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Mortal Engines | 
 enlarge | Author: Philip Reeve
Creator: David Frankland
Publisher: Point
Category: Book
List Price: £6.99
Buy New: £0.01
You Save: £6.98 (100%)
New (37) Used (64) Collectible (9) from £0.01
Rating:  46 reviews
Sales Rank: 10818
Media: Paperback
Edition: New Ed
Pages: 293
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.5
Dimensions (in): 7.6 x 5 x 0.9
ISBN: 0439979439
EAN: 9780439982221
ASIN: 0439979439
Publication Date: September 20, 2002
Availability: Usually dispatched within 1-2 business days
Condition: New - Dispatched in 1 to 2 days
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| Customer Reviews: Read 41 more reviews...
Probably the most original novel I have ever read! April 26, 2008
G. A. Hurd (United Kingdom)
One of those series -like Phillip Pullman's 'His Dark Materials' -branded a children's book but stands better than most adult sci-fi/fantasy. The world is jaw-droppingly realistic; the characters believable, their motivations as complicated and sophisticated as an adult can appreciate but never overworked. Phillip Reeve has a style so easy, your brain becomes totally engaged and it requires genuine discipline NOT to finish the book in one sitting.
The start of 'Mortal Engines' is marginally weak -a Young Adults book, but don't be put off, this only lasts a few chapters: the rest is dazzling. The other three books in the series are just as gripping; if you do not find yourself emotionally bonded to at least one of the main characters, the story makes up for it; the 'support' characters are people just as real as the leads; the world is just as good as real life -I don't think any author creates a story so aparently COMPLETE as Phillip Reeve. The ideal read for the reader jaded by the massed phalanxes of generic sci-fi/fantasy.
P.S. One of the few books where you cannot see the ending until you get there. (This stands for each in the series: 'Mortal Engines' 'Predators Gold' 'Infernal Devices' 'A Darkling Plain.')
 Stunning Plot March 27, 2008
Alexandra Birchall (UK)
In the future, the world is a barren place, with cities and towns moving. Large cities like London chase and capture towns, capturing their people and using their resources whilst trying to avoid giant cities in the Great Hunting Ground. The cities are built in tiers, with the most important people in tier one. Tom is a third-class Apprentice in the museum from tier four. When the sinister Hester Shaw attempts to kill the very important Valentine, he is thrown off London to attempt the impossible; survive in the vast wilderness with Hester. He finds out shocking facts about the Anti-Traction League, other towns and cities and goings on in London whilst struggling to survive and return to the city. Meanwhile, the glamorous Katherine Valentine from tier one attempts to sort things out in the city. Mortal Engines is an exciting, gripping book with an interesting idea of what could happen in the future. Although the story is a little confusing at times, I would recommend it.
It's a town eat town kind of world March 18, 2008
R. Nicholson-morton (Alicante, Spain)
Why am I reviewing a book published in 2003? Because it's the first in a series about the Hungry City Chronicles and the book covers and blurbs intrigued me. Aimed at teenagers, it's a good read for adults too. An action-packed adventure which oozes originality.
Over a thousand years in our future, when the earth has virtually been ruined following a very brief but devastating conflict, the Sixty Minute War, the seas are dry and many cities and towns have evolved into mobile fortresses.
It's a town eat town kind of world - all to do with Municipal Darwinism, where big powerful towns and cities attack weaker ones and utilise the building materials for fuel and ransack antiques and artwork for their museums and capture people for slaving in the engine-rooms. And London is on the prowl, it seems, heading into the dangerous hunting grounds...
Apprentice Tom Natsworthy manages to thwart an attempt on his hero Valentine's life but is repaid by betrayal and is cast out of the city, into the treacherous Out-country, with only the would-be assassin Hester Shaw for company. A fragile friendship develops between them and they are picked up by a wandering town and imprisoned, to be sold as slaves...
Their adventures are daunting and exciting, with plenty of chapter-end cliff-hangers.
In opposition to the marauding towns and cities is the Anti-Traction League who have spies everywhere. Then there are the air-pirates and their balloon craft. To make matters worse, searching for Hester is the Resurrected Man, Shrike, mostly metal and virtually indestructible.
The descriptions of the cities and towns, the forbidding environment and the marvellous individual characters make reading this book a joy. There are heroes and villains and even the bit-players are sketched-in sympathetically. The grimness of the bowels of London city - with its turd tanks, the colours of the air-base Airhaven and the multi-national pirates, the magnificence of the scenery viewed from the air, all combine to present a visual feast just crying out for a movie.
Then there's the pirate town of Tunbridge Wheels. The Mayor of this town, Chrysler Peavey, is a fascinating character who only wants to better himself - and have an easy life at others' expense, of course...
And hovering in the background is the mystery of MEDUSA and the dreadful power that London's mad mayor is about to unleash... The ending was satisfying and sad and made me want to buy the next adventure straight away!
hooked from the start November 23, 2007
Mike P (Cumbria Uk)
My daughter received Mortal Engines free during book week at school and I am so glad she did. After a run of philosophy books I picked this up for a bit of light reading. From the opening I was hooked by the fantastic world Reeve created.
I liked the fact that the characters were not strictly good or evil but were acting in accordance with their moral framework, of which the consequences only became apparent when a different moral framework provided a contrast.
Judging by the reviews of his other books I think we shall be reading the rest of the series.
Enjoy
Great characterisation, a really exciting novel for everyone November 9, 2007
Sam J. Ruddock (Norwich, England)
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
Thousands of years in the future, London has become a Traction City, an anthropomorphised metropolis on wheels which stalks the plains of the hunting ground (formerly Europe) in search of smaller cities to eat. For years it has been hiding in what was once the British Isles, building its defences and avoiding bigger prey, but now it has crossed the land bridge and is in search of food.
Within the city lives Tom, a young apprentice historian with an obsession for adventure. Then there is Katherine, the daughter of one of London's most celebrated citizens and Tom's hero, the explorer, archaeologist and adventurer Valentine. But soon Hester Shaw appears, appallingly scarred and with murderous revenge blazing in her eyes - and her target is Valentine himself.
As London scampers across the hunting ground and prepares to launch a fantastic new weapon known only as MEDUSA, events within its walls take disturbing twists which will soon propel Tom, Hester and Katherine into adventurers they never saw coming, but which may determine the future of the entire world. And Valentine has been sent on a secret mission, from which nobody can contact him.
What a great imagination Philip Reeve has. Where many authors would have satisfied themselves with the brilliant idea of Traction Cities, he goes the extra mile, developing an entire historico-philosophical justification for their existence. Municipal Darwinism it is called and is that extra touch of depth which turns a brilliantly exciting adventure into a really believable world in which you feel like you can almost touch the characters. It is a concept at once both exhilarating and terrifying; seen first through the eyes of Tom it is the ultimate adventure; the excitement of the chase, the celebration of the kill. But like Darwinism, it is also thoroughly cutthroat and merciless. It is both post apocalyptically barbarian, and technologically advanced. In a barren world where land animals seem extinct the Traction Cities roam the plains in search of a kill.
Mortal Engines is everything you could want in a teenage fantasy/adventure. It is well written, exciting, jammed full of intriguing ideas, and each of the characters is strong and individual and likeable. Even the truly horrible ones. As the first in a quartet of novels spanning the entire world and twenty years Mortal Engines is a series to really get your teeth into. Like all the best children's fiction it is dark and at times quite remorseless: characters are alive one minute and dead the next, tragedies strike out of nowhere and endings are always tinged with remourse.
If you buy this book today, I am certain you will soon be buying Predator's Gold, Infernal Devices and A Darkling Plain. This is a series to enjoy for weeks to come.
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