It has since been featured in the 2004 anthology Cities, edited by Peter Crowther, as well as Miéville's 2005 short story collection Looking for Jake.

Through introspective monologues on both sides of the fight, the reader learns of the history of the attacking imagos and "vampires", and the reasons behind the invasion.

Infinity Plus describes it as "a story which uses the tropes of the fantastic to address the real world's injustices", and compares it to the work of Lucius Shepard.

First, Miéville infuses the concept with his own unique brand of weird imagery, such as swarms of floating lips once caught in a compact mirror puckering for their lipstick and disembodied hands hooking thumbs together and fluttering like vultures over London and the eerily non-reflective Thames River.

Miéville also elaborates cleverly on Borges' original idea, telling us for example that advance scouts from the tain have been among us for centuries, giving rise to the legend of vampires, since naturally they have no reflection.