of Time
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
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
An extraordinary tour de force, poetic, complex and poignant. A true masterpiece of the weird -- Adrian Tchaikovsky, author of Children of Time
The Rouse is Miéville's most completely realised imagining, an alchemical amalgamation of historical and meta-natural horror that like its characters strives to fathom that which surpasses all understanding -- Tariq Goddard, author of Homage to a Firing Squad
Miéville's genre-busting secret history is epically ambitious, crammed with ideas and eyekicks, yet also profoundly humane. A true masterwork -- Paul McAuley, author of Fairyland
At once the most poetic horror and the most fearsome historical novel in contemporary letters. There is simply no equivalent to Miéville’s achievement -- Jordy Rosenberg, author of Confessions of the Fox
'A monster of a book in every sense' -- Francis Spufford, author of Golden Hill