A thriller of war that never was--of survival in an impossible city--of surreal cataclysm. In The Last Days of New Paris , China Miéville entwines true historical events and people with his daring, uniquely imaginative brand of fiction, reconfiguring history and art into something new. "Beauty will be convulsive. . . ." 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. 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. But Sam is being hunted. And new secrets will emerge that will test all their loyalties--to each other, to Paris old and new, and to reality itself. Praise for "Beautiful, stunningly realized . . . [ ] is a brief vacation in alien latitudes, a midnight layover in an imaginary place." --NPR "A thoughtful, highbrow novella . . . Miéville's self-assured style offers up a strong sense of humanity, while the strange Surrealist monsters give Last Days a fun and complementary mad-science component." -- USA Today "[A] testament to the necessary, progressive power of art . . . Both moving and disturbingly timely." Newsday "A novel both unhinged and utterly compelling, a kind of guerrilla warfare waged by art itself, combining both meticulous historical research and Miéville's unparalleled inventiveness." Chicago Tribune "An extraordinarily original work that foregrounds Mieville's considerable ingenuity and innovation." --The Millions "Hauntingly poetic, strangely beautiful, and erratically intense." --San Francisco Book Review "Dazzling . . . quite a feat." The Guardian