Railhead by Philip Reeves

If you made a mistake, how hard would you fight to put it right? What is the price of knowledge? What does it truly mean to be a villain?

Science Fiction gets a major face lift with Philip Reeve’s Railhead. Readers will dive into a world in which furniture can be bioengineered, in which sentient trains instantaneously transport humans across the universe, and in which the Great Network--an amazing intergalactic system of railways--is monitored and controlled by the mysterious and godlike A.I.’s called “The Guardians”. The story chronicles Zen Starling, a small time thief who spends his time swiping items of value from various galactic bazaars, and riding the Network lines. Zen does this for two reasons: 1) To escape and forget about this difficult home life and 2) To feel the exhilaration of jumping from world to world in the blink of an eye. He is what is known as a “railhead”.

Zen quickly gets mixed up with a mysterious figure named Raven, and is thrown into a high stakes game of political intrigue. As he makes irrevocable choices and crosses the point of no return, he goes on a journey to discover the truth behind the world order he has never once questioned.

Railhead would be a hard sell to a school for curriculum as the deeper elements that the story holds are so often overshadowed by the fantastical world Reeve has created. Despite this, there are powerful issues raised in the story they have real application today. Who has the right to control/censor information? Is there ever a point where humans should stop trying to progress? Where is the line between protection and restriction? Does power always corrupt? These are essential questions that teachers could raise with students. However, if I am honest, I think this book is much more suitable as a recommended summer read.

Pros:

• Dynamic storyline, plot, characters,and settings
• Incredibly diverse characters (various races, genders, orientations, religions)
• Excellent use of description and imagery

Cons:

• Great deal of language that requires using context clues/inference skills
• Jumps in perspective several times throughout the novel
• Will probably only appeal to sci-fi lovers

Links:

This link describes how Alternative Societies show up as a major theme in Science Fiction. Many of the characteristics mentioned in the content are reflective of the mega-societies present in Railhead. https://www.britannica.com/art/science-fiction/Alternative-societies

There is conversation circulating in the scientific community about how to improve A.I.’s. One proposal is to give them the skills to learn like humans do. This article shows how, though humanity is far from having A.I.’s like Nova in Railhead, we are moving closer everyday. https://futurism.com/researchers-want-to-create-a-digital-awakening-and-free-ai-to-learn-like-humans/  

These images of train graffiti can help students visualizes Flex’s artwork in the book.https://www.pinterest.com/venessabrooks16/graffiti-art-on-train-cars/

This is a DnD character alignment chart for Harry Potter characters. This could be used as a model to help students understand the alignments and then apply them to characters in Railhead. Completing an alignment chart for a culminating project would be a really cool idea. https://rantingsoftheninjarobot.files.wordpress.com/2012/01/harry-potter-custom.jpg

This website explains the alignments and can be condensed and presented to students to help them understand how the alignments apply to the characters of Railhead. http://easydamus.com/alignment.html