China Miéville's book October "is very deliberate in what it covers and, more importantly, doesn’t cover." John Medherst: " As someone with a book on the Russian Revolution out later this year (August 17th) with a different and more critical take on Lenin and the Bolsheviks, I had to buy and read China Mieville’s October. It is, as you would expect, a great read. Vivid and immersive, it skilfully recreates how kinetic, stressful, confusing and exciting February-October 1917 in Russia must have been. But it is very deliberate in what it covers and, more importantly, doesn’t cover. Although it has a brief prologue and epilogue, 95% of the book sticks tightly to the nine months of February-October. As such it is, surprisingly for a Marxist writer, a rather old-fashioned narrative history. Considering that nearly all the main issues and controversies of the Bolshevik revolution arise from events post-October, the decision to barely address that period prevents wide