"Mortal Engines" by Philip Reeve
I have never much liked post apocalyptic science fiction or the increasingly common fantasy version of the same. It can be fine if it’s so far past that it’s basically a new world or something like “Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy” which is my favorite book, but far too many are wallowing in self defeat and depression. “Mortal Engines” by Philip Reeve covers much of that, but it is still mostly entertaining to read. In part this is because it’s so long after the sixty-minute war that it can hardly be called post apocalyptic anymore. But it still falls into some problems I have with this type of story mostly because humans will collapse into the worst type of societies and it gives little if any real hope that anything is likely to change those societies or the inevitability of it happening. The societies in this book aren’t good, but there is at least hope.
What Happens in “Mortal Engines”?
The story begins with London, which has been turned into a massive mobile city, like almost every city in the world, leaving its safe hiding spot and returning to the heart of Europe. As it goes, it chases down and “Eats” smaller cities, pulling them apart and absorbing their supplies, structures and people into itself. This is the way of the world now.
The story begins in Ernest when Hester Shaw attempts to kill Valentine, the head of the Historian’s guild and a legend in London. She is thrown off of London along with apprentice historian Tom Natsworthy. The ground is soft enough that they survive, but Hestor is hurt, which forces her to allow Tom to help her while she helps him to understand the world outside of the city. But while they are forced together, they don’t like each other. Tom idolizes the man that she tried to kill and wants to protect London, his home, while she is very self-conscious of her facial scars and thinks no one could like her because of them.
They are soon picked up by a town that is hardly more than a large family. Tom trades a CD that he found for some food and they offer to take them to a trading location. But after they eat, both Tom and Hestor fall unconscious and are told that the members of the small town plan to sell them into slavery. The people of the town are treated more as desperate than evil for this and the two escape basically by kicking a hole in the room's wall.
At the trading hub they meet Anna Fang, who keeps them from being recaptured and takes them on her airship and takes them to a flying city named Airhaven where they can hopefully get a ride back to London. But before they can find anyone to take them, they are attacked by a “Stalker” which is basically a cyborg that is created from corpses. This stalker, named Shrike, was the one who took Hestor in and protected her after her parents were killed, so she assumes he won’t hurt her, but he is now working for the mayor of London and plans to kill her.
The two steal a hot-air balloon to escape. While they are floating around, Hestor explains that she left the cyborg to find and killed Valentine. They also discover that he followed her and was captured by the engineers of London who are studying him to learn to make more Stalkers. They land in a swamp like area after damaging the cyborg and they sneak onto a town that turns out to be a pirate town. They are going to use them as slaves, but when the mayor of the pirate town discovers that Tom is from High London, he instead decides he wants him to teach him to be a gentleman so he can rise higher in society. Something he is convinced he is going to do soon because he knows that Airhaven was forced to land and plans to attack it.
The pirate never had a chance at taking Airhaven even when it’s on the ground and when the mayor of the destroyed pirate town is killed trying to get to Airhaven the rest of the pirates turn on Tom and Hestor. But before they can kill them, Shrike the cyborg attacks. He explains that he plans to kill Hestor, but only so she can be turned into a Stalker like him and they can be together. Hestor claims to want this even though it’s a sort of living death with your memories and hopes gone, but Tom kills the cyborg to protect her. The two are then saved from being killed by the Airhaven soldiers by Anna Fang.
At this point the story returns to London, which is being chased by a much larger city. Valentine is sent away on a secret mission and his daughter Katherine investigates what has been happening in London and her father. She joins forces with Bevis Pod and together they learn her father Valentine discovered an ancient weapon called MEDUSA. It is an energy weapon that they use to destroy the much larger city, and they plan to use the same weapon to destroy the Shield Wall, which is a massive wall that protects the only part of the world not dominated by the traction cities. It is assumed that if they can get past it, the rest of that part of the world will be easy pickings for London.
Anna Fang realizes this is what they plan to do and goes to warn the people at the shield wall who have airships that could attack London, but won’t do so because they assume it is unnecessary since the city’s normal weapons couldn’t hope to get through the wall. But while she is convincing them of that, Valentine sneaks into the city and sabotages the airships. Anna Fang and Valentine fight and it seems inevitable that Anna will win until she is dazzled by lights from an airship and he stabs her in the neck then escapes back to London. Hestor and Tom follow him in Anna’s airship.
When Valentine reaches London, he explains much of the story to Katherine, including the likelihood that Hestor is her half-sister and that he killed her parents in order to get the computer that was needed to run MEDUSA. At this point Katherine decides she has to stop London from using the weapon, and Bevis helps her by building a bomb she intends to sneak in and destroy the weapons computer.
There is a major fight in London, and all the characters come together. Hestor is captured and Valentine is going to execute her, but Katherine jumps in front of her and is killed by the weapon. She also falls onto the keyboard controlling MEDUSA, which causes a malfunction. Tom and Hestor escape on the airship they came on and the malfunction causes an explosion destroying London.
What I thought of Mortal Engines
The adventure and characters of Mortal Engines are interesting and I enjoy a book that is good at worldbuilding, but the tone of this book simply isn’t something I enjoy. There are only a handful of redeemable characters in the story, and even those who aren’t evil are forced to do terrible things. The world of the story is a terrible place, and almost no one is really trying to make it better. The growth of science and technology has stopped growing, and death seems far too common. I have problems with this on several levels. I don’t find it particularly realistic, for starters. I understand that humans can collapse into chaos but it has been too long for that to really be an excuse for the terrible state of society anymore and even if it was, it’s not enjoyable to read a story that is so hopeless that the most triumphant end of the story is the destruction of a major city.
All that said, I understand some points that the book was trying to make and sympathize with them. The destruction that can be caused by humans to the world is clear and how people can be caught up in systems that are bad is clear. Even the idea of larger countries absorbing the weaker isn’t unrealistic. I just prefer books that have some type of hope, even if it’s a fool’s hope because it is hope that allows things to get better.