Mortal Engines | |||||
Philip Reeve | |||||
HarperCollins Eos, 320 pages | |||||
A review by Cindy Lynn Speer
Now, off the city for the first time in his life, and abandoned in a desolate wasteland with only Hester for a companion, Tom
will face pirates and other cities and towns determined to enslave the pair as well as possible starvation and death in a quest
to discover why Valentine threw him over board, and the location of an artifact from the distant past that may destroy the
world. Adding an interesting and vital secondary plot to the story is Valentine's daughter, Katherine, who overhears the Lord
Mayor and her father talking, and works parallel to Tom and Hester as she, too, tries to solve the mystery.
The hardest part to resist about Mortal Engines was the fact that the cities moved, chased each other down, ate each other. The
idea of the moving city isn't new, but it's certainly quite unusual and a little scary. The culture built up around
it is like our own yet so different. Some of the things are recognizable. Saint Paul's Cathedral, the crown of the top tier,
the title of Lord Mayor for the head of the city -- these are all things we know today, but applied into this context they
seem part of a strange new society. It makes for a very rich and real setting, filled with things that make it continually fascinating.
The adventure of Hester and Tom trying to survive the wasteland is also well done. You get to genuinely like them both. They're
around fifteen years old, and have a great deal of resourcefulness and resilience that one finds extremely admirable.
Teens will love this inventive adventure, and even adults will find it really involving.
Cindy Lynn Speer loves books so much that she's designed most of her life around them, both as a librarian and a writer. Her books aren't due out anywhere soon, but she's trying. You can find her site at www.apenandfire.com. |
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