My Books of the Year - I : Railsea - China Mieville

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I thought I'd flag up a few of my favourite books of the many I have read this year. I discovered China Mieville having seen a trailer for a TV adaptation of The City and The City and thought I should check the book out. This lead me down a still ongoing journey through his strange fiction. My latest read, Railsea, is set in a far future version of earth where towns are built on hard outcrops of rock to avoid attacks from the giant burrowing animals of the flat lands between. This land is covered with myriad railway lines that hunters, traders, salvagers and explorers use to make a living. Literally a sea of rails. Part sci-fi, part steam-punk, party fantasy and heavily indebted to Moby Dick, this is China Mieville at his most imaginative, eloquent and accessible.