A thriller of a war that never was - of survival in an impossible city - of surreal cataclysm In The Last Days of New Paris, China Mieville 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 Andre 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 corpseBut 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