Worldbuilding Initiative Book Club: China Miéville's ‘The Rouse’

Please join the Worldbuilding initiative and the Humanities Institute in reading China Miéville’s long-awaited new novel, “The Rouse” (out Sept. 15, 2026) in advance of his visit to ASU on Feb. 25, 2027 as the 2027 Humanities Institute Distinguished Lecturer.

At 1,239 pages, “The Rouse” is a significant literary undertaking for any reader — so why not do it with friends and colleagues? We’ll read the book together from October through February, meeting six times for a lunchtime discussion of the novel. The final meeting of the book group will be the day before Miéville’s visit, ensuring that you’re all caught up before the big event!

All meetings of the book club will be held in Ross-Blakley Hall 196 from 11:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m., on the specified Wednesdays below:

• Meeting 1 (pages 1-225): Oct. 7
• Meeting 2 (pages 226-419): Nov. 4
• Meeting 3 (pages 420-610): Dec. 2
• Meeting 4 (pages 611-819): Jan. 20
• Meeting 5 (pages 820-1,027): Feb. 3
• Meeting 6 (pages 1,028-1,239): Feb. 24

Please feel free to bring your lunch and eat while we discuss! 

About the book:

From the bestselling, award-winning master of uncanny fiction comes a defining work, twenty years in the making — a deeply moving, decade- and continent-spanning epic of personal grief, global tumult, and grim conspiracy.

Maur’s life has been shaped by loss: an apparently ordinary tragedy. But in its aftermath arise deeper, stranger questions. Their answers may lie within the dark heart and darker history of an old soldier who shares Maur’s obsessions and who is violently pursued by the same unknown, unquiet forces.

So begins a book unlike any other: at once an encyclopaedic and multitudinous saga of a bloody century and the intimate story of two lives, their loves, regrets, and secrets—and a terrifying journey into infinite mystery. 

About the initiative

Hosted by the Humanities Institute, the ASU Worldbuilding initiative invites all members of our community — at ASU and beyond it — to come together in mutual inspiration, communal thinking and imaginative play.

For a full listing of Humanities Institute events, visit our events page.