The Grand Dark Audiobook (Free)

“A stand-alone heavy hitter that’s more consistent with latest 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 dream from an author who’s punching above his fat in terms of about The Grand Dark worldbuilding-and earning.”

— Kirkus (starred review)

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

The Great Battle is over. The city of Lower Proszawa celebrates the tranquility with 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 strange realities of everyday life: Intelligent automata taking jobs. Genetically constructed animals that serve as dogs and beasts of battle. A movie theater where gruesome murders happen double each day. And a new plague that actually the ceaseless euphoria can’t face mask.

Unlike other people who live strictly for fun, Largo is an addict with ambitions. A bicycle messenger who was raised in the slums, he knows the city’s roads and its own secrets intimately. His life seems arranged. He includes a gorgeous girlfriend, drugs, a chance at a promotion-and probably, a chance for complete transformation: a get in touch with among the top notch who will set him on the training course to lift himself up from the streets.

But dreams could be a dangerous thing in a city whose disposition is turning dark and inward. Others possess a eyesight of life completely different from Largo’s, and they will use any solutions to protected control. And in behind everything, beyond the frivolity and chaos, the risk of new war often looms.