Clockwork Angels (preview) 
Clockwork Angels is the 19th studio album by Canadian hard rock band Rush and also a titular science fiction novel written by author Kevin J. Anderson, a long time friend of Neil Peart, the drummer and lyricist of the band.
Kevin J. Anderson said about the album’s [and novel’s] concept: ‘In a young man’s quest to follow his dreams, he is caught between the grandiose forces of order and chaos. He travels across a lavish and colorful world of steampunk and alchemy, with lost cities, pirates, anarchists, exotic carnivals, and a rigid Watchmaker who imposes precision on every aspect of daily life.’
Following generally favourable reviews of the concept album and the accompanying world concert tour, as well as the success of the novel, Anderson and Peart came with the idea of a comic book adaptation.
The story centres on Owen Hardy, a young man who, like all the other people of Albion, has lived his whole life under the rule of the Watchmaker sitting in his high clock tower, as well as the mysterious and eerie Clockwork Angels. In this highly ordered world, the whole Owen’s life has been planned down almost to the exact second. This perfect order is preyed upon by the Anarchist, who is determined to destroy all the Watchmaker’s meticulous plans. Owen gradually realises that this Utopia, this seemingly perfect world isn’t as ideal as it seems and embarks on a truth-seeking journey which takes him to many exotic locations, forgotten lands and lost cities, such as the fabled Atlantis, and entangles him in the Anarchist’s vile plans, all that while riding aboard magnificent airship steamliners across vast oceans and fighting heinous pirates.
Looking like something that could please fans of Rush and devotees of steampunk genre alike, the graphic novel is penned by a veteran science fiction writer Kevin J. Anderson (Prelude to Dune trilogy) and illustrated by a newcomer Nick Robles, with an enticing promise of Rush lyrics and other ‘Easter eggs’ hidden throughout the comic.
The six-issue miniseries Clockwork Angels is published by Boom! Studios and begins in March 2014.
09/03/2014
