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Railsea
by China Miéville (Goodreads Author)
by China Miéville (Goodreads Author)
Liviu's review
bookshelves: 2012_release_read, genre-sf, read_2012, review_fbc, t1_recommended_2012
Mar 21, 12
bookshelves: 2012_release_read, genre-sf, read_2012, review_fbc, t1_recommended_2012
Read from March 12 to 21, 2012
Any China Mieville novel is a huge event and while last year's Embassytown was excellent, no book of his so far recaptured the genius of PSS and The Scar.
For the first half, Railsea was the most inventive Mieville book since those two mentioned above. Genius world building (think rails/trains and underground monsters instead of oceans, ships, whales and sharks - two kinds of land types and two kinds of sky types, mix and match of tech, some in the Roadside Picnic advanced aliens garbage kind) and very literary style while the storyline was building a lot of suspense.
The second half is more conventional - the storyline reverts to the familiar like in Embassytown and starts again treading on known ground with a lot of predictability and the book starts veering a little more in YA territory (YA is for me when children or YA have agency independent of adults in "big, world changing events" or in which the storyline is about their limited world/concerns like school and the like).
So for example if you read something like Eternity Road by J. McDevitt you will have a good idea of where Railsea goes and even - wqith the appropriate changes of course - how the plot will develop as the logic of this kind of story is followed by Mr. Mieville pretty directly.
Still the writing remains top notch and the action is fun with some more superb world building, but the sense of the limitless, of the "what is next?" is lost a little so Railsea is ultimately an excellent novel and a top 25 of mine, but not a once in a long time milestone like PSS or The Scar.
Highly recommended of course and fun, enjoyable to the end, no question about it
As usual, I will try to have a coherent review towards the publication date as the above are just raw thoughts, while incidentally the book is pure sf, no fantasy -nal elements
For the first half, Railsea was the most inventive Mieville book since those two mentioned above. Genius world building (think rails/trains and underground monsters instead of oceans, ships, whales and sharks - two kinds of land types and two kinds of sky types, mix and match of tech, some in the Roadside Picnic advanced aliens garbage kind) and very literary style while the storyline was building a lot of suspense.
The second half is more conventional - the storyline reverts to the familiar like in Embassytown and starts again treading on known ground with a lot of predictability and the book starts veering a little more in YA territory (YA is for me when children or YA have agency independent of adults in "big, world changing events" or in which the storyline is about their limited world/concerns like school and the like).
So for example if you read something like Eternity Road by J. McDevitt you will have a good idea of where Railsea goes and even - wqith the appropriate changes of course - how the plot will develop as the logic of this kind of story is followed by Mr. Mieville pretty directly.
Still the writing remains top notch and the action is fun with some more superb world building, but the sense of the limitless, of the "what is next?" is lost a little so Railsea is ultimately an excellent novel and a top 25 of mine, but not a once in a long time milestone like PSS or The Scar.
Highly recommended of course and fun, enjoyable to the end, no question about it
As usual, I will try to have a coherent review towards the publication date as the above are just raw thoughts, while incidentally the book is pure sf, no fantasy -nal elements
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Thank you for the kind words; Railsea has the genius Mieville world building so I think it will be what you want.
In a sense, all of Mieville's books save perhaps The Scar become somewhat predictable in the latter half. Perdido becomes one long bug hunt (albeit with surprises along the way), and City & the City never really paid off the idea of "Breach" in a satisfying way, settling for a routine solution to the murder mystery instead. Don't get me wrong -- I enjoy all his books -- but his genius really is world-building and prose over inventive plotting.
But that is part of the problem as once you wrote groundbreaking books like PSS and the Scar, they become a yardstick; I would say that as ingenuity goes, Railsea is the closest to those, only that I wished the unpredictability stayed a little longer...
Thanks for the review. Am looking forward to getting into this new Mieville, however, not until I'm done with
.
Mieville's ingenuity in style and theme is a potential portal for literary prestige (which he already has, granted)coupled with extreme fame. I wish his work would go more viral than it has thus far and I think that YA fic. (which tends to dominates the market)is a step in that direction. I'm hoping for a day when he will come up with the perfect formula to become the next big hit, because I think pop lit deserves the depth he could bring to it. Excited to see if this book has that kind of umph.
agree with what you say about CM's work going more beyond the sff audience; this one has the potential sure, but as always the "general reader's" reaction is hard to predict
Kraken had some bits in it that were great fun - but over all I didn't much care by the end.
I would love to immerse into another Mieville world - perhaps Railsea can be that for me.
Thanks for the review.