Book Review(Mortal Engines)

I just read a book by the author Philip Reeve called Mortal Engines. This book is about a girl, Hester Shaw, and a tier-three London historian in a future world where cities are now mobile and have tiers, one being of the highest ranking, follow a system called municipal Darwinism where they eat the weak and get eaten by the strong. In this story, the start of the mortal engine quartet, Tom, a normal historian fallls in love with the daughter of the London Mayor's right hand man thaddeus Valentine. He follows her around and Valentine until a day where an assassin attempts to kill Valentine. Tom stops the assassin from killing Valentine and chases after her. However, the assassin, Hester Shaw tell him about Valentine's murdering of her own parents. Valentine figures that Tom knows too much and tries to silence him by throwing them out of london into the Out-country, a muddy ground consisting of all types of Traction cities. They then travel all the way back to London, while avoiding a Stalker,Shrike, which has been sent by Magnus Crome, London's mayor, to kill both of them. Meanwhile, Valentine is sent on a mission to destroy the air-fleets of the Anti-traction league and obtain the parts of an ancient weapon that can vaporise an entire Traction city. Katherine, Thaddeus daughter, finds out what they were attempting to do with the ancient device, to destroy the wall of the Anti-traction league, and stops them, causing a large build-up in energy and causing the weapon to vaporise London with it. Hester and Tom gets off in an airship just in time, before London is destroyed.

This story shows that in life, not everyone has a good intention. Life is never idealistic and that one does not always get to choose what he does and that we should always treasure that we have a choice of our life, where we get what we want and need. Developing survival skills is also vital in the real world where there is no pillar of support. You are on your own.