Mortal Engines
Encyclopedia
Mortal Engines is the first of four novels in Philip Reeve
's quartet of the same name, which is also known as the Hungry City Chronicles in the United States
. The book has won a Nestlé Smarties Book Prize
and was shortlisted for the 2002 Whitbread Award.
world, ravaged in ages past by a nuclear holocaust known as the "Sixty Minute War
," which caused massive geological upheaval. To escape the earthquakes, volcanoes and other instabilities, a Nomad leader called Nikola Quercus, who changed his name to Nikolas Quirke, designed a system known as Municipal Darwinism
, where entire cities essentially become immense vehicles known as Traction Cities, and must consume one another in order to maintain themselves in a world deprived of most natural resources. Although the planet has since become stable again, Traction Cities are still used despite the fact that they were intended to escape from natural disasters, and the new world order continues.
Much technological and scientific knowledge was lost, and what remains of "Old Tech", artifacts remaining from our more developed society, are dug up and pored over by scavengers and archeologists. Europe
, some of Asia
, North Africa
, Antarctica and the Arctic
are inhabited by Traction Cities, and North America
is a radioactive wasteland, while much of the rest of the world is the stronghold of the Anti-Traction League
, an organisation that seeks to stop cities from moving and thus stop the intense consumption of the planet's resources. In the world of Traction Cities, nations no longer exist - each city is an individual state.
is the principal Traction City in the novel. London's society is divided into four major and a number of minor Guild
s. The Engineers are responsible for maintaining the machines necessary for the survival of London, many of which are found by the guild of historians. The Historians are in charge of collecting and preserving highly prized, often dangerous, but often decorative and sometimes even useful ancient artifacts which are sought after and traded, the head of this guild is Thaddeus Valentine
. The Navigators are responsible for steering and plotting the course of London. The Merchants are in charge of running London's economy. London is officially ruled by an elected Mayor
. The Lord Mayor
is Magnus Crome
, who is also the head of the Guild of Engineers.
Like most Traction Cities, London is shaped like a wedding cake, built on a series of tiers. This encourages the system of social classes, with the wealthier nobles living at the top of the city and the lower classes living further down, closer to the noise and pollution of the city's massive engines. Atop the whole of London, however, sits St Paul's Cathedral
, the only building in London - and indeed all traction cities - known to have survived from pre-traction times. It is almost unmistakably the seventeenth century edifice designed by Sir Christopher Wren, because Chudleigh Pomeroy says 'It wasn't built to move'.
's play Othello
("Othello: And O you mortal engines whose rude throats / Th'immoral Jove's dread clamors counterfeit..." - Line 352). It refers to the fact that the society of Traction Cities is not sustainable living
(see Municipal Darwinism
), and that the cities' engines are indeed mortal
.
The phrase ‘A darkling plain’ appears in the poem ‘Dover Beach’ by Matthew Arnold
. (24 December 1822 – 15 April 1888) an English poet, and cultural critic
“And we are here as on a darkling plain ,
Swept with confused alarms of struggle and flight”.
and a third class apprentice in the Guild of Historians.
The book opens with London chasing the town of Salthook over the dry bed of the North Sea
, into Europe
(now known as the Great Hunting Ground). Salthook is soon captured and dragged aboard. While assisting the head of the Guild of Historians, Thaddeus Valentine
, in searching for relics in the captured town, Tom saves him from a knife-wielding girl. The girl jumps off London to evade pursuit, and Valentine pushes Tom off as well.
Tom awakens on the bare mud of the Great Hunting Ground, a desolate wasteland stretching in every direction. The girl, Hester Shaw, is there. She claims that Valentine killed her parents, scarring her horribly, and starts following London's wheel marks to try and catch up to it. Tom follows her.
The next morning, an upset Katherine is told by Valentine that Hester dragged Tom down the chute with her. Magnus Crome
, the Lord Mayor, arrives at their home and has a private discussion which Katherine eavesdrops on. She finds out that Crome is sending Valentine on a reconnaissance flight between London and its mysterious goal, and that he is preparing something called "MEDUSA".
Tom and Hester keep walking through the Hunting Ground, and Hester tells Tom about her parents. They were killed by Valentine when she was young, because her mother refused to give him something called "MEDUSA". Later that day they encounter a small town, and Tom trades his seedy for some food. Unfortunately, they are tricked and drugged, with the intention of being sold as slaves at an upcoming "trading cluster" (a gathering of small towns for trading purposes).
Back in London, Crome speaks to a mysterious agent named Shrike
(called Grike in the North American version), instructing him to take an airship and hunt down Hester Shaw. Valentine leaves on his reconnaissance mission, and Katherine decides to investigate about MEDUSA in his absence.
Tom and Hester escape from captivity, and a pilot named Anna Fang
agrees to help them get home to London. She takes them aboard her airship, the Jenny Haniver
, and they fly to Airhaven, an airborne Traction City
kept aloft by an array of balloons. While eating at a cafe with some of Anna's friends, they are attacked by Shrike, who has managed to track them down. It is revealed that he is a Stalker
, a robotic killing machine containing a human brain. In the resulting battle Airhaven is greatly damaged, but Tom and Hester manage to escape in a hot air balloon
.
While they drift away on the wind, Hester tells Tom that she used to know Shrike. He found her half-dead after her parents' murder, when she was abandoned in the Great Hunting Ground, and he raised her. When she found out who Valentine was, and swore revenge, Shrike forbade her from going. So she ran away from him, and when she finally did find Valentine Tom thwarted her assassination attempt. However, she has no idea why Shrike was on a mission from the Lord Mayor of London.
The balloon eventually drifts down in the Rustwater Marshes (somewhere in Central Asia
), and while Tom and Hester fly through the Rustwater marshes, Shrike catches up to them again. Hester asks him how he knows the Lord Mayor, and he replies that he went to London looking for her, but found Magnus Crome instead. Crome sent Shrike after Hester, in return for "his heart's desire." Before it is revealed what that is, Shrike is run over by a speeding town, which Tom and Hester narrowly avoid being run over by. They board the town that was chasing it and find that it is a pirate suburb, and they are taken captive.
Back on London, Katherine makes an appointment with Crome, who refuses to tell her anything. She decides to track down an apprentice Engineer who was nearby the waste chute the night Tom and Hester disappeared, and is horrified by the conditions she finds down in the Gut. Prisoners are being worked to death, and fed on their own faeces. She finds the apprentice, however, a pale boy her age named Bevis Pod. Bevis tells her that he thinks the Guild is building Stalkers
, and that MEDUSA is some kind of device that London is relying on for survival. He agrees to help her sneak into a Guild meeting to discover more.
Meanwhile, Hester finds that she knows the mayor of the pirate suburb; his name is Chrysler Peavey, and she met him while she lived with Shrike. He refuses to let them go, until he realises that Tom is a Londoner. Peavey has delusions of becoming a gentleman
, and agrees to free them if Tom teaches him etiquette
.
The pirate suburb is heading through the marshes towards a mysterious prize. Ahead of them lies the Sea of Khazak, and a place called the Black Island, which houses a small static town and a refueling depot for airships. Peavey reveals that Airhaven has landed there to repair, and he intends to seize it. His suburb is amphibious, and inflates air-tanks to cross the sea to the Black Island.
Back in the Rustwater Marshes, Shrike (Grike) pulls himself free of the mud, having survived being run over. He follows the suburb's trail.
The Jenny Haniver bombs the suburb before it reaches the island, and Peavey reveals that Anna Fang is an Anti-Traction League
agent. While crossing the Sea of Khazak, the suburb runs into a reef and sinks, Tom, Hester, Peavey and a handful of pirates reach the shores. Peavey refuses to give up and leads them onward, despite the fact they no longer have any chance of capturing Airhaven. As Airhaven is about to take off, Peavey is caught in quicksand and his pirates mutiny
and shoot him before he sinks. They accuse Tom and Hester of ruining their lives, and are about to kill them when Shrike shows up and kills the pirates.
That same night on London, Katherine and Bevis sneak into a secret Guild meeting and learn that MEDUSA is an ancient superweapon recovered from an American military base. Crome intends to use it to break through the Shield-Wall, an immense fortress-city blocking the only pass into the lands of the Anti-Traction League, protecting them from hungry cities. First, however, he intends to test fire it. The Engineers watch, entranced, as the dome on top of St. Paul's Cathedral begins to open.
On the Black Island, Shrike reveals that "his heart's desire" was Hester as a Stalker; in return for killing her, Crome agreed to resurrect her as Shrike's mechanical daughter. He is about to kill her when Tom grabs a sword from one of the fallen pirates and kills him. Hester screams at Tom, claiming she would have been happier as a Stalker. Their fight is interrupted as the northern sky fills with a green light.
On London, Katherine and Bevis watch as MEDUSA fires a brilliant ray of energy at a city that had been chasing London. It is incinerated entirely, and they are horrified, but the people of London only cheer.
They fly east in the Jenny Haniver, stopping at several Traction Cities which are all fleeing away from the scene where MEDUSA was fired, terrified that London is unstoppable. After flying over the Himalayas
, which have grown to encircle the entire land of Shan Guo (leading nation of the Anti-Traction League), they arrive at the Shield-Wall: a massive wall of basalt and metal built across a mountain pass, with the city of Batmunkh Gompa built on its interior side. Tom and Hester attend a military strategy meeting, where Anna Fang urges the governor of the Shield-Wall to launch his fleet of gunship
s and destroy London before it can come into range. Tom is upset at this, and goes to explore the city and come to grips with his feelings. While exploring, he recognises Valentine in disguise, and follows him.
As London heads towards the mountains, Katherine spends much time in the History Museum, where she is hiding Bevis from his superiors, and slowly falling in love with him. While speaking with some of the Historians, she learns that her father used to go on expeditions with a woman named Pandora Shaw, and finds that she was murdered six or seven years ago, leaving behind a daughter named Hester Shaw. Katherine realises that her father must have killed Hester's parents, and is heartbroken.
At the Shield-Wall, Tom loses track of Valentine and goes to warn Anna Fang instead. She suspects Valentine's mission is to destroy the Shield-Wall's air fleet, and goes to stop him. Tom then finds Hester and tells her that Valentine is in Batmunkh Gompa. They go to the top of the Shield-Wall, where the fleet is burning, and chasing after Hester, Tom gets lost in a maze of tunnels that go through the wall. He emerges on a battlement where Anna Fang and Valentine are locked in a sword fight. Valentine, however, is no match for Fang who eventually disarms him. Valentine manages to buy enough time for his airship to arrive, which distracts Fang long enough for him to grab his fallen sword and run her through. With her last breath, Anna Fang promises Valentine that Hester Shaw will find him. Thaddeus leaps off the battlements onto his airship, to escape.
Tom links up with Hester and they realise they have to stop London from reaching the Shield-Wall; now that the fleet has been destroyed, it is defenceless. They take the Jenny Haniver and follow Valentine's airship west, towards London.
At the same time, Katherine and Bevis are assembling a bomb to try and destroy MEDUSA. They are discovered by security from the Guild of Engineers, but the Historians help them escape. They reach the Top Tier, where a function is being held to celebrate the arrival of London at the Shield Wall, and Bevis hastily hugs Katherine and whispers "I love you"
. Tom sets Hester down on the same tier, and promises to circle and return for her, but he is attacked by Valentine's airship (which has already dropped Valentine off at the function). Tom shoots the airship down, and it lands in a fiery heap on the Top Tier, killing Bevis.
Hester is captured by the Guild of Engineers' security Stalkers, and taken to St. Paul's. Valentine and Crome are there, preparing to fire MEDUSA. Katherine arrives just as Valentine is about to kill Hester, and throws herself in front of the blow, run through by his sword. She falls on MEDUSA's keyboard, damaging it, and Valentine calls for help. Only Hester helps him; the Engineers are worrying about MEDUSA.
The flames from Valentine's airships are consuming the Top Tier, and Valentine and Hester carry Katherine out onto the roof of St.Paul's. Tom brings the Jenny Haniver down to rescue them, but Katherine has died, and Valentine shouts at Hester to save herself. She jumps onto the airship, and they fly away just as MEDUSA's energy beam misfires, incinerating the device along with most of London.
Tom is devastated over the loss of his city, and of Katherine - but he realises he barely knew Katherine, and it is Hester that he loves. Together the two of them fly away in the Jenny Haniver to start a new life.
filmmaker Peter Jackson
intended to make a movie based on Mortal Engines. In April 2010, it was confirmed that WETA are in fact working on the movie, and that Peter Jackson will be both directing and producing. Apparently the film is to be shot in Stereoscopic 3D.
Philip Reeve
Philip Reeve is a British author and illustrator. He presently lives on Dartmoor with his wife Sarah and their son Samuel.-Biography:...
's quartet of the same name, which is also known as the Hungry City Chronicles in the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
. The book has won a Nestlé Smarties Book Prize
Nestlé Smarties Book Prize
The Nestlé Children's Book Prize, also known as the Nestlé Smarties Book Prize, was an annual award given to children's books written in the previous year by a UK citizen or resident. The prize was administered by Booktrust, an independent charity which promotes books and reading, and sponsored by...
and was shortlisted for the 2002 Whitbread Award.
Concept
The book is set in a post-apocalypticApocalyptic and post-apocalyptic fiction
Apocalyptic fiction is a sub-genre of science fiction that is concerned with the end of civilization due to a potentially existential catastrophe such as nuclear warfare, pandemic, extraterrestrial attack, impact event, cybernetic revolt, technological singularity, dysgenics, supernatural...
world, ravaged in ages past by a nuclear holocaust known as the "Sixty Minute War
Sixty Minute War
The Sixty Minute War is a fictional event in Philip Reeve's Mortal Engines Quartet. It is a cataclysmic conflict which is deliberately left vague, but was evidently fought between the American Empire and Greater China. It is likely that the Middle East was involved, as this region has been reduced...
," which caused massive geological upheaval. To escape the earthquakes, volcanoes and other instabilities, a Nomad leader called Nikola Quercus, who changed his name to Nikolas Quirke, designed a system known as Municipal Darwinism
Municipal Darwinism
Municipal Darwinism is a fictional concept featured in Philip Reeve's Mortal Engines Quartet. It refers to the practice in the post apocalyptic world described in the series, in which large mobile metropolitan areas, known as Traction Cities, consume one another by gathering other, smaller cities...
, where entire cities essentially become immense vehicles known as Traction Cities, and must consume one another in order to maintain themselves in a world deprived of most natural resources. Although the planet has since become stable again, Traction Cities are still used despite the fact that they were intended to escape from natural disasters, and the new world order continues.
Much technological and scientific knowledge was lost, and what remains of "Old Tech", artifacts remaining from our more developed society, are dug up and pored over by scavengers and archeologists. Europe
Europe
Europe is, by convention, one of the world's seven continents. Comprising the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, Europe is generally 'divided' from Asia to its east by the watershed divides of the Ural and Caucasus Mountains, the Ural River, the Caspian and Black Seas, and the waterways connecting...
, some of Asia
Asia
Asia is the world's largest and most populous continent, located primarily in the eastern and northern hemispheres. It covers 8.7% of the Earth's total surface area and with approximately 3.879 billion people, it hosts 60% of the world's current human population...
, North Africa
North Africa
North Africa or Northern Africa is the northernmost region of the African continent, linked by the Sahara to Sub-Saharan Africa. Geopolitically, the United Nations definition of Northern Africa includes eight countries or territories; Algeria, Egypt, Libya, Morocco, South Sudan, Sudan, Tunisia, and...
, Antarctica and the Arctic
Arctic
The Arctic is a region located at the northern-most part of the Earth. The Arctic consists of the Arctic Ocean and parts of Canada, Russia, Greenland, the United States, Norway, Sweden, Finland, and Iceland. The Arctic region consists of a vast, ice-covered ocean, surrounded by treeless permafrost...
are inhabited by Traction Cities, and North America
North America
North America is a continent wholly within the Northern Hemisphere and almost wholly within the Western Hemisphere. It is also considered a northern subcontinent of the Americas...
is a radioactive wasteland, while much of the rest of the world is the stronghold of the Anti-Traction League
Anti-Traction League
In Philip Reeve's book-series Mortal Engines Quartet, the Anti-Traction League is an organization opposed to the prevalence of Traction Cities and Municipal Darwinism. Its symbol is that of a broken wheel.-Geography:...
, an organisation that seeks to stop cities from moving and thus stop the intense consumption of the planet's resources. In the world of Traction Cities, nations no longer exist - each city is an individual state.
London
LondonLondon
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
is the principal Traction City in the novel. London's society is divided into four major and a number of minor Guild
Guild
A guild is an association of craftsmen in a particular trade. The earliest types of guild were formed as confraternities of workers. They were organized in a manner something between a trade union, a cartel, and a secret society...
s. The Engineers are responsible for maintaining the machines necessary for the survival of London, many of which are found by the guild of historians. The Historians are in charge of collecting and preserving highly prized, often dangerous, but often decorative and sometimes even useful ancient artifacts which are sought after and traded, the head of this guild is Thaddeus Valentine
Thaddeus Valentine
Thaddeus Valentine is a fictitious historian of London in the book Mortal Engines by Philip Reeve. Mortal Engines is the first of a four-part series detailing life in an post nuclear war world...
. The Navigators are responsible for steering and plotting the course of London. The Merchants are in charge of running London's economy. London is officially ruled by an elected Mayor
Mayor of London
The Mayor of London is an elected politician who, along with the London Assembly of 25 members, is accountable for the strategic government of Greater London. Conservative Boris Johnson has held the position since 4 May 2008...
. The Lord Mayor
Lord Mayor of London
The Right Honourable Lord Mayor of London is the legal title for the Mayor of the City of London Corporation. The Lord Mayor of London is to be distinguished from the Mayor of London; the former is an officer only of the City of London, while the Mayor of London is the Mayor of Greater London and...
is Magnus Crome
Magnus Crome
Magnus Crome is the Lord Mayor of London in Phillip Reeve's book Mortal Engines. He has been mayor of the city for 20 years and he is also head of the Guild of Engineers. Many Londoners believe that this is unfair and that he may put the priorities of his guild before those of London's three other...
, who is also the head of the Guild of Engineers.
Like most Traction Cities, London is shaped like a wedding cake, built on a series of tiers. This encourages the system of social classes, with the wealthier nobles living at the top of the city and the lower classes living further down, closer to the noise and pollution of the city's massive engines. Atop the whole of London, however, sits St Paul's Cathedral
St Paul's Cathedral
St Paul's Cathedral, London, is a Church of England cathedral and seat of the Bishop of London. Its dedication to Paul the Apostle dates back to the original church on this site, founded in AD 604. St Paul's sits at the top of Ludgate Hill, the highest point in the City of London, and is the mother...
, the only building in London - and indeed all traction cities - known to have survived from pre-traction times. It is almost unmistakably the seventeenth century edifice designed by Sir Christopher Wren, because Chudleigh Pomeroy says 'It wasn't built to move'.
Explanation of the novel's title
The title is a quotation from Act III, Scene iii of William ShakespeareWilliam Shakespeare
William Shakespeare was an English poet and playwright, widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's pre-eminent dramatist. He is often called England's national poet and the "Bard of Avon"...
's play Othello
Othello
The Tragedy of Othello, the Moor of Venice is a tragedy by William Shakespeare, believed to have been written in approximately 1603, and based on the Italian short story "Un Capitano Moro" by Cinthio, a disciple of Boccaccio, first published in 1565...
("Othello: And O you mortal engines whose rude throats / Th'immoral Jove's dread clamors counterfeit..." - Line 352). It refers to the fact that the society of Traction Cities is not sustainable living
Sustainable living
Sustainable living is a lifestyle that attempts to reduce an individual's or society's use of the Earth's natural resources and his/her own resources. Practitioners of sustainable living often attempt to reduce their carbon footprint by altering methods of transportation, energy consumption and diet...
(see Municipal Darwinism
Municipal Darwinism
Municipal Darwinism is a fictional concept featured in Philip Reeve's Mortal Engines Quartet. It refers to the practice in the post apocalyptic world described in the series, in which large mobile metropolitan areas, known as Traction Cities, consume one another by gathering other, smaller cities...
), and that the cities' engines are indeed mortal
Death
Death is the permanent termination of the biological functions that sustain a living organism. Phenomena which commonly bring about death include old age, predation, malnutrition, disease, and accidents or trauma resulting in terminal injury....
.
The phrase ‘A darkling plain’ appears in the poem ‘Dover Beach’ by Matthew Arnold
Matthew Arnold
Matthew Arnold was a British poet and cultural critic who worked as an inspector of schools. He was the son of Thomas Arnold, the famed headmaster of Rugby School, and brother to both Tom Arnold, literary professor, and William Delafield Arnold, novelist and colonial administrator...
. (24 December 1822 – 15 April 1888) an English poet, and cultural critic
“And we are here as on a darkling plain ,
Swept with confused alarms of struggle and flight”.
Part One
The main character of Mortal Engines is Tom Natsworthy, a fifteen-year old orphanOrphan
An orphan is a child permanently bereaved of or abandoned by his or her parents. In common usage, only a child who has lost both parents is called an orphan...
and a third class apprentice in the Guild of Historians.
The book opens with London chasing the town of Salthook over the dry bed of the North Sea
North Sea
In the southwest, beyond the Straits of Dover, the North Sea becomes the English Channel connecting to the Atlantic Ocean. In the east, it connects to the Baltic Sea via the Skagerrak and Kattegat, narrow straits that separate Denmark from Norway and Sweden respectively...
, into Europe
Europe
Europe is, by convention, one of the world's seven continents. Comprising the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, Europe is generally 'divided' from Asia to its east by the watershed divides of the Ural and Caucasus Mountains, the Ural River, the Caspian and Black Seas, and the waterways connecting...
(now known as the Great Hunting Ground). Salthook is soon captured and dragged aboard. While assisting the head of the Guild of Historians, Thaddeus Valentine
Thaddeus Valentine
Thaddeus Valentine is a fictitious historian of London in the book Mortal Engines by Philip Reeve. Mortal Engines is the first of a four-part series detailing life in an post nuclear war world...
, in searching for relics in the captured town, Tom saves him from a knife-wielding girl. The girl jumps off London to evade pursuit, and Valentine pushes Tom off as well.
Tom awakens on the bare mud of the Great Hunting Ground, a desolate wasteland stretching in every direction. The girl, Hester Shaw, is there. She claims that Valentine killed her parents, scarring her horribly, and starts following London's wheel marks to try and catch up to it. Tom follows her.
The next morning, an upset Katherine is told by Valentine that Hester dragged Tom down the chute with her. Magnus Crome
Magnus Crome
Magnus Crome is the Lord Mayor of London in Phillip Reeve's book Mortal Engines. He has been mayor of the city for 20 years and he is also head of the Guild of Engineers. Many Londoners believe that this is unfair and that he may put the priorities of his guild before those of London's three other...
, the Lord Mayor, arrives at their home and has a private discussion which Katherine eavesdrops on. She finds out that Crome is sending Valentine on a reconnaissance flight between London and its mysterious goal, and that he is preparing something called "MEDUSA".
Tom and Hester keep walking through the Hunting Ground, and Hester tells Tom about her parents. They were killed by Valentine when she was young, because her mother refused to give him something called "MEDUSA". Later that day they encounter a small town, and Tom trades his seedy for some food. Unfortunately, they are tricked and drugged, with the intention of being sold as slaves at an upcoming "trading cluster" (a gathering of small towns for trading purposes).
Back in London, Crome speaks to a mysterious agent named Shrike
Shrike (Philip Reeve)
Shrike is a recurring character in Philip Reeve's Mortal Engines Quartet and Fever Crumb Series. He appears in all the books except Predator's Gold and A Web of Air....
(called Grike in the North American version), instructing him to take an airship and hunt down Hester Shaw. Valentine leaves on his reconnaissance mission, and Katherine decides to investigate about MEDUSA in his absence.
Tom and Hester escape from captivity, and a pilot named Anna Fang
Anna Fang
Anna Fang is a character in Philip Reeve's Mortal Engines Quartet. Her name may be derived from the German "anfang" meaning beginning.-Mortal Engines:Anna is introduced as a friendly Asian aviator who helps Tom Natsworthy and Hester Shaw escape slavery...
agrees to help them get home to London. She takes them aboard her airship, the Jenny Haniver
Jenny Haniver (airship)
The Jenny Haniver is the name of an airship featured heavily in Philip Reeve's Mortal Engines Quartet. She is a small cargo airship with a crimson envelope....
, and they fly to Airhaven, an airborne Traction City
Traction City
In Philip Reeve's Mortal Engines Quartet, Traction Cities are vast metropolises built on tiers that are capable of moving on gigantic wheels and caterpillar tracks. These cities hunt smaller cities which in turn hunt towns which in turn hunt villages and static settlements...
kept aloft by an array of balloons. While eating at a cafe with some of Anna's friends, they are attacked by Shrike, who has managed to track them down. It is revealed that he is a Stalker
Stalker (Philip Reeve)
The Stalkers are a type of combatants mentioned in Philip Reeve's Mortal Engines, Predator's Gold, Infernal Devices and A Darkling Plain. They are also known as the Resurrected Men. The Stalkers were built by the Nomadic Empires that battled each other across the volcano maze of what was once...
, a robotic killing machine containing a human brain. In the resulting battle Airhaven is greatly damaged, but Tom and Hester manage to escape in a hot air balloon
Hot air balloon
The hot air balloon is the oldest successful human-carrying flight technology. It is in a class of aircraft known as balloon aircraft. On November 21, 1783, in Paris, France, the first untethered manned flight was made by Jean-François Pilâtre de Rozier and François Laurent d'Arlandes in a hot air...
.
While they drift away on the wind, Hester tells Tom that she used to know Shrike. He found her half-dead after her parents' murder, when she was abandoned in the Great Hunting Ground, and he raised her. When she found out who Valentine was, and swore revenge, Shrike forbade her from going. So she ran away from him, and when she finally did find Valentine Tom thwarted her assassination attempt. However, she has no idea why Shrike was on a mission from the Lord Mayor of London.
The balloon eventually drifts down in the Rustwater Marshes (somewhere in Central Asia
Central Asia
Central Asia is a core region of the Asian continent from the Caspian Sea in the west, China in the east, Afghanistan in the south, and Russia in the north...
), and while Tom and Hester fly through the Rustwater marshes, Shrike catches up to them again. Hester asks him how he knows the Lord Mayor, and he replies that he went to London looking for her, but found Magnus Crome instead. Crome sent Shrike after Hester, in return for "his heart's desire." Before it is revealed what that is, Shrike is run over by a speeding town, which Tom and Hester narrowly avoid being run over by. They board the town that was chasing it and find that it is a pirate suburb, and they are taken captive.
Back on London, Katherine makes an appointment with Crome, who refuses to tell her anything. She decides to track down an apprentice Engineer who was nearby the waste chute the night Tom and Hester disappeared, and is horrified by the conditions she finds down in the Gut. Prisoners are being worked to death, and fed on their own faeces. She finds the apprentice, however, a pale boy her age named Bevis Pod. Bevis tells her that he thinks the Guild is building Stalkers
Stalker (Philip Reeve)
The Stalkers are a type of combatants mentioned in Philip Reeve's Mortal Engines, Predator's Gold, Infernal Devices and A Darkling Plain. They are also known as the Resurrected Men. The Stalkers were built by the Nomadic Empires that battled each other across the volcano maze of what was once...
, and that MEDUSA is some kind of device that London is relying on for survival. He agrees to help her sneak into a Guild meeting to discover more.
Meanwhile, Hester finds that she knows the mayor of the pirate suburb; his name is Chrysler Peavey, and she met him while she lived with Shrike. He refuses to let them go, until he realises that Tom is a Londoner. Peavey has delusions of becoming a gentleman
Gentleman
The term gentleman , in its original and strict signification, denoted a well-educated man of good family and distinction, analogous to the Latin generosus...
, and agrees to free them if Tom teaches him etiquette
Etiquette
Etiquette is a code of behavior that delineates expectations for social behavior according to contemporary conventional norms within a society, social class, or group...
.
The pirate suburb is heading through the marshes towards a mysterious prize. Ahead of them lies the Sea of Khazak, and a place called the Black Island, which houses a small static town and a refueling depot for airships. Peavey reveals that Airhaven has landed there to repair, and he intends to seize it. His suburb is amphibious, and inflates air-tanks to cross the sea to the Black Island.
Back in the Rustwater Marshes, Shrike (Grike) pulls himself free of the mud, having survived being run over. He follows the suburb's trail.
The Jenny Haniver bombs the suburb before it reaches the island, and Peavey reveals that Anna Fang is an Anti-Traction League
Anti-Traction League
In Philip Reeve's book-series Mortal Engines Quartet, the Anti-Traction League is an organization opposed to the prevalence of Traction Cities and Municipal Darwinism. Its symbol is that of a broken wheel.-Geography:...
agent. While crossing the Sea of Khazak, the suburb runs into a reef and sinks, Tom, Hester, Peavey and a handful of pirates reach the shores. Peavey refuses to give up and leads them onward, despite the fact they no longer have any chance of capturing Airhaven. As Airhaven is about to take off, Peavey is caught in quicksand and his pirates mutiny
Mutiny
Mutiny is a conspiracy among members of a group of similarly situated individuals to openly oppose, change or overthrow an authority to which they are subject...
and shoot him before he sinks. They accuse Tom and Hester of ruining their lives, and are about to kill them when Shrike shows up and kills the pirates.
That same night on London, Katherine and Bevis sneak into a secret Guild meeting and learn that MEDUSA is an ancient superweapon recovered from an American military base. Crome intends to use it to break through the Shield-Wall, an immense fortress-city blocking the only pass into the lands of the Anti-Traction League, protecting them from hungry cities. First, however, he intends to test fire it. The Engineers watch, entranced, as the dome on top of St. Paul's Cathedral begins to open.
On the Black Island, Shrike reveals that "his heart's desire" was Hester as a Stalker; in return for killing her, Crome agreed to resurrect her as Shrike's mechanical daughter. He is about to kill her when Tom grabs a sword from one of the fallen pirates and kills him. Hester screams at Tom, claiming she would have been happier as a Stalker. Their fight is interrupted as the northern sky fills with a green light.
On London, Katherine and Bevis watch as MEDUSA fires a brilliant ray of energy at a city that had been chasing London. It is incinerated entirely, and they are horrified, but the people of London only cheer.
Part Two
On the Black Island, Tom and Hester are found by a patrol that includes Anna Fang. Tom is shocked to find that she is an agent of the Anti-Traction League, but realises she is still his friend. She tells him that she suspects the green flash was related to MEDUSA, and has learnt that London is headed for the Shield-Wall. Tom and Hester agree to go there with her.They fly east in the Jenny Haniver, stopping at several Traction Cities which are all fleeing away from the scene where MEDUSA was fired, terrified that London is unstoppable. After flying over the Himalayas
Himalayas
The Himalaya Range or Himalaya Mountains Sanskrit: Devanagari: हिमालय, literally "abode of snow"), usually called the Himalayas or Himalaya for short, is a mountain range in Asia, separating the Indian subcontinent from the Tibetan Plateau...
, which have grown to encircle the entire land of Shan Guo (leading nation of the Anti-Traction League), they arrive at the Shield-Wall: a massive wall of basalt and metal built across a mountain pass, with the city of Batmunkh Gompa built on its interior side. Tom and Hester attend a military strategy meeting, where Anna Fang urges the governor of the Shield-Wall to launch his fleet of gunship
Gunship
The term "gunship" is used in several contexts, all sharing the general idea of a light craft armed with heavy guns.-In Navy:In the Navy, the term originally appeared in the mid-19th century as a less-common synonym for gunboat.-In military aviation:...
s and destroy London before it can come into range. Tom is upset at this, and goes to explore the city and come to grips with his feelings. While exploring, he recognises Valentine in disguise, and follows him.
As London heads towards the mountains, Katherine spends much time in the History Museum, where she is hiding Bevis from his superiors, and slowly falling in love with him. While speaking with some of the Historians, she learns that her father used to go on expeditions with a woman named Pandora Shaw, and finds that she was murdered six or seven years ago, leaving behind a daughter named Hester Shaw. Katherine realises that her father must have killed Hester's parents, and is heartbroken.
At the Shield-Wall, Tom loses track of Valentine and goes to warn Anna Fang instead. She suspects Valentine's mission is to destroy the Shield-Wall's air fleet, and goes to stop him. Tom then finds Hester and tells her that Valentine is in Batmunkh Gompa. They go to the top of the Shield-Wall, where the fleet is burning, and chasing after Hester, Tom gets lost in a maze of tunnels that go through the wall. He emerges on a battlement where Anna Fang and Valentine are locked in a sword fight. Valentine, however, is no match for Fang who eventually disarms him. Valentine manages to buy enough time for his airship to arrive, which distracts Fang long enough for him to grab his fallen sword and run her through. With her last breath, Anna Fang promises Valentine that Hester Shaw will find him. Thaddeus leaps off the battlements onto his airship, to escape.
Tom links up with Hester and they realise they have to stop London from reaching the Shield-Wall; now that the fleet has been destroyed, it is defenceless. They take the Jenny Haniver and follow Valentine's airship west, towards London.
At the same time, Katherine and Bevis are assembling a bomb to try and destroy MEDUSA. They are discovered by security from the Guild of Engineers, but the Historians help them escape. They reach the Top Tier, where a function is being held to celebrate the arrival of London at the Shield Wall, and Bevis hastily hugs Katherine and whispers "I love you"
Love
Love is an emotion of strong affection and personal attachment. In philosophical context, love is a virtue representing all of human kindness, compassion, and affection. Love is central to many religions, as in the Christian phrase, "God is love" or Agape in the Canonical gospels...
. Tom sets Hester down on the same tier, and promises to circle and return for her, but he is attacked by Valentine's airship (which has already dropped Valentine off at the function). Tom shoots the airship down, and it lands in a fiery heap on the Top Tier, killing Bevis.
Hester is captured by the Guild of Engineers' security Stalkers, and taken to St. Paul's. Valentine and Crome are there, preparing to fire MEDUSA. Katherine arrives just as Valentine is about to kill Hester, and throws herself in front of the blow, run through by his sword. She falls on MEDUSA's keyboard, damaging it, and Valentine calls for help. Only Hester helps him; the Engineers are worrying about MEDUSA.
The flames from Valentine's airships are consuming the Top Tier, and Valentine and Hester carry Katherine out onto the roof of St.Paul's. Tom brings the Jenny Haniver down to rescue them, but Katherine has died, and Valentine shouts at Hester to save herself. She jumps onto the airship, and they fly away just as MEDUSA's energy beam misfires, incinerating the device along with most of London.
Tom is devastated over the loss of his city, and of Katherine - but he realises he barely knew Katherine, and it is Hester that he loves. Together the two of them fly away in the Jenny Haniver to start a new life.
Movie Adaptations
In December 2009, it was stated that the New ZealandNew Zealand
New Zealand is an island country in the south-western Pacific Ocean comprising two main landmasses and numerous smaller islands. The country is situated some east of Australia across the Tasman Sea, and roughly south of the Pacific island nations of New Caledonia, Fiji, and Tonga...
filmmaker Peter Jackson
Peter Jackson
Sir Peter Robert Jackson, KNZM is a New Zealand film director, producer, actor, and screenwriter, known for his The Lord of the Rings film trilogy , adapted from the novel by J. R. R...
intended to make a movie based on Mortal Engines. In April 2010, it was confirmed that WETA are in fact working on the movie, and that Peter Jackson will be both directing and producing. Apparently the film is to be shot in Stereoscopic 3D.
See also
- Mortal Engines Quartet
- List of Mortal Engines Quartet characters
- Philip ReevePhilip ReevePhilip Reeve is a British author and illustrator. He presently lives on Dartmoor with his wife Sarah and their son Samuel.-Biography:...