Mortal Engines by Philip Reeve is the first book in the Mortal Engines series. Tom Natsworthy is a young apprentice historian in the London museum, however his London is a traction city meaning it is on wheels. When London successfully chases and attacks a smaller traction town across the wastelands of what was Britain it turns into a celebration. During that celebration Hester Shaw manages to slip into London in order to attack the head historian, Valentine, as revenge for something in the past. Tom unintentionally foils the attack but doesn’t realize that there was a good reason behind it and that Valentine is not what most of London thinks he is. As Hester manages to escape, Valentine pushes Tom off of London into the wastelands. Now Tom must find a way to survive in the wastelands with Hester as his only ally. At the same time, Valentine’s daughter, Katherine, witnessed part of the attack and is now convinced that her father is hiding something. Determined to figure it out she starts investigating only to discover that there is way more to the story than a young girl avenging her parents and that if they don’t stop it, something absolutely horrendous will happen.
I read this one because I have to admit that the premise of it sounded really intriguing. How many books deal with the concept of cities that are on wheels? I mean we see that in books that take place obviously with cities on spaceships which is similar but not quite the same thing. Here we have cannibalistic cities on giant wheels which is not all that common. That right there was an intriguing background setting to see and it definitely added some interesting layers to the story, which definitely needed it as the story itself seemed all too familiar. The young girl is desperate for vengeance after a supposedly upstanding member of society killed her parents. Another young girl desperate to believe the best of her father but slowly realizing that he is not that great of a person. A young man realizing that his hero is not actually a hero. Tie all of that into the rest of the story and it really does seem rather familiar in many ways. Like I said it really only stands out because of the whole cannibalistic city on wheels thing. It was still a great story though and I did enjoy reading so don’t take that as me saying the story was bad or anything. The story just combined highly familiar elements with a highly unfamiliar setting to create something unusual but rather interesting. I definitely enjoyed reading it and plan to try the rest of the series soon. It gets four out of five stars from me.
I would consider this a teen science fiction book so it would probably hold the most appeal to teen readers who enjoy science fiction. Though if adult readers are anything like me it might also appeal to adult readers who enjoy science fiction. There is some mild violence and some slightly dark and disturbing content so readers should be cautious but I wouldn’t consider it to be bad enough to warn readers away. The book can safely be read by readers as young as thirteen or fourteen probably without any major issues, in my opinion anyway. As I said it was a good read and worth considering so if it sounds interesting go ahead and try it. If you do, feel free to share your thoughts in the comments.