Does a gigantic, boat-sinking cephalopod really exist? Popularized in the 1870 Jules Verne novel Twenty Thousand Leagues under the Sea, the Architeuthis, or gigantic squid, was thrust back into the spotlight following the highly publicized filming of live giant squid in 2004 and 2006. Kraken: Fact or Fiction? shows what cryptozoologists have uncovered about the giant squid and its relatives, the colossal squid and the colossal octopus. Find out if Architeuthis is the biggest cephalopod out there, or if an even bigger denizen of the deep one lurks in the ocean.

BONUS: This edition contains an excerpt from China Miéville’s Embassytown. With this outrageous new novel, China Miéville has written one of the strangest, funniest, and flat-out scariest books you will read this—or any other—year. The London that comes to life in Kraken is a weird metropolis awash in secret currents of myth and magic, where criminals, police, cultists, and wizards are locked in a war to bring about—or prevent—the End of All Things. In the Darwin Centre at London’s Natural History Museum, Billy Harrow, a cephalopod specialist, is conducting a tour whose climax is meant to be the Centre’s prize specimen of a rare Architeuthis dux—better known as the Giant Squid. But Billy’s tour takes an unexpected turn when the squid suddenly and impossibly vanishes into thin air. As Billy soon discovers, this is the precipitating act in a struggle to the death between mysterious but powerful forces in a London whose existence he has been blissfully ignorant of until now, a city whose denizens—human and otherwise—are adept in magic and murder. There is the Congregation of God Kraken, a sect of squid worshippers whose roots go back to the dawn of humanity—and beyond. There is the criminal mastermind known as the Tattoo, a merciless maniac inked onto the flesh of a hapless victim. There is the FSRC—the Fundamentalist and Sect-Related Crime Unit—a branch of London’s finest that fights sorcery with sorcery. There is Wati, a spirit from ancient Egypt who leads a ragtag union of magical familiars. There are the Londonmancers, who read the future in the city’s entrails. There is Grisamentum, London’s greatest wizard, whose shadow lingers long after his death. And then there is Goss and Subby, an ageless old man and a cretinous boy who, together, constitute a terrifying—yet darkly charismatic—demonic duo. All of them—and others—are in pursuit of Billy, who inadvertently holds the key to the missing squid, an embryonic god whose powers, properly harnessed, can destroy all that is, was, and ever shall be.

Struggling to maintain their home in a Newfoundland fishing village in the 1870s, Tom Piccot and his family deal with a menacing kraken--a giant squid, larger than a whale, that Tom has survived once and will undoubtedly encounter again.

A dark urban fantasy thriller from one of the all-time masters of the genre. "the literary fantasy of the year" Guardian, Fiction Recommendations of the Year Deep in the research wing of the Natural History Museum is a prize specimen, something that comes along much less often than once in a lifetime: a perfect, and perfectly preserved, giant squid. But what does it mean when the creature suddenly and impossibly disappears? For curator Billy Harrow it's the start of a headlong pitch into a London of warring cults, surreal magic, apostates and assassins. It might just be that the creature he's been preserving is more than a biological rarity: there are those who are sure it's a god. A god that someone is hoping will end the world. PRAISE FOR CHINA MIEVILLE "[Mieville s] wit dazzles, his humour is lively, and the pure vitality of his imagination is astonishing." Ursula K. Le Guin, The Guardian (on Three Moments of an Explosion) "Dark and thought-provoking." The San Diego Union-Tribune (on The City & The City) "Richly conceived." The New York Times Book Review (on Embassytown) "Compulsively readable." The Washington Post Book World (on Perdido Street Station)

"Amazing images accompany engaging information about kraken. The combination of high-interest subject matter and light text is intended for students in grades 3 through 7"--

This book explores thrilling legends about the kraken. Short paragraphs of easy-to-read text are paired with eye-catching images to make reading engaging and accessible. The book also includes a table of contents, fun facts, sidebars, comprehension questions, a glossary, an index, and a list of resources for further reading.