I started reading and WOW. The world! It was so waaaaay down the rabbit hole for me that the DNF flag went up immediately.

So I read the glossary to see if I could understand the world better and started falling in love with the world! I was like ummmm wow ummmmm wow ummmmm wow wow wow. This world reminded me of Salvador Dali paintings, which I adore, but that dwell in that very thin space between geniality and bizarreness. And, I walked the border of that cliff for 27 hallucinating pages plus 11 pages of a wondrous glossary. Pages upon pages of surreal artwork, every single sentence sending my mind on override of laborious imagination. BUT Zen the MC doesn't move a muscle without at least a paragraph of very detailed descriptions that would make any Star Wars movie look like amateur endeavor. Making me read this book at a ridiculously slow pace! Ten minutes had passed and I had read 3 pages! So, even though this book would be a phenomenal sci-fi screenplay and I REALLY REALLY wanted to like it, it wasn’t for me. I need action that flows a little easier.

Such an interesting concept. Totally something I'd recommend to my students.

Phillip Reeve is my go-to author for anything steampunk. RAILHEAD is a fascinating twist, with sentient trains that warp through space. Of course there is intrigue and close escapes, but it's wild and wonderful ride. I can't wait for the next one!

I was a huge fan of Philip Reeve’s MORTAL ENGINES series, and Railhead, first book of a duology, finds him in equally good form, offering up a fast-paced story filled with tension and wonder that, I’m happy to say, loses no steam in its sequel, The Black Light Express.

The central conceit is that in a universe where humanity has colonized the stars, travel between planets is not by spaceship but by AI trains (with independent thoughts and feelings) that travel through hyperspace gates. Humans are ostensibly governed by an Emperor, which over the millennia has been the head of one of the corporate families that controls the main lines. But in reality, the true overseers are the Guardians, super-AIs developed on long-ago Earth who have become like gods with a mission to guide and protect the human species. Other setting aspects include Motoriks (robots) and Hive Monks (insects that are mindless as individuals but which are intelligent in large numbers).

The main character is a young thief named Zen Starling, who after getting recruited for a heist job by Raven, the Guardian’s Most-Wanted fugitive, and Raven’s upgraded Motorik Nova, ends up pulled into an intrigue that will threaten to topple empires and lay bare long-hidden secrets about the Guardians, the trains, and the gates. Also entangled are the Emperor’s daughter Threnody, and Malik — the dogged Railforce agent who has been chasing (and killing) Raven for years. And one can’t forget the trains themselves, which thanks to their AI nature become secondary characters in their own right.

The plot is propulsive, beginning with a bang and sweeping the reader along for the ride from then on, only slowing now and then to allow for a few (really, just a few) introspective moments or for some momentarily quiet times between characters to allow relationships to develop just a bit more before someone else gets chased, shot at, nearly blown up, kidnapped, and so forth. There are also several moving moments sprinkled in amongst the chaos. The worldbuilding isn’t encyclopedic, but Reeve, as he did with the MORTAL ENGINES books, is able to not only convey the important setting points quickly and efficiently, but also manages to slide in some wonderfully vivid details, as when a train slides from one station to another and the reader is treated to a wonderfully tantalizing glimpse of a strange planet. One therefore has both a sufficient understanding of this invented universe and a few startling images to hang the whole thing on without the world-creation bogging down the story.

As a character, Zen is stubbornly, and perhaps surprisingly given the YA nature of the story, consistent in his “looking out for number one” attitude, which adds a bitter tang of realism to the tale, as far too often “tough” characters end up all-too-quickly with the heart-of-gold reveal or transformation. This can be discomfiting at times, especially as Reeve isn’t shy about ratcheting up the body count, and while Zen isn’t wholly blasé about the deaths around him, he’s also less forthrightly moved/motivated than is usual for the typical YA character.

Nova is a bit more traditional, a combination of the humanoid robot that wants to be (and maybe is) a “real” girl character and the spunky, determined young girl character. Her depth comes from the conflict she feels between her feelings for Zen and her loyalty to Raven, her creator. Malik as well is a familiar type — the tenacious cop whose single-mindedness gets him in trouble with the superiors (but who is almost always right), but is individualized by some nice details/back story and by his stylistic voice. A few other characters, as well as some storylines, get short shrift in Railhead and may even seem as if they’ve been abruptly dropped, but many (characters and story lines both) play an important role or gain depth in The Black Light Express.

The action, as noted, steams right along, beginning as a caper story but then becoming an admixture of a heist tale, a political thriller, and even a mystery (where did the Gates come from, what’s going on with the Guardians, how has Raven been killed so many times?) Most of the answers, when there are any, come at the end, but as if often the case in a first book, they either present more questions or are only partial answers, so readers will want to have the sequel nearby to continue the story. Otherwise they risk feeling a bit let down.

Finally, because of the propulsive nature of the plot, it will be easy for readers to just zip along the surface of the story, riding the action wave, but Reeve presents his young readers with a slew of thought-provoking concepts and questions: what is the nature of humanity? Can a seemingly more beneficent “guide and protect” programming of human-created AIs become just as threatening, albeit in different fashion, as the usual Terminator-style AI overthrow of humanity? How important is gender? Is inequality/social hierarchy so embedded in human nature that it exists even in a high-tech future? Reeve’s characters don’t delve too deeply, or even at all, into all these questions — they’re too busy chasing or being chased — but they’re there for the reader to ponder. And while they’re familiar questions to sci-fi fans, they’ll be relatively new to the YA reader (that said, Reeve also tosses a good number of bones to older fans, such as the gates being called KH for “Kwisatz haderech” gates or a reference to the “Old Earth language . . . Klingon.”


I thoroughly enjoyed Railhead, zipping right into The Black Light Express once I’d finished book one, and I heartily recommended it to my own fifteen-year-old son. I’ll let you know (or he will) what he thinks . . .

I was never able to read this book because it kept saying "Format Error" whenever I tried to open it.

I chose Railhead because of the author. I've read a book of his before and loved it and that's what made me like this book.

While I'm not a huge fan of scifi, I wanted to give this book a try because, 1. It wasn't boring modern lit, and 2. Philip Reeve. I was not disappointed. It wasn't my favorite book, but it gave me a taste of scifi that I haven't had for years.

I had one qualm with this book: I kept thinking it was ending and then I kept thinking the chapters were going to keep going but they ended abruptly. The writing was great, the story was sound and unique. There were no plot holes to speak of.

As for the ending of the chapters: What? It was almost as if a character was to break off suddenly and the rest of the sentence was lost. While it made sense in the following chapter, that they indeed were finished talking, that the next chapter did make sense to take place, the way Philip Reeve ended each chapter was startling, almost every time.

Throughout the books there was the sense that the book was coming to a close. I felt that way about 4 times before the book was even halfway through. It could have ended at any of those places. The climax just kept going up and down and then you realize, oh, that wasn't the climax after all.

I love an ending with a good cliffhanger that makes me want to read the next book. Here's the deal: I don't really care if I read the next book. I wasn't emotionally invested in the characters like I am for other books. I don't know if all will end well but I can stop reading here and feel just fine about the story. For this reason, I don't think I'm going to read the second book. This doesn't mean this book wasn't worth reading, it was. I think fans of scifi are going to drool over this book. Without playing video games, only really having watched them, I think fans of scifi video games would enjoy this book.

With Railhead, Reeve, transcends the limits of imagination with superior world-building, character development, and an action-packed plot. Steampunk and Sci-Fi collide in this fantastical adventure. Readers are swiftly transported into the Great Network - a system of trains that connect our future worlds. This transport system, governed by omnipotent “Guardians” and reliant upon trains who actually have personalities, propels characters in both physical transportation and and metaphysical motivations. Mystery, manipulation, and malice fuel the storyline. Robustly developed characters are comprised of an undeniably original cast. Protagonist, Zen, is authentically human, yet within his immediate social network, he mingles with human-oids borne of artificial intelligence, robotic-origin, and even insect-collective “Hive Monks.” An index supports readers in their navigation of this future world’s lexicon. Feedback from Middle School readers suggests that this title is best suited for teens who are comfortable embracing all that is abstract. Expect rave reviews from students who are ready to take a leap of faith into a world that will challenge and compel them. ~NetGalley ARC ~ Lisa Brennan, Middle School Librarian