This is a very exciting concept! Like Snowpiercer, there's something really engaging about a sci-fi futuristic trainline. I've not read the first book of the series, so I'd otherwise be lost, but I think I will go back and read the full series now for sure!

A fun sci-fi with an amazing cover!
Though this IS the second book of a series (I didn't know this when I checked it out), it was surprisingly easy to follow and the action-packed scenes kept me turning the pages.

I loved the cover and the worldbuilding on this novel, which was a fun scifi read (meaning it was one of my favorites of the month!)

Reeve is an incredible storyteller, with a true gift for creating strange and unusual worlds. This is an excellent continuation of Railhead, as Zen and Nova travel beyond the known galaxy, while Threnody fights to hold onto her imperial power. There were so many unexpected twists and turns in this compelling novel.

Although I jumped into this thing without being aware that it's the second installment of a trilogy series, I wasn't lost or left scrambling about for something to make sense. Reeve elegantly fills in the blanks for those like me who hadn't read the first novel and, from what I can gather, introduces new characters along the way.

Filled with heart-warming moments and a sweet tenderness depicting a budding romance between Zen Starling and his Motorik Nova, Black Light Express tells the story of sweet sorrow, awesome worlds, fantastic machines, and danger around every corner. With political intrigue and a sense of adventure, Zen, Nova, and Threnody journey across the galaxy exposing dark and intelligent secrets and waves of weirdly unique creatures - some just as sinister as the planets they inhabit.

Zen and Nova know what it is like to ride a train from one world to another, but now they have traveled through a gate that shouldn’t have been there and they can’t undo that action. Chandni has just finished a stint frozen in prison and is attempting to determine her place in a world torn apart by war. Their stories may be separate, yet they continually intersect as the Black Light Zone calls them.

Black Light Express is the second book in the Railhead series. Second books are always questionable because they usually are setting up a deeper storyline and this is no exception. Many readers will find the story a pleasant escape, yet others may prefer to wait until more books are written in order to have a fuller appreciation of where the tale will take them.

The nitty-gritty: Magical, exciting, emotional and full of human truths, Black Light Express takes what Philip Reeve started in Railhead, expands upon it, and makes it even better.

Last year I was blown away by a little book that I had never heard of called Railhead. When I finished it, several things occurred to me. One: Why had this amazing book not been on my radar? Two: Why isn’t anyone else reading it? and Three: When is the sequel coming out? I can’t answer the first two questions, but I can answer the third question and tell you that Black Light Express is now out in the world. I’m always a little worried about follow-up novels, especially when the first book holds such a special place in my heart. But I needn’t have worried. Black Light Express is just as good. Reeve has created a unique science fiction world where a seemingly infinite number of stars and planets are connected by trains. Yes, you read that correctly. Sentient trains no less! This second book is a sequel in the truest sense of the word: you must read Railhead first in order to understand what’s going on. Having said that, there are minor, unavoidable spoilers for Railhead in this review, so new readers beware.

The story picks up about nine months after the explosive conclusion to Railhead. Zen and Nova, having escaped through a brand new K-gate, have been traveling the worlds of this new galaxy in their sentient train, the Damask Rose. They’ve ended up on the planet of Night’s Edge, home of the giant, whale-like Night Swimmers, and life is very good. Having accepted the fact that they can never return home, the two have not only embraced the strange and sometimes dangerous worlds of this new network of planets, but they’ve fallen in love. Never mind that Zen is human and Nova is a motorik, a nearly human android. True love has no boundaries, as they have come to find out.

Back in the Network Empire, the political situation has stabilized, but unrest is brewing just below the surface. Threnody Noon has been appointed Empress, even though her arranged marriage never happened due to the tragic events on the Noon train at the end of the last book. A thief named Chandni Hansa has just been thawed and released from the freezers, a prison where criminals are frozen for the length of their confinement, and she’s been assigned as a lady-in-waiting at the palace. And elsewhere, Kobi Chen-Tulsi, the ex-betrothed of Threnody Noon, is on his way to meet his future wife (although he doesn’t know it yet). But when he discovers a plot by the Prell family to start a war and take over Threnody’s throne, he knows he has to warn her.

As all these stories converge, a mysterious new world is about to be discovered, and the beliefs about the origins of the Great Network could be shattered for good.

Many of the characters from Railhead are back, including my two favorites, Zen and Nova, but there are some new characters as well. My favorite of these is probably Chandni, a career criminal who’s spent at least fifty years on ice for various crimes, and because people don’t age in the freezers, she appears to be a teenager (although she’s actually much older). Chandni is the kind of person who looks out for herself first, but I loved the way she adjusts her attitude over the course of the story and starts to actually care about the people she meets.

Nova continues to be one of my favorite characters ever. She’s a machine who has trained herself to act and look human, because being human is what she desires most in the world. When she and Zen begin to fall in love, she’s worried that Zen won’t ever be able to truly love a machine, but the growth in their relationship was so satisfying. There’s even a brief mention of an old favorite character of mine from Railhead, Flex, who isn’t exactly alive, but nonetheless is still part of the Damask Rose. (You really should read Railhead and then all my cryptic comments will make sense!)

You say you want to hear about the bad guys? Oh there are plenty in this story, never fear! Black Light Express is filled with all kinds of alien lifeforms, because the story takes place on many different planets. One of the creepiest is a race called the Kraitt, humanoid beings that sort of look like lizards or dinosaurs. They have razor-sharp claws and the females are the warriors in the family. They also take a keen interest in Nova when they discover that she’s a motorik, and those were some of the most nail-biting chapters in the story.

And it wouldn’t be a Railhead story if there weren’t some amazing train characters. I didn’t think Reeve could surpass himself, because the Damask Rose and the Thought Fox from Railhead were such wonderful trains. But he does! In Black Light Express a new train called the Ghost Wolf helps Zen, Nova and Chandni escape the Prells and the Kraitt. Ghost Wolf had a wonderful personality that was completely different from the Damask Rose, and I wanted to hang out with him. Really, I just want my own sentient train, let's be honest!

Reeve delves deeper into the mysteries behind the Great Network and the K-gates. In this world, beings called the Guardians are thought to have created the rails between worlds, and they’re worshiped like gods. But Zen and his friends are forced into new places and presented with new ideas about the creation of the Network, and so they must adjust their beliefs about what is true. One of the things I love so much about this series is that the world is so big and intricate, and the story possibilities seem endless.

If you’re thinking to yourself, “Gee, I don’t really like young adult books, and talking trains? I’m not really interested in a story about talking trains. That sounds so juvenile!” Well, you’re dead wrong. This book may be written for the young adult crowd, but as an “older” reader I can tell you that I was mesmerized by Reeve’s imagination, characters and plotting from start to finish. And just as he did in Railhead, the author gave me goosebumps with his keen observations of relationships and what it means to be human, story qualities that transcend genre and demographics.

For everyone who loves a great story, do yourself a favor and read this book. Or read Railhead if you haven’t started the series (see my review below). Reeve has created a rich world with endless possibilities, and I can’t wait to see where he takes us next.

Black Light Express is Philip Reeve’s just-as-good-as-the-first-book follow up to Railhead, continuing the exhilarating romp while expanding the universe and its inhabitants, as well as digging a bit more deeply into the hidden history of the created world and offering up some more page time to some of the first book’s secondary characters. Warning, there will be some inevitable spoilers for book one (you can just stop here with the take-away that I recommend the duology). First one begins in the very next line!

So at the end of Railhead, Nova and Zen had opened a gate to a whole other set of worlds, these inhabited by an inventively wide assortment of alien species. Taking on the role of “ambassadors” (being unwilling to admit they can’t go back to their own worlds due to being fugitives and thanks to the gate they used being destroyed), the two travel around as traders, giving Reeve the opportunity to show off his alien-creation skills. As they travel, they learn of a horrific cataclysm called the “Blackout,” which seemingly led to the destruction of the race that created the rails and gates. It’s a taboo subject amongst the aliens, but solving the mystery of the Blackout, or at least exploring it, may lead, Nova believes, to a way home for the two of them. Unfortunately, to do so they’ll have to find a way around an aggressive reptilian species that is after Nova for what she might teach them about advanced technology.

Meanwhile, back in the human-dominated part of the universe, things aren’t going so well with the ruling family and thanks to the ongoing political turmoil, we get to spend a lot more time with Empress Threnody, as well as her current handmaiden-former criminal Chandni (a seemingly throw-away character from book one). We also revisit Threnody’s former fiancée Kobi, who finds hidden depths that were hinted at a bit in the first book, and Zen’s sister’s friend Flex, who also grows in complexity here. In fact, these two minor characters from the first book have some of the most moving moments here in Black Light Express. One of my favorite aspects of the sequel is that Reeve didn’t play it safe by focusing on the two main characters but is happy to leave them behind for long stretches to let others have the stage. In general, characters here are also nicely complicated, with “good” characters often frustrating readers hoping for a bit more solidly steady sense of ethics. And as with the first book, the cast of characters is not limited to the organic, as one of the most enjoyable characters is Ghost Train, though we meet several other trains with strong personalities as well.

As one expects by now with a Reeve novel, the plot zips along via clear prose, though Reeve gives us a bit more description, having opened up a whole new “Web of Worlds” filled with wonderfully non-human species. The concepts as well as the geography are bigger, and we learn much more about the creation of the gates, the role of the Guardians, and why the gates have remained a mystery for so long. Meanwhile, Reeve continues to explore issues of identity and humanity, AI, the impact of technology, and the safety of stagnation versus the dangerous benefits of growth. Speaking of danger, Reeve isn’t averse to killing off major characters, and there are several wrenching moments (some involving death some not), including a painfully bittersweet ending that is all the better for being pretty inevitable from the start.

Inventive, taut, quick moving, with the ability to move you or make you uncomfortable at any given moment, Black Light Express brings the story begun in Railhead to a strong close, though I’d be more than happy if Reeve found a way to return to this universe for more stories.

DNF at 100 pages in. I think I would've loved this book if I'd read it at a younger age. Unfortunately, I think this series is no longer for me. While the characters are lovable and the dialog is well-written, this is far more middle-grade than anything else.

I'd only recommend this to a middle-grade reader. Unfortunately, that reader is very much not me.

(Review not posted, as I don't have much of a review so much as a realization that this series is no longer for me.)

This is the sequel to Railhead and it picks up where book one left off. The creativity is still strong and we have some of the same characters we saw in the first book. This is action-packed as Zen and Nova race through new worlds, avoiding bad trains and bad people, and hoping to make it home alive. I found this book just a teensy bit long, but overall it was really good. And like the first book there is a glossary in the back to help us understand what's what.

4.5/5 STARS

In book 1, Railhead, readers enter a universe in which humans can travel through space on sentient locomotives using “K-gates” to other worlds. No one knows where these mysterious portals came from or who laid the rails, but legend has it that the Station Angels of book 1 had something to do with these mysterious “railmakers.” Book 1 also introduces us to a cast of humans, machines and a small number of robots called “motorik” who are nearly human themselves. The plot revolves around the politics of this universe--emperors, corporate families and the public perception of the motorik.

I loved book 1 largely for its potential and its tight writing, both of which speak to the author's talent and imagination. 4/5 stars because it was hard to stay interested during some of this set up, even though I knew I would love the climax.

Book II, Black Light Express, builds on top of everything its predecessor set up. Reeve still never skimps on the wondrous descriptions:

Khoorsandi…lay at the end of the Orion Line: a small, dull moon whose moss-moors and knee-high forests were bathed in the brownish light of its mother planet, the gas-giant Anahita. But once every four years, its orbit swung it close enough to Anahita that her gravitational field gave it an almighty wrench. Then it became clear that Khoorsandi's dullness was an illusion, and that its landscape was really a jigsaw of granite and basalt rafts floating on a deep sea of fire. Vents and geysers opened, swarms of pop-up volcanoes shoved their snouts through the blazing moss, and the dwarf tress hastily scattered their flameproof seeds and died a fiery death.

Black Light Express also further explores relationships kindled during the course of book 1; the non-human members of the cast have a lot of heart and I got very attached to them.

SPOILERS for BOOK I!

I’m still not entirely sure how I feel about humans falling in love with their technology—it’s a little weird, like Pygmalion or as if Lucy Pevensie fell in love with Mr. Tumnus when she grew up. Where exactly is Reeve going with this? I’m not sure, and the ending of this book leaves it entirely open, which definitely intrigues me.

But I’m still quite pleased with what we get in BLE. It smashes the lies of The Guardians by taking us railheads to alien worlds and showings us lots of marvelously inventive specimens of organic and technological evolution. Most importantly, the characters will totally get you in this perfect sequel.

I agree with Emily May: this series is seriously under-read.

The first book in this series was absolutely amazing, this one is just as good. I highly recommend this series. It has everything you could possibly want in a young adult steampunk/fantasy.

The world this is set in is so amazing, I have never encountered anything similar. The last book introduced us to world where you could travel between interstellar train stations, where trains are living beings with attitude, there are hive beasts made up of a community of insects that think as one, and so, so much more. This one continues and introduces us to so much more than even that.

I loved the way this author writes. He tells a story full of descriptionsurprises and detail. He paces well and wastes no words on nonsense or to add girth, I hate when you can tell scenes were added to lengthen page count. His writing fits the story perfectly.

I am surprised that is not a more popular series, it is that good. Start with the first book this is not a series I recommend reading out of order, you would be lost if you tried.

Netgalley provided ebook.

Further Adventures in a Marvelous and Ever-Expanding Galaxy

This is the second book in Reeve's Railhead series. In the first book, "Railhead", we learned about the Great Network, K-gates, station angels, Guardians, the Railmaker, and the magnificent sentient locomotives that travel the Network from planet to planet. At first look the entire premise seemed a bit precious, but Reeve created a convincing and compelling world that I has happy to accept and experience.

This second book starts up exactly where the first left off. Our heroes, Zen Starling and Nova, the android girl who wants to be a human girl, find themselves on a one-way trip to escape the Network Empire and explore new and uncharted reaches of the great rail system.

It could be possible, I guess, to start with this book, since Reeve offers enough catch-up backstory that the reader could figure out the action and the recurring characters. But, it strikes me that that would be a mistake. The great appeal of "Railhead" was in the world building; the plot/action was almost incidental. In this second book the plot/action, (and political intrigue), is more the point and the world is taken as given. For people who really enjoyed the first book this second helping is fun. But, it would be a shame to start here and miss the pleasures of learning all about the Great Network and the magnificent sentient locomotives that ply its rails. That said, in this book we go out further into the Network Galaxy, meet a wide array of Star-Wars-Cantina worthy aliens, are introduced to several engaging new main characters, and spend time with several even more snarky than usual trains. Not bad.

As always with Reeve, the writing is crisp, clear and accessible to a tween reader. This series does skew toward a younger reader demo than some of Reeve's other books, which is fine since his world building, characters and plotting do seem like the sort that a younger reader could feel comfortable with. That said, while the first book had a lot of sneaking, thieving, hiding, lurking, escaping, discovering and adventuring, this second book does go a bit more toward the space opera, political side of the ledger, which might not be as appealing. Since Zen and Nova are such very engaging characters, and since a big chunk of the book is devoted to exploring the outer reaches of the galaxy that "big" political plot isn't a deal breaker, but it might be something to keep in mind.

In any event, the book is fast paced and the world is creatively imagined enough that the reader is still taken on a brisk, imaginative journey, and that is quite enough to commend this sequel.

(Please note that I received a free advance ecopy of this book without a review requirement, or any influence regarding review content should I choose to post a review. Apart from that I have no connection at all to either the author or the publisher of this book.)