Railsea is China Miéville's young adult take on Moby Dick. Sham is a doctor's apprentice on a moling train. In the richly imaginative setting, oceans have been replaced by a world-spanning web of railroad tracks. Infested by monstrous versions of ordinary burrowing creatures, strewn with fascinating salvage, and maintained by the angels, the railsea is a place of adventure.

Sham has been ticking along in his life when he finds an image chip in a wrecked train, showing a place where the lines narrow down into a single track. He searches after this impossible end of the railsea, teaming up with scientist siblings, his own moling train, and fighting pirates, the navy, and mysterious powers.

The setting is imaginative, and there's some stuff I really liked. All serious captains chase a Philosophy, some massive and deadly beast which left them scarred and maimed and symbolizes some major concept. Technology comes from dead civilization ages of metal, plastic, and glass, and odd relic left behind by aliens. Someone made and broke this strange world. But the characters are ciphers, the plot meanders, and the final climax ends on a hollow note.

Also, I've read a fair amount of Miéville, and this book felt like running through a checklist of concepts already used to better effect in Iron Council and The Scar. Trains, nomadic societies, abysses and monsters. Miéville's radical politics are toned down to a mild anti-authority hum. Okay YA, but nothing to write home about.