1. Setting

2. Plot

3. Reception

4. References

5. External links

Setting

Railsea is set on a dystopian world whose lands are covered by endless interconnecting tracks of rails, known as the "railsea". The earth is colonised by ravenous giant naked mole-rats and other carnivorous giant forms of familiar animals, such as earwigs and antlions as well as stranger non-identifiable creatures that reside in the polluted sky. These threats mean that humanity are confined to 'islands' of harder rock through which the animals cannot burrow and the spaces between can only be safely traversed by use of trains.

Plot

Sham Yes ap Soorap is a young assistant doctor on a moletrain, captained by Abacat Naphi, that hunts giant moles for meat in a similar fashion to whaling. Naphi is especially obsessed with one mole named Mocker-Jack and after one encounter, they discover an abandoned train. Sham enters it, discovering a corpse and a camera buried in the ground. Sham and Naphi view the images and are shocked to see an image of a single rail leading off into the distance, an apparent impossibility as it is believed that the railsea is endless.

As rumours spread of Sham's discovery, his investigations lead him to Caldera and Dero Shroake. They are the son and daughter of two explorers who ventured to the furthest reaches of the railsea before disappearing. Sham tells them of the content of the camera, and they resolve to retrace their parents steps aboard their own train. Sham returns to the moletrain. Before it departs, he is captured by pirates who demand that he provide them with instructions as to how to reach the Shroakes as they believe that there is treasure to be found beyond the railsea.

After receiving a message from Sham, Naphi reluctantly abandons the chase for Mocker-Jack and sets out to find him. Sham convinces his former trainmates to assist the Shroakes, who are being sought by both pirates and the navy. They rescue them from their now almost incapacitated train and with a navy wartrain in close pursuit, venture out onto the lonely rail leaving the sea behind them. After a three way confrontation between the navy, Mocker-Jack and a robotic sentinel train that guards the exit of the railsea, the mole train escapes and Mocker-Jack falls into a chasm.

The moletrain crew decide to return with their valuable salvage to the known world, whilst Sham and the Shroakes press on by foot to see what lies beyond. They are joined by Naphi, who is now directionless following the death of Mocker-Jack. They reach the end of the line and find the ancient descendants of the railway controllers, confirming an ancient rumour; that the seemingly endless complexity of the railsea is nothing more than the result of rampant rail development by unscrupulous developers in the distant past. After reaching an ocean they take a boat, left by the Shroakes' parents, and sail out into the unknown.

Reception

Several reviewers highlighted the metafictional nature of the novel. Writing for io9, Chris Hsiang noted that it abounds with "impish literary games", and praised its avoidance of either "dystopian romance tropes" or political sermonising in favour of a challenging, weird but still approachable language and structure.^[2] Others were more critical of Railsea{{'}}s metafictional approach. Jason Heller of the A.V. Club wrote that while Miéville's swift and absorbing (if dense) prose and lean plot yielded a "brainy and thrilling" result, it would have been improved "if only he'd stopped less to comment on his own cleverness along the way".^[5]

References

External links

• {{isfdb title|1391453}}

• You Don't Know How It Feels
• You Don't Know Jack!
• You Dont Know Jack
• You Don't Know Jack (TV series)
• You Don't Know (Kierra Sheard song)
• You Dont Know Me
• You Don't Know Me (Armand Van Helden song)
• You Don't Know Me: The Songs of Cindy Walker
• You Don't Know my Name
• You Don't Know My Name
• You Don't Know (Shady Records song)
• You Don't Know (song)
• You Don't Know That I Know
• You Don't Know What Love Is
• You Don't Know What Love Is (You Just Do as You're Told)
• You Don't Know What You've Got Til He's Gone (7th Heaven)
• You Don't Know You're Born
• You Don't Look 40, Charlie Brown
• You Don't Love Me Anymore ("Weird Al" Yankovic song)
• You Don't Love Me (The Kooks song)
• You Don't Love Me Yet
• You Don't Mean Anything
• You Don't Mess with the Zohan
• You Don't Mess With The Zohan
• You Don't Miss Your Water