From the bestselling, award-winning master of uncanny fiction comes a defining work, twenty years in the making-a deeply moving, decade- and continent-spanning epic of personal grief, global tumult, and grim conspiracy.

Maur's life has been shaped by loss: an apparently ordinary tragedy. But in its aftermath arise deeper, stranger questions. Their answers may lie within the dark heart and darker history of an old soldier who shares Maur's obsessions and who is violently pursued by the same unknown, unquiet forces.

So begins a book unlike any other: at once an encyclopaedic and multitudinous saga of a bloody century and the intimate story of two lives, their loves, regrets, and secrets-and a terrifying journey into infinite mystery.

China Miéville is a New York Times bestselling author of fiction and nonfiction. His novels include The City & The City, Embassytown, and Perdido Street Station. A recipient of the Guggenheim Fellowship for fiction, he has won the World Fantasy, Hugo, and Arthur C. Clarke awards, among others. His nonfiction includes a study of international law and a history of the Russian Revolution.