''Railsea'' is a young adult novel written and illustrated by English writer

China Miéville China Tom Miéville ( ; born 6 September 1972) is a British speculative fiction writer and literary critic. He often describes his work as '' weird fiction'' and is allied to the loosely associated movement of writers called '' New Weird''. M ...

, and published in May 2012. Miéville described the novel as "

weird fiction Weird fiction is a subgenre of speculative fiction originating in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Weird fiction either eschews or radically reinterprets ghosts, vampires, werewolves, and other traditional antagonists of supernatural horr ...

", ''

io9 ''io9'' is part of Gizmodo media since 2015, and it began as blog launched in 2008 by Gawker Media. The site initially focused on the subjects of science fiction, fantasy, futurism, science, technology and related areas but over the years has ...

'' labelled its mix of

fantasy Fantasy is a genre of speculative fiction involving magical elements, typically set in a fictional universe and sometimes inspired by mythology and folklore. Its roots are in oral traditions, which then became fantasy literature and d ...

and steampunk elements as "salvagepunk" and the story has been seen as an "affectionate parody" of

Herman Melville Herman Melville ( born Melvill; August 1, 1819 – September 28, 1891) was an American novelist, short story writer, and poet of the American Renaissance period. Among his best-known works are ''Moby-Dick'' (1851); ''Typee'' (1846), a rom ...

's classic 1851 novel ''

Moby-Dick ''Moby-Dick; or, The Whale'' is an 1851 novel by American writer Herman Melville. The book is the sailor Ishmael's narrative of the obsessive quest of Ahab, captain of the whaling ship ''Pequod'', for revenge against Moby Dick, the giant whi ...

'', also drawing on

Robert Louis Stevenson Robert Louis Stevenson (born Robert Lewis Balfour Stevenson; 13 November 1850 – 3 December 1894) was a Scottish novelist, essayist, poet and travel writer. He is best known for works such as ''Treasure Island'', ''Strange Case of Dr Jekyll a ...

's adventure novels ''

Treasure Island ''Treasure Island'' (originally titled ''The Sea Cook: A Story for Boys''Hammond, J. R. 1984. "Treasure Island." In ''A Robert Louis Stevenson Companion'', Palgrave Macmillan Literary Companions. London: Palgrave Macmillan. .) is an adventure no ...

'' and '' Kidnapped''.

Setting

''Railsea'' is set on a dystopian world whose lands are covered by endless interconnecting tracks of rails, known as the "railsea". The earth is colonised by ravenous giant naked mole-rats and other carnivorous giant forms of familiar animals, such as

earwig Earwigs make up the insect order Dermaptera. With about 2,000 species in 12 families, they are one of the smaller insect orders. Earwigs have characteristic cerci, a pair of forcep-like pincers on their abdomen, and membranous wings folde ...

s and antlions as well as stranger non-identifiable creatures that reside in the polluted sky. These threats mean that humanity are confined to 'islands' of harder rock through which the animals cannot burrow and the spaces between can only be safely traversed by use of trains.

Plot

Sham Yes ap Soorap is a young assistant doctor on a moletrain, captained by Abacat Naphi, that hunts giant moles for meat in a similar fashion to

whaling Whaling is the process of hunting of whales for their usable products such as meat and blubber, which can be turned into a type of oil that became increasingly important in the Industrial Revolution. It was practiced as an organized industr ...

. Naphi is especially obsessed with one mole named Mocker-Jack and after one encounter, they discover an abandoned train. Sham enters it, discovering a corpse and a camera buried in the ground. Sham and Naphi view the images and are shocked to see an image of a single rail leading off into the distance, an apparent impossibility as it is believed that the railsea is endless. As rumours spread of Sham's discovery, his investigations lead him to Caldera and Dero Shroake. They are the son and daughter of two explorers who ventured to the furthest reaches of the railsea before disappearing. Sham tells them of the content of the camera, and they resolve to retrace their parents steps aboard their own train. Sham returns to the moletrain. Before it departs, he is captured by pirates who demand that he provide them with instructions as to how to reach the Shroakes as they believe that there is treasure to be found beyond the railsea. After receiving a message from Sham, Naphi reluctantly abandons the chase for Mocker-Jack and sets out to find him. Sham convinces his former trainmates to assist the Shroakes, who are being sought by both pirates and the navy. They rescue them from their now almost incapacitated train and with a navy wartrain in close pursuit, venture out onto the lonely rail leaving the sea behind them. After a three way confrontation between the navy, Mocker-Jack and a robotic sentinel train that guards the exit of the railsea, the mole train escapes and Mocker-Jack falls into a chasm. The moletrain crew decide to return with their valuable salvage to the known world, whilst Sham and the Shroakes press on by foot to see what lies beyond. They are joined by Naphi, who is now directionless following the death of Mocker-Jack. They reach the end of the line and find the ancient descendants of the railway controllers, confirming an ancient rumour; that the seemingly endless complexity of the railsea is nothing more than the result of rampant rail development by unscrupulous developers in the distant past. After reaching an ocean they take a boat, left by the Shroakes' parents, and sail out into the unknown.

Reception

''Railsea'' was generally well received by critics. ''

USA Today ''USA Today'' (stylized in all uppercase) is an American daily middle-market newspaper and news broadcasting company. Founded by Al Neuharth on September 15, 1982, the newspaper operates from Gannett's corporate headquarters in Tysons, Virgi ...

''s reviewer appreciated Miéville's mix of "emotional drama,

Godzilla is a fictional monster, or '' kaiju'', originating from a series of Japanese films. The character first appeared in the 1954 film '' Godzilla'' and became a worldwide pop culture icon, appearing in various media, including 32 films prod ...

-esque monster carnage" and high adventure that would satisfy teenagers as well as Miéville's adult fans. Stephanie Burt remarked on Miéville's inventive language and world-building, and noted that the author's

far-left politics Far-left politics, also known as the radical left or the extreme left, are politics further to the left on the left–right political spectrum than the standard political left. The term does not have a single definition. Some scholars consider ...

are reflected in the slowly emerging history of ''Railsea''s derelict world, which amounts to a "funny, far-reaching indictment of modern capitalism". Several reviewers highlighted the metafictional nature of the novel. Writing for ''io9'', Chris Hsiang noted that it abounds with "impish literary games", and praised its avoidance of either "dystopian romance tropes" or political sermonising in favour of a challenging, weird but still approachable language and structure. Others were more critical of ''Railsea''s metafictional approach. Jason Heller of the '' A.V. Club'' wrote that while Miéville's swift and absorbing (if dense) prose and lean plot yielded a "brainy and thrilling" result, it would have been improved "if only he'd stopped less to comment on his own cleverness along the way".

References

External links

* {{Moby-Dick 2012 British novels Novels by China Miéville British adventure novels British post-apocalyptic novels British children's novels British steampunk novels Dystopian novels Del Rey books 2012 children's books 2012 science fiction novels Works based on Moby-Dick