Railsea

China Mieville

Mieville creates an astounding world. Take every idea that you can imagine related to an ocean based society, with ships, islands, pirates, salvage, navies, and creatures of the deep. Now instead of water, this entire world is built on an intricate tangle of rail lines, with switches & junctions, different gauge lines and everything you can imagine related to trains. Crazy. I love how Mieville imagines and develops, actually pulling you into the world by keeping you curious about how the world works. His language causes the reader to visualize strangeness in a way that is clearly not physical reality, but is believable in an imagination. As such, I don't think this could ever be a movie. Or at least, a good movie. It requires the mind to do most of the work. Beyond developing this world, however, the story here is pretty standard and not very engaging. I would read this book for the world. The story was just good enough.

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