Book cover for The Black Locomotive

The Black Locomotive

Synopsis

Details

04 August 2022
416 pages
9781529074468
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.
A brilliantly original novel of literary SF from the acclaimed author of XX, The Black Locomotive weaves steam trains, the history and architecture of London, and a mysterious alien artefact below the city into a work of stunning inventiveness and originality.
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.
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.