XX and Black Locomotives

 Looking back, apparently the longest book I've read this year so far is designer, artist and typographer Rian Hughes' wonderful XX.

US edition from Overlook

UK edition from Picador

It's a 1000-page novel about AI and First Contact and consciousness and memes and art and typography and a centuries-old conspiracy involving Hugh Walpole. It also has a reversible dustjacket...

..and various interpolated (fictional) documents like Wikipedia pages and album reviews and email exchanges and magazine extracts and an entire pulp SF novella...

..and lots of fun with typography: this is the output of an AI character reared on Futurism and Marinetti-style philosophy:

It's grand. Mine is the US edition--I don't _think_ the UK edition has the reversible jacket, but I may be wrong.

Hughes has a new novel out today, which I haven't got yet but have ordered: The Black Locomotive. I need it.