Book cover for The Black Locomotive

The Black Locomotive

Synopsis

Details

05 August 2021
400 pages
9781529074420
Imprint: Picador

Reviews

Hughes is an undeniably unique wordsmith . . . [The Black Locomotive] manages to communicate an excited and passionate vision while holding fast to a nostalgic affinity that warms the bones of any would-be industrial revolutionary.
What? A gigantic spaceship from prehistory discovered under London and the only way in is with a pre-war steam engine, hidden in secret government tunnels? The problem is knotty but the solution worthy of a Boy’s Own comic in this conceptually complex, graphically gorgeous, full-steam-ahead masterpiece.
Rian Hughes’s graphic-design extravaganza hits the rails screeching, wailing and showering sparks . . . Part a callback to science fiction’s New Wave, part architect’s coffee-table must-have, part ripping yarn.
What’s to be said about a book that blends boys’ own adventures with semiotics, complex sci-fi with steam engines, conspiracy theory with discourses on urban planning? Only that something so cleverly conceptual, ridiculously romantic and utterly unique must be the new Rian Hughes.