XX: A Novel, Graphic
English
By (author): Rian Hughes
Extraordinary imagination . . . As the book races towards a mindboggling climax it leads the reader to some remarkable ideas about the nature of life, the universe and everything. Simply stunning. - Big Issue
At Jodrell Bank a mysterious signal of extraterrestrial origin has been detected. Artificial intelligence expert Jack Fenwick thinks he can decode it. But when he and his associates at Hoxton tech startup Intelligencia find a way to step into the alien realm the signal encodes, they discover that its already occupied by ghostly entities that may come from our own past.
Have these DMEn (Digital Memetic Entities) been created by persons unknown for just such an eventuality? Are they our first line of defence in a coming war, not for territory, but for our minds?
XX presents a compelling vision of humanitys unique place in the universe, and of what might happen in the wake of the biggest scientific discovery in human history.
As compelling as it is visually striking, Rian Hughes first novel incorporates NASA transcripts, newspaper and magazine articles, fictitious Wikipedia pages, undeciphered alphabets, and Ascension, a forgotten novelette by 1960s counterculture guru Herschel Teague that mysteriously foreshadows events.
Wrapping stories within stories, Rian Hughes XX unleashes the full narrative potential of graphic design. Drawing on Dada, punk and the modernist movements of the twentieth century, it asks us who we think we are and where we may be headed next.
The battle for your mind has already begun.