Railsea

Railsea
by China Mieville
Pan MacMillan

On the face of it, this is a maritime adventure novel - replete with evil pirates, treasure hunters and creatures of the deep. Except in Railsea, the 'deep' is actually underground, your 'boat' is a train, and instead of travelling on water, you are on rails.

In homage to Moby Dick, giant mole-like creatures are hunted instead of whales. While at first this seems a bit ridiculous, China Mieville draws readers in to a fantasy realm where even huge, carnivorous earwigs and burrowing owls seem quite normal. The substitution of water for land is a simple device, but it works.

Where Mieville takes us on an imaginative journey on the open train tracks, the protagonist, Sham ap Soorap, is on a journey of his own. On board The Medes as a doctor's apprentice, he doesn't fit in with the crew. Young, sensitive Sham is a pensive character who gets distracted easily and disapproves of the crew's rowdy behaviour and activities, including making animals fight each other for their own entertainment. He does not find life as a moler fulfilling, and is seeking something else - perhaps a life as a salvor (living off whatever can be salvaged and sold from Railsea wrecks), or perhaps something yet to be discovered.

Each moletrain's captain has his or her own 'philosophy' - a lifelong quest for some kind of resolution. For The Medes' captain, Naphi, this means trying to hunt down an 'old tooth-coloured moldywarpe' to seek vengeance for a wrong the giant mole did her in the past.

And Sham, our young hero, is not without his own philosophy. When he finds something unusual in a wreck, his itchy feet are fuelled, and he embarks on a voyage of discovery, searching for something beyond the immense, cold Railsea.