Product Description

Tom and Hester have been thrown together. Truly-thrown out of a city on wheels that's left them stranded and starving in the middle of nowhere while it hares off after its prey. Hester is desperate for revenge, and Tom is only desperate to get back on board his beloved London. This is a stunning literary debut from Philip Reeve. A novel that defies easy categorisation, it is a gripping adventure story set in an inspired fantasy world, where moving cities trawl the globe. Peopled with convincing and utterly likeable characters, this story is a magical and unique read.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #40423 in Books
• Published on: 2002-09-20
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 293 pages

Customer Reviews

Mortal Engines by Philip Reeve, reviewed by J. Reader, Beaworthy
I read this book as part of reference material and wouldn't otherwise have considered it. How glad I am to have been pointed in its direction. Easily one of the best books I've ever read (and I've read many) and one that leaves you wondering about the future of its surviving characters.
There isn't a single word which doesn't add to the atmosphere, tension and emotion of the unfolding story. Every character evokes some response from the reader and the physical, social and psychological desperation of the towns is effectively conveyed through Reeve's appropriate, but not excessive, description; in fact, in some cases his brevity adds to the stark and bereft circumstance.
Listed as a children's book this is a prime example of the higher standard demanded by children from modern literature. Any adult would take something away from this story. It's brilliantly written and ultimately demonstrates the disappointment that the young so frequently experience when adults fail them; their resilience is empowering to readers.
This is a great book, not one to be rushed though because there's so much to enjoy.

Exquisite
This book grabbed me with its opening sentence, as good books will, and it had me gripped right to the end. It's a wonderful story wonderfully told, packed with clever conceits and vividly depicted characters and set in a fascinating and imperfect future which recalls Victorian England in some ways and Mad Max in others. Readers who have enjoyed Philip Pullman's fiction are likely to fall for Mortal Engines hard and fast. Not only are the characters thoroughly beguiling, not only is the plot fast-paced and twisty, but there are *layers* here - just as the moving cities are built of layer upon layer. Reeve is also a wordsmith of no mean skill - there are phrases that leap off the page and force a person to pause and re-read and savour. Lovely.

Appropriate for readers aged 11ish upwards, I'd say, who are prepared to read something with more moral ambiguity than Harry Potter.

Slightly mixed bag, but the ending makes up for everything
The best things about Mortal Engines were the first couple of chapters, and the final third (or so) of the book.

Here's the opening sentence:

"It was a dark, blustery afternoon in spring, and the city of London was chasing a small mining town across the dried-out bed of the old North Sea."

If that doesn't get your imagination going, I don't know what will :-)

The book is set in a far-future age of traction cities that roll around a barren landscape, with the strong preying on the weak (capturing their inhabitants and recycling their parts). Gradually, prey is running out...

There's also an area of static cities, which make up the Anti-Traction League, which is in constant rivalry with the traction cities.

The feel is quasi-Victorian: technology has slipped back a long way since our own time, and there's a sense of polished brass and steam-gauges about everything. They use airships and crackly radio-beacons, and fight with swords as well as guns and rockets. Pieces of old technology like computers and robotics are revered and coveted. The atmosphere reminded me (in some ways) of Lyra's world in Philip Pulman's His Dark Materials trilogy.

You can probably tell that I was impressed, overall, but there are two reasons this isn't getting 5 stars from me:

1. I didn't feel engaged with the characters until very late in the book. The viewpoint jumps from person to person too much. For example, if the hero (Tom) is talking to someone who's upset, we're treated to a direct description of that person's emotions and reasons, rather than seeing it through Tom's eyes. That kept distancing me from the main characters, though obviously not everyone is affected by that sort of thing in the same way.

2. Towards the end, Reeve tries to build tension by switching the story to present-tense a few times (it's mostly told in the past tense). The thing is, there was plenty of tension building up anyway - it was really exciting! - and the tense changes kept distracting me and making me think "why did he do that?".

Then again, as someone with a deep interest in fiction, perhaps I'm more analytical than the intended audience for this.

On the positive side, there was a nicely developed romance thread, excellent minor characters - including an anti-hero called Valentine and an aviatrix called Miss Fang - and (with a startlingly high body-count that includes a few characters you might expect to survive) Philip Reeve avoided the sugary ending that I expected while leaving the way open for a sequel.

All in all, this is worthy of consdideration by anyone who enjoys slightly dark childrens' adventure fiction - like Philip Pulman's His Dark Materials or Sally Lockhart books, and I can't say fairer than that.