MORTAL ENGINES (Mortal Engines Quartet #1) by Phillip Reeve ⭐⭐

(Original review written March 9, 2019)

**Spoilers included**

And now for a jump into the Young Adult world. What a jarring change it was from Neuromancer to here.

After the last book, this felt like pulling the e-brake on my brain. I had expected the book to be at a much easier pace, but it’s been a while since I dove into YA (which is weird because I was a young adult like, yesterday) and I forgot how simplified the dialogue can be.

The foundation of Mortal Engines is extremely interesting: massive cities that move, hunting smaller ones in a “town-eat-town world”. The minute I saw the trailer for the movie, I’ve actually been searching for the book and waiting for it to be available at the library so I could finally see what the deal was. It was definitely worth it, if anything because it was a more leisurely read even with the action, and was over with quickly.

I don’t want to knock the book too hard because who it’s geared for, and honestly, the concept and story is pretty amazing. But the execution just left something to be desired for me. There’s a fair amount of predictability to the plot, though maybe that comes with the genre a bit. It has the trappings of many YA stories: a young shy orphan boy in a dystopian world teams up with a girl he dislikes at first to overthrow the hierarchy/antagonist. In this case, Tom Natsworthy is our orphan, giving off some whiny Luke Skywalker vibes through most of the book. I was also thrown when one minute we’re talking about “turd tanks”, and the next someone’s head is chopped off in one sentence. Just wasn’t expecting the abruptness.

They also killed off the most interesting character: Shrike! His motives and scenes really called back reading Hyperion for me, and I’m assuming there was some influence there for the author. I was already pre-shedding a tear at potentially seeing Shrike die in a big way at the end of the last book, but he wasn’t even given the chance to build an emotional exit in the first. Bummer.

Now while this start to the series wasn’t necessarily for me, I still want to see where this goes. These types of books generally get stronger in tone and I hate not finishing what I start. I’d also like to see the series redeem itself in quality, because I feel like it deserves some credit for making giant nomadic cities work.

Plus, I already checked out the next three books from the library 😋