In a post-apocalyptic world life revolves around the Railsea, a nexus of railway lines populated by mole-trains, navy trains, pirate trains and salvage trains. Sham ap Soorap is an apprentice doctor's assistant aboard the mole-train Medes. Giant feral animals burrow the wasteland between the rail lines of the Railsea and Captain Naphi of the Medes is obsessed with a giant mole, a Great Southern Moldywarpe known as Mocker-Jack, which she claims bit off her arm. Mocker-Jack is Naphi's obsession; all captains have them, just as salvagers have their specialisms, the junk they know best. Whenever a train docks, the cities buy their produce and sell them rumour.
Sham is not content with his life aboard the Medes. He rather fancies himself as a salvager, but a chance find sends him to the Shroake siblings in Manihiki, and they, eventually, lead him on a quest for the legendary end of the line.
I love Mieville's writing style, a sort of techno-baroque. He endows his characters with endless cheerful eccentricities. Even the pirates here have their good sides. He handles action like a master. Railsea is a quest novel and a good one. The world imagined here is convincing and the book rather peters out when the object is attained. The object, of course, has to be obtained otherwise the whole narrative is pointless, and the good thing is that Mieville has the taste and discrimination to leave it there, without tying up every loose end as lesser authors might.
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