A dazzling scholarly fantasy . . . The bestiary of surrealist manifs, or manifestations, that Mieville parades before us is dazzling . . . the effect is exhilaratingly precise and serious, as though Albert Camus had rewritten Raiders of the Lost Ark . . . At the story's climax it turns out to be satisfyingly horrible, but not as bad as what follows - a brilliantly eerie apparition that it would be invidious to reveal here . . . This intense, scholarly fantasy speaks to our age. * Guardian *
Treading the line between beauty and horror, history and fantasy, Mieville filters a clash of art and philistinism through the medium of wartime spy fiction. This dense, clever book's flights of fancy are grounded in details such as a miraculously uneaten cat dashing for cover, the whole thing rounded off with a knowing satirical wink. * Financial Times *
[The Last Days of New Paris] has a hallucinatory jeu d'esprit . . . Fun, very inventive and thoughtful, particularly for readers interested in Surrealism's revolutionary politics. I loved it. * Daily Telegraph *
If anyone were to write a sequel to Invisible Cities, Italo Calvino's dreamlike catalogue of fantastic places, then China Mieville might well be the man for the job . . . Mieville has always had a knack for visions of the uncanny . . . Here he is evoking other people's imaginings, still with precision and grace. * Times Literary Supplement *
Initially joyous, fundamentally chilling book . . . Riotous . . . With its fractured oppositions, bad taste, demagoguery and monstrous alliances it seems all too relevant. * Spectator *
There's so much absurd beauty among the fauna in this story of surrealist art come to life in Nazi-occupied France, in fact, that the author's subtler points about imagination and oppression arrive as a surprise . . . The finale of The Last Days of New Paris is both moving and disturbingly timely: Imagination has often been used to puncture fascism; now Mieville asks whether fascism can defeat and subvert art. * Newsday *
A fine introduction to [Mieville's] unique imagination * Chicago Tribune *
A strange and compelling tale. * New York Post *
A novel both unhinged and utterly compelling, a kind of guerrilla warfare waged by art itself, combining both meticulous historical research and Mieville's unparalleled inventiveness. * Los Angeles Times *
Hauntingly poetic, strangely beautiful . . . The characters, especially Sam the journalist, are vividly drawn into life. This is a book that deftly balances thumping action with quiet contemplation. * San Francisco Book Review *
Mieville's subtle understanding of politics, married to his sophisticated interest in science and art, gives us a short tale that is packed with ideas and inventions . . . A page-turner whose end left me almost physically applauding. -- Michael Moorcock * New Statesman *
Fascinating . . . an unforgettable dreamscape superimposed on the familiar, a manifestation of the mind worth examining. -- Barnes and Noble blog
Fantasy and historical events intermingle in a visionary tale of war and resistance taking in surrealist Andre Breton, the Nazi occupation and the forces of hell * Guardian *
That you really want to know what side will win says much about the quality of a necessarily strange and uncompromising book that reminds us that the old weird of surrealism still has the power to shock if we remember to look at it with fresh eyes. * SFX *
Mieville takes one of the most exhausted tropes of alternate history - a counterfactual Second World War - and breathes joyously vivid life into it. With relish and thoughtful deliberation, he juxtaposes the intentional irrationality of Surrealism with the uglier, bloodier irrationality of warfare . . . The Last Days Of New Paris not only delivers all the fun its premise suggests, but thrills with the sheer depth of its ambition, invention and historical detail. * Sunday Herald (Glasgow) *
Beautiful, stunningly realized . . . [The Last Days of New Paris] is a brief vacation in alien latitudes, a midnight layover in an imaginary place. -- NPR