Book 7 for 2016: Railsea

Last week I chose In The Heart of the Sea as my fiction pick to give myself a break from the non-fiction I had been reading, only to discover a few pages into reading that it was itself a non-fiction account of the sinking of the Essex by a sperm whale. I had assumed that as it was turned into a movie, the book itself would have been more of a historical fiction, I was wrong.

So this week I resolved to ensure I wound up with a fiction tale by picking my first ever read from the science fiction author China Mieville. It is hard, after all, for a science fiction story to end up being a non-fictional account (though some hard sci-fi can sometimes come close, I am looking at you The Martian). In an amusing turn of events I was looking over the blurb before I started to read and began noticing a few clear parallels with Railsea and Moby Dick (the book inspired by the events of last week’s book!). A ‘sea’ filled with prey, hunted by harpoonists, and lead by an obsessed captain seeking revenge on a great white animal! Seriously I didn’t plan this.

Anyhow, this year one of my goals has been to finally expose myself to a bunch of prominent speculative fiction authors whose work i have heard many good things about, but due to the breadth of their works I had always shied away from. First there had been Neal Stephenson’s Seveneves, then John Scalzi’s Old Man’s War, and now I am delving into what may be a long haul with China Mieville’s acclaimed body of works.
Well that’s enough writing for now; time to get reading!
MM

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