King rat (animal)
The king rat (Uromys rex) is a species of giant naked-tailed rat, rodents in the family Muridae endemic to Guadalcanal in the Solomon Islands. It is found in the Poha valley on Guadalcanal in the Solomons. It lives in trees. It is larger than Uromys porculus but smaller than Uromys imperator.
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King Rat
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King Rat (Miéville novel)
King Rat is the debut novel by China Miéville. Unlike his Bas-Lag novels, it is not a New Weird story but an urban fantasy, set in London during the late 1990s. It follows the life of Saul Garamond after the death of his father and his meeting with King Rat. As King Rat takes Saul under his wing, the young man is quickly embroiled in a centuries old rivalry.
Plot summary
Saul Garamond returns to the flat he shares with his father in London late one evening, skipping on greetings and heading straight to bed. In the morning he is awakened by police pounding on the door, come to arrest him. It appears he is the lone suspect in his father's murder case. After spending most of a day being interrogated and in a holding cell, Saul finds he has a mysterious visitor, who introduces himself as King Rat. The two begin a one sided rooftop escape as King Rat carries Saul along. At the end of this journey, King Rat reveals to Saul that he is his uncle by way of Saul's mother being a rat and also that Saul has been set up to take the fall for his father's death.
King Rat (Clavell novel)
King Rat is a 1962 novel by James Clavell and the author's literary debut. Set during World War II, the novel describes the struggle for survival of American, Australian, British, Dutch, and New Zealander prisoners of war in a Japanese camp in Singapore—a description informed by Clavell's own three-year experience as a prisoner in the notorious Changi Prison camp. One of the major characters, Peter Marlowe, is based upon Clavell's younger self.
Despite its fearsome reputation, Changi was among the better-run Japanese camps, with only 850 deaths among the 87,000 prisoners who passed through.
King Rat was the first book published of Clavell's sweeping series, the Asian Saga, and the fourth chronologically. Two characters from King Rat also appear in Noble House (1981).
Plot summary
The novel opens in early 1945. Peter Marlowe, a young British RAF Flight Lieutenant, has been a P.O.W. since 1942. Marlowe comes to the attention of the "King" (an American corporal who has become the most successful trader and black marketeer in Changi), when the King sees him conversing in Malay. Marlowe's languages, intelligence, honesty, and winning personality cause the King to befriend him and attempt to involve him in black market deals, which bring Marlowe to the attention of Robin Grey, a British officer and Provost Marshal of the camp, who has developed a Javert-like obsession with the King and hopes to arrest him for violating camp regulations. Grey is attempting to maintain military discipline among the prisoners and sees the King as the antithesis of his beliefs. As the son of a working-class family, Grey follows the rules for their own sake using his position as Provost Marshal to gain a status otherwise unavailable to him in British society.
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