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It's a book full of inventive concepts and I was driven to keep reading. There's an alien (or possibly man-made - the book doesn't say) species known as hive monks, who worship the 'Insect Lines' purportedly a set of railway lines beyond the known network, as revealed by the station angels (although these angels are simply bursts of energy released by the trains as they jump through K-gates). It's a creepy but compelling idea.
The characters come off the page brilliantly. We've already met Zen Starling, a young, prejudiced but strangely likeable, thief who is desperate to be free of his poverty-stricken lifestyle. He's accompanied by Nova, a female android (or Moto, as they are known) who tries to stand out from her fellow androids by giving herself freckles and a unique personality. It's testament to Reeve's writing that you can just about forget that that she's just an animatronic. The two of them are under the command of Raven, a shady man who wants to have something stolen, something very precious. Raven is difficult to categorise, being somewhere between antihero and straight-up villain, so I guess it's up to the reader to decide. The Network is ruled over by the Noons, a corporate family who strive to maintain peace by marrying their various heirs off to powerful families. The thought of corporations ruling the galaxy is scary and provokes the thought that we're heading that way already. Watching over the network are the Guardians. Apathetic they might be, but they're determined to see that Raven's plan does not come to fruition…
This is one of the few books I've read which makes riding a train feel interesting. In fact, in this world, people get addicted to riding the trains (they're the ''Railheads'' of the title). The trains themselves are sentient: they can be loving, cynical and even (in one case, at least) psychotic and murderous...
