"Other names besides [Herman] Melville's will surely come to mind as you read this thrilling tale--there's Dune's Frank Herbert. . . . But in this, as in all of his works, Miéville has that special knack for evoking other writers even while making the story wholly his own."--Los Angeles Times

On board the moletrain Medes, Sham Yes ap Soorap watches in awe as he witnesses his first moldywarpe hunt: the giant mole bursting from the earth, the harpoonists targeting their prey, the battle resulting in one's death & the other's glory. Spectacular as it is, Sham can't shake the sense that there is more to life than the endless rails of the railsea--even if his captain thinks only of hunting the ivory-colored mole that took her arm years ago. But when they come across a wrecked train, Sham finds something--a series of pictures hinting at something, somewhere, that should be impossible--that leads to considerably more than he'd bargained for. Soon he's hunted on all sides, by pirates, trainsfolk, monsters & salvage-scrabblers. & it might not be just Sham's life that's about to change. It could be the whole of the railsea.

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER

"[Miéville] gives all readers a lot to dig into here, be it emotional drama, Godzilla-esque monster carnage, or the high adventure that comes only with riding the rails."--USA Today

"Superb . . . massively imaginative."--Publishers Weekly (starred review)

"Riveting . . . a great adventure."--NPR

"Wildly inventive . . . Every sentence is packed with wit."--The Guardian (London)