“A stand-alone large hitter that’s more consistent with recent deviants like Chuck Wendig’s upcoming Wanderers (2019) and Daniel H. Wilson’s The Clockwork Dynasty (2017). Tonally, this lush novel is nearer to Scott Lynch’s pirate illusion The Lies of Locke Lamora (2006), but technologically it resembles the near-future dystopias of Cory Doctorow or China Miéville […] Wildly ambitious and inventive illusion from an writer who’s punching above his fat in terms of about The Grand Dark worldbuilding-and earning.”

— Kirkus (starred review)

From your bestselling writer of the Sandman Slim series, a lush, dark, stand-alone fantasy built off the insurgent tradition of China Mieville and M. John Harrison-a subversive story that immerses us in a world where the extremes of bleakness and beauty exist together in harmful harmony in a city around the advantage of civility and chaos.

The Great War is over. The city of Lower Proszawa celebrates the peace having a decadence and carefree soul as extreme as the war’s horrifying despair. But this newfound hedonism-drugs and sex and countless parties-distracts from unusual realities of everyday life: Intelligent automata taking jobs. Genetically built creatures that serve as dogs and cats and beasts of war. A theater where gruesome murders happen twice each day. And a fresh plague that even the ceaseless euphoria can’t cover up.

Unlike other people who live strictly for fun, Largo is an addict with ambitions. A bike messenger who grew up in the slums, he knows the city’s roads and its own secrets intimately. His life seems set. He has a beautiful girlfriend, drugs, an opportunity at a promotion-and probably, a chance for complete transformation: a contact among the elite who will established him for the course to lift himself up out of the streets.

But dreams can be a harmful part of a city whose disposition is turning dark and inward. Others have a eyesight of life very different from Largo’s, and they will use any solutions to secure control. And in behind everything, beyond the frivolity and chaos, the threat of new war constantly looms.