Railsea

[sawyl]

There are many stories. Stories of the solar system & zombies an eye-blink into the future & regency romances many centuries away & the most fantastic of oriental tales. But these have I put aside at last & settled down with Mr China Miéville's account of those daring few who ride the Railsea.

Sham ap Soorap, is our hero. Or perhaps more precisely, our protagonist, as young Sham isn't exactly the heroic type, even if he is covered in blood the first time we meet him. But not his own. No. It's the blood of a great southern moldywarpe. But not an ivory-coloured one. No. Not so early on. But even though our narrator explains all this at the very outset, I'm getting ahead of myself.

Our Sham, never mind who he might be to us, is a lad apprenticed to the doctoring trade aboard a mole train. Which, quite naturally, is a train that travels the great expanse of the railsea, with its pirates & angels & salvors & nations & great ferronaval powers, in search of the flesh of the creatures — badgers & moles & mole rats & ferrets & beetles & rabbits & worms & all manner of tasty but vicious eruchthonous horrors — that dwell between and below the rails. But young Sham isn't a fan of the moling business; it's the recovering of arche-salvage & the uncovering of ancient mysteries that has snagged his heart.

& as things would have it, fortune smiles on our Blood Covered Boy on his first trip out, when he & his Captain — Abacat Naphi of the Medes, of whom you might have heard on account of her philosophy & her relentless pursuit of Mocker-Jack, the great custardy-coloured moldywarpe — stumble across a shocking secret hidden on an old flatograph memory. & while Captain Naphi can put the mystery, for she already has her philosophy & the old images get her no closer to her nemesis, our boy is more than open to it & the seed takes root in his un-doctorly brain that he needs to explain to the poor orphaned Shroakes what happened to their parents.

The Shroakes? Did I not mention them? Ah, but I will. Their time will come.

Our Sham, not being a terribly worldly lad, finds himself caught up in the intrigues of his betters or, if not his betters, those more worldly than he, who suspect that the true value of his secret might be much greater than he believes. & so our boy finds himself separated from his former train-mates, who seem to care more for him than he ever knew, just as they find themselves starting to close in on the Captain's philosophy. Poor Sham; for what a terrible fate it would be to have served on a moler, under a captain with her very philosophy, just as her terrible obsession seems about to bring about her entry into the Museum of Completion, only to find yourself in pursuit of a couple of Shroakelets.

Which must mean it's time for the Shroakes? Maybe. But maybe telling their story would give away too much. Better to move on & talk about something else.

Because now you're thinking: none of this makes sense. Angels & giant moles & trains & rails that go everywhere? Madness, you say to yourself. But no. It might seem so at first. But trust to your narrator & all will be well. He'll tease your memory with clues & pretty soon you'll realise the story of the Captain & her philosophy is as familiar as a tale told in school. He'll show you the great mysteries of the railsea & show you the palimpsest the rails hide & that will bring the world of the brave & daring molers closer to home than you might imagine.

But you'll only see these things if you take the journey. If you chance the rails like Sham with his hopeless apprenticeship. Or dare them like the valiant Shroakes who, now that I think about it, I never did mention.

But if you stay at home, safe & isolated on your island home & never open Mr Miéville's pages, you'll never know...