communi_kate | book review: railsea by china mieville (Reply)

I once read a critique of Mieville's work where the critic complained that he appreciated Mieville's novels for their lyrical prose but couldn't get past the fact that his characters were either bastards or had features that were profoundly unsympathetic and/or terrible fates*. This is an aspect of Mieville's work that's always prevented me from enjoying his adult novels as much as I feel I should.

Those readers who share my sentiments would probably enjoy Railsea, a young adult novel and affectionate deconstruction of Moby Dick. Railsea takes place in an alternate world where the plains between cities are populated by man-eating subterranean monsters. Trains manned by fearless adventurers travel the great railsea searching for the salvage of lost civilizations and hunting the moldywarpe, or giant mole.

The hero, Sham, is apprenticed to a train whose one-armed captain, Abacat Naphi, is obsessed with a great white moldywarpe called Mocker-Jack. Like most of Mievielle's novels, nothing is quite what it seems. Naturally no seafaring cliché is left subverted (at one point Sham is marooned upon an island of higher ground but escapes by repairing an abandoned handcar and setting out alone along the rails), there are pirates and peg legs aplenty and people are forced to walk the plank.

Railsea's very readable and the world building is entertaining. It's short but sweet and although you suspect that Mieville at times is a touch too pleased with himself it's just so much damn fun you don't much care. The book's only classed as young adult because nobody has sex (plenty of people die) or curses too much and not everyone is a complete cockweasel. It's definitely worth a voyage into the murky depths of the young adult section of your library.

*Lin in Perdido Street Station has a giant scarab beetle for a head and is turned into a zombie by a giant moth who likes to feed on people's brains.