"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, Mieville 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

"[Mieville] 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)