Rian Hughes is an award-winning graphic designer illustrator, comic artist, writer and typographer who has worked extensively for the British and American advertising, music and comic book industries.

He has written and drawn comics for 2000AD and Batman: Black and White, and designed logos for James Bond, The X-Men, Superman, Hedkandi and The Avengers.

His illustrations have appeared in magazines in the UK, UK and Japan, and a retrospective monograph collecting his work, Art, Commercial, was published in 2001.

His books include I Am A Number, Cult-ure: Ideas Can Be Dangerous, Logo a Gogo and Lifestyle Illustration of the '50s. His comic strips have been collected in Yesterday's Tomorrows and Tales from Beyond Science, and his burlesque portraits in Soho Dives, Soho Divas.

'The equivalent of London's brand-new Elizabeth line . . . vast, shiny and very, very deep' - The Times, 'Best Summer Reads'

'Utterly unique . . . A masterpiece' - The Daily Mail

'Stunning . . . Brilliantly original' - The Guardian

London is built from concrete, steel and the creative urge.

Old technology gives way to the new. Progress is inevitable - but is it more fragile than its inhabitants realise?

A strange anomaly is uncovered in the new top-secret Crossrail extension being built under Buckingham Palace. It is an archeological puzzle, one that may transform our understanding of history - and the origins of London itself.

And if our modern world falls, we may have to turn to the technology of the past in order to save our future.