NP but Grigori. From a NYTimes--not the book reveiw---article today on china Mievelle, in which Lot 49 is alluded to

[John Bailey]

Mieville is a wonderful speaker, if you ever get the chance to see
him. Hugely passionate and full of original thoughts on genre and the
value of anything beyond literary fiction. He likes a good fight, too,
I think.

If you want a quick, enjoyable read, find his Un Lun Dun for a
satisfying subversion of the Harry Potter-style triumphalism of young
adult fantasy. Will appeal to the Pullman fans, too.

On Sat, Jul 24, 2010 at 11:43 PM, Mark Kohut <markekohut at yahoo.com> wrote:
> The book’s starting point is the kraken (pronounced CRACK-en), or giant squid.
> Huge scary squids have been an obsession of writers like Tennyson, Lovecraft,
> and H. G. Wells for the last 200 years; “Kraken” is a homage to that tradition,
> bolstered by the happy fact that the Natural History Museum in London has a
> pickled one, which gets stolen in the book.
>
>
> While the squid is a more “epically resonant creature,” Mr. Miéville says that
> he is in fact “a partisan of the octopus.” (His earrings turn out not to be
> totems of aggression at all, but silver casts of baby octopus tentacles, a gift
> from his girlfriend, an American doctor. He also has some little octopus
> figurines in his bathroom.)
>
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