Lesser writers are often overwhelmed by the anxiety of influence, but Miéville has an imagination of immense power.

Or maybe Mad Max … None of this is a bad thing. The gothic weirdness of Mervyn Peake is definitely in there, but the bottom layer of this particular palimpsest might well be Frank Herbert's Dune and its giant worms. Melville's influence is the most immediately obvious in a story that features a captain's obsessive quest for a great white beast, but others come to mind. Those are only some of the names listed in the acknowledgments at the end of the book. It's going to be around for a very long time.W hat kind of novel might someone produce if he had been influenced by writers such as Joan Aiken, the Awdrys, Daniel Defoe, Ursula Le Guin, Herman Melville, Robert Louis Stevenson, the Strugatsky Brothers and Spike Milligan? The answer is Railsea, China Miéville's latest book, a wildly inventive crossover/young adult fantasy with elements of SF and trains, lots of trains, all done with the kind of brio of which most writers can only dream. Railsea shows us China Mieville at the top of his game. Filled with humor and great narrative energy, and written in a language so vivid it virtually leaps off the page, it is at once an utterly unique creation and a classic re-imagining of a classic tale. But it's also a captivating story that overflows with wonders and strange terrors, with pirates and scavangers, monstrosities and prodigies. Railsea is a novel about the power of obsession, about the human longing for completion, about narrative itself. A host of memorable characters move through these pages, among them a 'bloodstained boy' whose adventures form the armature of the narrative, a brother and sister determined to complete their parents' unfinished journey, and a one-armed captain relentlessly pursuing her 'philosophy:' the great almost-white mole known as Mocker Jack. This brilliantly imagined setting stands at the heart of one of China Mieville's most extraordinary accomplishments. Welcome to the Railsea, a vast conglomeration of interconnected railroad tracks reaching to the limits of the known world.

Railsea mieville