Un Lun Dun

In today's issue of Salon magazine, book critic Laura Miller reviews Un Lun Dun, the new YA fantasy novel by China Miéville:

"Writing children's fiction brings out the best in a certain kind of overfertile imagination. Neil Gaiman's pristine Coraline is by far his most perfectly realized and beautifully written book. Likewise, with Un Lun Dun -- a sooty, street-smart hybrid of Alice in Wonderland, The Wizard of Oz and The Phantom Tollbooth -- Miéville's talents have been brought into focus under the restrictions of the form. Un Lun Dun is not only sleek of line and endlessly (but not needlessly) inventive, it also offers a nimble, undidactic antidote to all the dubious clichés of the genre. Sick of seemingly insignificant characters who discover they have a secret identity and a momentous destiny? Tired of stories that hinge on cryptic prophecies and the retrieval of magical talismans? Miéville dares to insist that nerve, heart and determination is all a hero(ine) really needs."  (Read the full article here.)

China Miéville is the author of four previous adult fantasy novels: King Rat, Perdido Street Station, The Scar, and Iron Council, as well as stories collected in Looking for Jake. He's critically associated with the "New Weird" fiction movement, and lives in London.