Railsea is the newest novel by China Miéville, based a little bit on Herman Melville’s Moby Dick.

Plot:
Sham recently started working on a moletrain, one of the many trains who drive through the endless railsea hunting moles. But his train, the Medes, is made special by the fact that his Captain, Captain Naphi has a philosophy: a giant yellow mole she lost a limb to and has been hunting ever since. But when Sham sees a few pictures he isn’t really supposed to see, his life gets entangled with the Shroake siblings Caldera and Dero and he is soon on a much bigger adventure than he ever thought he would be.

Railsea is an absolute joyride. Linguistically, it’s probably Miéville’s most idiosyncratic book, but it’s fast-paced, fun and bursting with ideas.

I believe that Miéville is a linguist at heart. Language is always such a big part of his world-building and Railsea is no exception. And he has such an ear for it, too. For example, the way he uses clatternames (the sound trains make on rails) is so simple and yet so absolutely effective.

Generally the language in this book is really interesting. For example, Miéville has replaced all “and”s with “&”s. What could be seen as a whim or affectation, gets an explanation a little way into the book – and makes absolute sense. But that’s not the only thing. Most of his style in this one is rather clipped but just fits his world and his characters.

Speaking of characters, I did like Sham and the Shroakes, but even more so Captain Naphi and Travisande Sirocco. And I just loved his ever-so-casual introduction of a triple (as in a three-people-couple). We generally should get more of those untraditional family forms.

And I loved the ending: no quest is ever finished.

Summarising: I enjoyed the hell out of it.