The story, in brief, is a retelling of Moby Dick with trains and gargantuan moles instead of ships and whales. Having recently listened to an audiobook of the literary classic*, I was excited to see how such a ridiculous premise would pan out. I was not disappointed.
Railsea is incredibly creative. It embraces a diesel/train-punk aesthetic while slowly exploring the world Chine Miéville has built. Our protagonist, Sham ap Shoorap, starts the story as an apprentice on the mole-hunting train the Medes, just as they finish the first successful hunt of their voyage. We follow him as he travels the railsea--a seemingly unending expanse of winding and overlapping railroad tracks that cover most of the known world. Beneath them monsters lurk: supersized owls, hordes of flesh-eating naked mole rats, and moles the size of whales that burrow through soil as if it were made of liquid. We see towns, cities, empires, and the ruins of civilizations so long gone their technology seems alien to our characters. Each new detail is creative, often funny, and a joy to read as we explore the railsea alongside Sham.
The details of Miéville's worldbuilding would be enough to make this a good book, but instead of simply copying the plot of Moby Dick and painting over it with trains, Railsea uses its allegory as a basis upon which to expand and branch away from. Captain Ahab's parallel, the one-armed captain Abacat Naphi (yes, it's an anagram), peruses her 'philosophy' with the same mad obsessiveness the man has for his white whale; but her journey is not the central conflict of the story. Many train captains have their own 'philosophies:' beasts that have mutilated them and whom they peruse with an almost religious devotion. Naphi is one of many, and Sham is quickly put off by her way of life as it butts against his desire to explore the wider world. They part ways halfway through the book, and Nephi's quest is shown to be increasingly vain and futile as she plunges ever closer to Ahab's doom.
Sham, meanwhile, continues on his own journey to discover what lies beyond the edge of the railsea and how the world came to be covered in railroad tracks. The rest is worth reading, as well as all that has come before. Miéville's prose is whimsical but not flowery. He has created a diction and style that informs the strangeness of this rail-covered world. His secondary characters blur together somewhat, but the central characters are all vibrant and unique voices. The narration sometimes winks at the reader, and I found these parts to be the weakest moments in the text, but they are few in number and placed separately from the immediate action of the story, so they do not detract significantly.
Railsea is, beyond anything else, fun. It has many moments of drama, tension, and wonder--and balances them all very nicely--but it's overall tone is one of joyful exploration. It was a delight to read and I strongly recommend it to anyone looking for a good time.
Railsea is available online and wherever books are sold.
*It's overrated and dated.
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