On board the moletrain Medes, a boy called Sham 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 and the other's glory are extraordinary. But no matter how spectacular it is, travelling the endless rails of the railsea, Sham senses that there's more to life. Even if his captain can think only of her obsessive hunt for one savage mole.

When they find a wrecked train, it's a welcome distraction. But the impossible salvage Sham finds there leads to trouble. Soon he's hunted on all sides: by pirates, trainsfolk, monsters and salvage-scrabblers. And it might not be just Sham's life that's about to change. It could be the whole of the railsea.

Praise for China Mieville: `Fiction of the new century' Neil Gaiman. `Mieville's work is thrillingly imaginative ... immensely witty & utterly unforgettable' Scotland on Sunday. `One of the most imaginative young writers around in any kind of fiction' Guardian. `Mieville's imagined societies may be fantastic, but they are utterly coherent . . . wonderfully infectious' Daily Telegraph.