Looking for Jake: Stories

If proof were needed that "genre fiction" can be is inventive and well-crafted as so-called "literary fiction", China Mieville would be it. In this collection of short stories, he revels in plots and settings which traditionally-minded critics would snob - futuristic dystopias, post-apocalyptic war-torn urban scenarios, steampunk cities... there's even a fairly conventional but surprisingly chilling ghost story. The streets of London are often referenced, sometimes explicitly, occasionally as a barely disguised backdrop. But it is a London at once recognisable and uncannily different. Indeed, this is a common thread which runs through the stories - the ordinary and mundane become extraordinary, fantastical and, more often than not, show more scary.

There are some duds - ironically, I found the title-story one of the least striking of the collection. On the whole however, this is a gripping book and a great introduction to the strangely familiar yet disturbingly weird world of Mieville. show less

If proof were needed that "genre fiction" can be is inventive and well-crafted as so-called "literary fiction", China Mieville would be it. In this collection of short stories, he revels in plots and settings which traditionally-minded critics would snob - futuristic dystopias, post-apocalyptic war-torn urban scenarios, steampunk cities... there's even a fairly conventional but surprisingly chilling ghost story. The streets of London are often referenced, sometimes explicitly, occasionally as a barely disguised backdrop. But it is a London at once recognisable and uncannily different. Indeed, this is a common thread which runs through the stories - the ordinary and mundane become extraordinary, fantastical and, more often than not, show more scary.

There are some duds - ironically, I found the title-story one of the least striking of the collection. On the whole however, this is a gripping book and a great introduction to the strangely familiar yet disturbingly weird world of Mieville. show less

Table of contents
Looking for Jake
Foundation
The ball room
Reports of certain events in London
Familiar
Entry taken from a medical encyclopaedia
Details
Go between
Different skies
An end to hunger
'Tis the season
Jack
On the way to the front
The tain

A collection of short stories that benefit from being read together, in this order, as Miéville uses their relationship to mirror, distort, or amplify aspects of each other. While a couple of the stories founder, perhaps because they are not in Miéville's typical style, most hold up nicely. In his novels, we become familiar with the logic of each setting; here, because the stories are short, the reading experience often is of disorientation. Since most of his protagonists are similarly show more discombobulated, the existential confusion is heightened.

Buildings and streets play a surprisingly large and active role in many of these pieces, as does the sense that mere anarchy has been loosed upon the world--or, at least, that the world is fraying, and not only does that mean something, but the shape of the threads means something, too. In many cases, characters struggle mightily either to make sense of what they experience, or to push away their understanding.

Best gooey imagery: "The ball room" (a story of an IKEA gone crazy), "Familiar." Creepiest: "Foundation." Most poignant: "Looking for Jake," "Details," "The tain." Least effective: "'Tis the season," "On the way to the front." Most evocative of Poe: "Entry taken from a medical encyclopaedia." show less

God, Mieville is creepy. Almost all of these fall under the horror umbrella, I think, and even the ones that don't are just... creepy. But they're creepy because of the pervasive sense of loneliness, guilt, or powerlessness, not so much because of the Lovecraftian horrors lurking in the shadows. It's an exhausting collection, in some ways, but absolutely worth reading.

This is both the first collection of Mieville's short fiction to be published and the first of his work I've had occasion to read beyond his loosely-connected Bas-Lag 'trilogy' (Perdido Street Station, The Scar and Iron Council). Having finished it, I can only hope that there will be more to come, on both fronts.

"Looking For Jake" is the first story in this collection, and stands as a very good introduction to the rest of the book. 'Everything's changed', the nameless narrator states early on, and much the same thing could be said to describe the stories that follow. Later stories also retain much of that first work's atmospheric tone, and of the narrator's feelings of loss and confusion, and Mieville's infectious delight in the show more unexplained and inexplicable remains constant throughout the book.

Many of the pieces in this collection are set in London ... not a London which will be entirely familiar to readers, however, but one in which the fantastic has become commonplace, or a sudden change has rendered the city alien and abandoned, or in which a web of secrets and conspiracies is being unearthed. Fans of Mieville's earlier work should also enjoy "Jack", another Bas-Lag story that helps to fill one of the gaps between Perdido Street Station and Iron Council.

Many of the stories in the collection seem, if not quite melancholy, at least regretful or introspective. Many of them are genuinely funny, too, though Mieville's humour is generally rather bleak.

Yet if I were to pick a single word to describe the contents of this book I'd go for unsettling. The stories here aren't the sort that should be torn through quickly, I feel, but are best read slowly, with at least a modest pause between finishing one and starting another. (I read the collection in bits and pieces over the course of three or four days, and while it would be easy enough to read in one sitting, I wouldn't recommend that approach). As with much of my favourite short fiction, I often finished these stories torn between wanting to read more and sensing that the story had been told as much as it needed to be - while the narrative could have continued, it would have been telling a different and separate tale.

Not every story in the collection works as well as the rest, of course. The highlights, for me at least, were - in no particular order - the title story, "Reports of Certain Events in London", "Details", the angry-and-amusing "An End To Hunger" and the novella "The Tain" that ends the collection. I hesitate to say too much about this last work (as it seems much easier to unwittingly 'spoil' shorter pieces of fiction than long ones by giving away too many details in advance); suffice to say that it might be the best thing Mieville's written to date. Only a couple of the pieces here failed to impress - if "On The Way To The Front" had a point, I missed it, and "Familiar" was a bit too overtly horrific for my liking.

A wonderful collection overall then (in both sense of the word), and one I'd certainly recommend, both to established fans of the author and those interested in reading something by him who have yet to try any of his longer works. show less

Looking for Jake is a collection of short stories that, for me, really worked. There is great variety in here, showcasing the authors breadth of imagination and creativity. One of the marks of a great short story is that it sticks in your head and lingers long after you've closed the pages. There are stories in this volume that persist years later, that have changed the way I perceived certain places and that have sparked my own imagination along new paths.[a:China Mieville|3190464|China Mieville|http://www.goodreads.com/images/nophoto/nophoto-U-50x66.jpg] brings together threads from fantasy, horror, mystery and mythology in a style that sometimes echoes in lovecraftian ways and yet remains distinct and beautifully crafted. If you are show more looking to sample fantasy that's new, distinctive and vibrant, try this. show less

The collection contains 11 short stories, a comic short and a novella and showcases a lot of the breadth of Miéville as a writer, both in content and form. There is a horror element to most of the stories, but other than that, they are very different from each other, and most are really good, with Miéville’s challenging, beautiful prose and his often intellectual ideas apparent in all of them. So there should be something for everyone interested in horror in this collection. That being said, I was a little taken aback because there are so few women in the stories, with only a couple actually having female protagonists. It’s been a while that I read something so focused on the male perspective.

Read more about each of the stories on show more my blog: https://kalafudra.com/2026/03/24/looking-for-jake-and-other-stories-china-mievil... show less