In this age when science has actually advanced to the extent that so many mysteries that baffled man just a few decades back are no more as puzzling, science fiction writing that can captivate readers is more challenging. But this challenge is well met by Philip Reeve in his book Railhead, a sci-fi adventure which is as fun as it is futuristic.

Zen, our hero, is a young man who is petty thief with nothing special about him. He travels on trains that move through one world to another — yes, through space — and these inter-galaxies trains have a mind of their own! The story takes place in such a future world that Earth is now just ‘old earth’. Highly imaginative, the world of Railhead is full of androids, robots, drones and planets of all kinds and so much more that scientists can’t even imagine right now. But this is the essence of science-fiction, isn’t it?

Zen’s real adventure starts when he is sent by the mysterious Raven to sneak into the Emperor’s train and steal an heirloom. Considering it another chance at doing what he loves best, riding the rails and exploring the Great Network, Zen agrees. And then the story gets more complicated.

There are many characters in the book that are interesting in different, yet unique, ways. And there are many weird and new words that the writer introduces, with definitions and descriptions given too, and it is supposed to add to the uniqueness of the story but it also makes it a bit complicated. But then readers today are used to many writers for youngsters making the narrative different and interesting by using peculiar and hard-to-pronounce words since J.K. Rowling started the trend with Harry Potter. So while the vocabulary made the reading of this interesting story a bit cumbersome for me, younger readers will probably enjoy it more. But that is not to say that I didn’t enjoy Railhead, I did.

Published in Dawn, Young World, September 3rd, 2016