Railsea

Wow! What a trip. When I first started this one I thought it was perhaps a great read for young adults. Upon reflection, I realize just how beautifully complex this man's mind must be. Imagine a world covered by railway tracks. All the kingdoms of this world are linked by these tracks the same way oceans link ours. And what travels these tracks? Why trains of course. Except that there are trains powered by sails, slaves, clockwork mechanisms, diesel, just to name a few. There are moletrains (those that hunt the giant moles), Salvors (those that salvage train wrecks and unusual technology), pirates, military and so on.

Apart from giant moles, there are a number of dangerous creatures that live in the ground beneath the rails: owls, antlions and worms to name a few. Mieville has conjured up a fully realized world complete with philosophies, railsea theology and bizarre cartography. Think of a distant future mashed-up with steampunk, 'Moby Dick' and 'Kidnapped' and you might begin to see where Mieville's head is at. While 'Railsea' can be read as pure escapism and it would make for a good film. The book also examines some of the short-sighted thinking that plagues our present society. A read for young adults only, I think not.

Just such a wild and good book. It could be described as "Moby Dick, except that instead of chasing a whale in a sailing ship, they're chasing a giant mole in a railroad train", and that would be accurate but also not. And it sounds ridiculous, and it is, but it works, and it's terrific.

It's also steampunk of a sort, but steampunk that's fresh and unique and not Just Steampunk.

It is a wonderful time, a rollicking adventure, a sweet romp, complete in itself, the loose ends not exactly tied up but not exactly left dangling. It is easy to imagine (and even long for) sequels, or other stories in the same universe, but it's also easy to imagine there won't be any; this was about perfect.

Highly highly recommended.

For me this seemed to be more of an adventure book than an idea book. Though the post-apo-steampunk genre might be a novel enough idea. Qite fun. I did hope for another Embassytown, but that's my fault, not the books.

This was pretty good very pleasant prose, interesting story and relatively fast-paced for his work. Unfortunately I just didn't like it quite as much as some of his earlier books.

I thoroughly enjoyed this book! The language is rich and strange (and still highly readable). I'm not a audiobook fan, but I suspect this is a great candidate for that. It is YA, in that the viewpoint is from a young person, but I never—in the least—felt talked-down to. There's a lovely, chewy complexity in puzzling out the invented world. As I read, I marked passages to refer to when I discussed with my book group (and I rarely do that). Some I marked because they answered a question; others because they were so lovely, or funny. Miéville has a blast, going meta with Moby Dick, Kidnapped and Treasure Island, and also simply addressing the reader.

Highly recommended.

Railsea was quite enjoyable, although I didn't like it as much as I liked Perdido or Kraken. It sketched an interesting and unique world, and the characters were well done as always. The author experiments with grammar in this piece, which added to the feel of the setting, but I didn't really enjoy that aspect of it as much. Still, even with the experiments, China Mieville's writing remains consistently good, and I will happily continue to read everything he puts out.

I’ve only really enjoyed on China Miéville novel ([b:The City and the City|4703581|The City and the City|China Miéville|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1320475957s/4703581.jpg|4767909]) but I am a fan of what he does for literature and speculative fiction. His latest novel Railsea is his second attempt at a YA novel and while I’ve not read his other YA novel [b:Un Lun Dun|68496|Un Lun Dun|China Miéville|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1170692699s/68496.jpg|2959401] I must say I wasn’t really impressed with this one. I really loved the complexity of [b:The City and the City|4703581|The City and the City|China Miéville|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1320475957s/4703581.jpg|4767909] so I was looking forward to see Miéville’s take on [b:Moby-Dick|153747|Moby-Dick|Herman Melville|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1327940656s/153747.jpg|2409320]. Granted I should have read Moby Dick before this book but I found this book was too simplified and weird writing without some intelligent plotting just ends up making the book weird.

Set in a dying dystrophic world that is now desert; Railsea is an adventure novel that tells the tale of three young orphans joining the train to hunt for Mocker-Jack; the giant Mole. The book mixes adventure elements that remind me of Treasure Island with Miéville’s own genre; which he calls ‘weird’ and is a mix of fantasy and steampunk. The main protagonist; Sham was pretty average in this book but the train captain Abacat Naphi peaked my interest, I think she was the Ishmael in this book; even considering Mocker-Jack as her nemesis.

I thought this book might be more of a children’s book rather than a YA novel; iO9 said it best when they said this book was for “kids who cut their teeth on Thomas the Tank Engine, then Lemony Snicket”. It just felt odd and too simplified but a twelve or thirteen year old would probably enjoy it as a gateway into the YA fantasy/steampunk genre. The main issue I had was this book was the over use of the ampersand there is way too many in the book; even a large amount of sentences starting with ‘&’. It just never looked or felt write when reading it and I found I got really annoyed with it.

This book is for young teenagers and China Miéville fans, anyone else interested in trying this author might want to look elsewhere. I’m a little disappointed with this book but would be interested to see how my other friends find it; if they read it. There are some interesting elements in this book but for me I felt more frustrated by it. I hope others love and enjoy this book more than I did, Miéville has a lot to offer the literary world but I personally think; skip this one and go read [b:The City and the City|4703581|The City and the City|China Miéville|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1320475957s/4703581.jpg|4767909].

The book started off a bit slowly and I wasn't sure whether I should be treating it is as a YA book or Mieville's usual fare. However, the pace quickly picked up and I got very interested in the story and the world. The ending in particular was very satisfying.

A more in-depth review is available in my blog here: strakul.blogspot.com/2012/05/book-review-railsea-by-china-mieville.html

People have wanted to narrate since we first banged rocks together & wondered about fire. There'll be tellings as long as there are any of us here, until the stars disappear one by one like turned out lights. Some such stories are themselves about the telling of others. An odd pastime. Seemingly redundant, or easy to get lost in, like a picture that contains a smaller picture of itself, which in turn contains - & so on.

In the world of the railsea, danger lurks under the earth where giant moles, earwigs and flesh-eating worms make their home and their hunting ground. The humans make their way safely in trains, running across the rails that cover most the land. The world ends where the railsea ends, that is what everyone knows.Sham is a doctor's assistant on a mole train. His captain is intent on catching Mocker Jack, an ivory (or more accurately, yellow) moldywarpe (read, giant, vicious mole), her lifelong nemesis who took her arm. Sham's not so interested in the moles but he is an orphan and he has little choices. When he finds some photos in a wrecked train, he is determined to return them to the victim's family. Yet there is something odd in the photos, a lone, alien looking rail...could there be something beyond the railsea?

But he felt possessed by the souls of generations of youngsters chased through neighbourhoods by adults for reasons unclear or unfair. He channelled their techniques of righteous evasion.

Railsea does have the feeling of being a children's book for adults. It's full of adventure, pirates and, um, trains yet the characters lack a little depth. The vocabulary will be challenging for a lot of younger readers although I can imagine it would be a joy to have it read out loud. I especially liked the parts where it felt the narrator was addressing the reader without it being done through second person. It really felt like being told a story and having the narrator pause to comment on something.

“He says he's a pirate,” whispered Sham to Daybe. Images came to Sham – how could they not? - of pirate trains. Devilish, smoke-spewing, weapon-studded, thronging with dashing, deadly men & women swinging cutlasses, snarling under cross-spanner pendants, bearing down on other trains.

However, I very nearly gave up on it. Miéville's world building is excellent and I loved the idea of an ocean on land, but it goes on so long before anything really happens. It took until nearly halfway for me to get into the book although I really enjoyed the second half where the characters start to come alive. Oddly, my favourite character didn't even have a speaking part; Daybe the day bat who Sham befriends at the start of his adventure. I loved that little bat!You may have noticed the use of ampersands in my quotes. This is not an accident or formatting fault. Being used to uncorrected proofs, they didn't really register in my mind until the narrator pointed out that once & was spelled with 3 letters. From then on it grated on me a bit. I liked the idea that an ampersand is reminiscent of the curves of the railsea but it isn't the most natural thing to read.If you're a big fan of fantastical worlds and like the idea of the nautical world of Moby Dick reworked on land, with moles instead of whales, and trains instead of ships, really do give Railsea a try. If you're looking for character driven storytelling you may well be disappointed.