Reddit reviews The Last Days of New Paris: A Novel

Greetings, daily thread. I come as an envoy from /r/rvaBookClub, and I'm here to tell you to read a book and talk about it with us! We meet once a month to eat, drink, and discuss fine (and not so fine) literature. This month we're meeting on the 28th at 7PM, location TBD (maybe McCormick's again?). We're reading The Last Days of New Paris by China Mieville, where Nazis and Resistance fighters trapped in Paris try to survive the plague of living surrealist art. We've got spare copies and ebooks available, so feel free to get in touch if you can't get a copy yourself! Here's the back cover blurb for the book for your viewing pleasure.

Year 1941. In the chaos of wartime Marseille, American engineer—and occult disciple—Jack Parsons stumbles onto a clandestine anti-Nazi group, including Surrealist theorist André Breton. In the strange games of the dissident diplomats, exiled revolutionaries, and avant-garde artists, Parsons finds and channels hope. But what he unwittingly unleashes is the power of dreams and nightmares, changing the war and the world forever.

Year 1950. A lone Surrealist fighter, Thibaut, walks a new, hallucinogenic Paris, where Nazis and the Resistance are trapped in unending conflict, and the streets are stalked by living images and texts—and by the forces of Hell. To escape the city, he must join forces with Sam, an American photographer intent on recording the ruins, and make common cause with a powerful, enigmatic figure of chance and rebellion: the exquisite corpse.


Edit: To answer the daily question, I had the chance to speak at Burning Man. I didn't sleep the night before, and when I finally looked at the time I realized I had ~10 minutes to make it to the stage to talk. I booked it on my friends bike and arrived just in time for them to tell me they were about to give my spot up. Made the talk dusty, sleep deprived, and out of breath, but I made it.