Books - Looking for Jake

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	Books - Looking for Jake

Looking For Jake is a collection of science fiction and fantasy stories by British author China Mieville. It was first published by Del Ray Books, part of Random House, in 2005, and later by Pan MacMillan.

Stories

The book contains fourteen short stories written between 1998 and 2005. One of them, "On The Way To The Front", is an illustrated, comic-book-esque tale, while the other thirteen are standard written stories. The longest is the 2002 novella The Tain. In order, the book contains:

Looking For Jake

Foundation

The Ball Room

This story was co-written with Emma Bircham and Max Schaefer.

Reports Of Certain Events In London

Familiar

Entry Taken From A Medical Encyclopaedia

This story was original published as "Buscard's Murrain" in The Thackery T. Lambshead Pocket Guide to Eccentric & Discredited Diseases. Taking, as the title suggests, the form of an encyclopedic entry on a disease, the story describes a strange disease known as Buscard's Murrain (also, "Wormword"). The disease is contracted entirely via the brain's recognition of a certain word (which the story gives but never reveals its proper pronunciation). This word then burrows into the brain, reducing the sufferer to insanity so that they can only ever think and utter the one word, over and over again. In a viral sort of way, this encourages other people to learn the word, and they too succumb to the disease.

Details

Go Between

Different Skies

An End To Hunger

'Tis The Season

This story takes place in a somewhat dystopian London in which holidays, including Christmas, have been privatized.

Jack

This is the only story of the collection set in New Crobuzon, a city in Mieville's created world Bas-Lag and the setting of Perdido Street Station and Iron Council. It takes place after the capture of the infamous New Crobuzon criminal/terrorist, Jack Half-a-Prayer and is narrated by one of his former associates.

On The Way To The Front

This is a graphic story illustrated by Liam Sharp.

The Tain

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