Riddley Walker is a brilliant, unique, completely realized work of fiction. One reads it again and again, discovering new wonders every time through. Set in a remote future in a post nuclear-holocaust England (Inland), Hoban has imagined a humanity regressed to an iron-age, semi-literate state—and invented a language to represent it. Riddley is both the Huck Finn and the Stephen Dedalus of his culture—rebel, artist, and agent of change. "Walker is my name and I am the same, Riddley Walker. Walking my riddels where ever theyve took me and walking them now on this paper the same."

The language has intimidated some readrs, though it is easily decipherable with attentive reading. As an aid to readers, Hoban has now added an afterword, samples of his original working notes, and a glossary.