LoveReading4Kids Says
October 2024 Book of the Month
Publishing some 23 years after the award-winning Mortal Engines Quartet, which introduced us to an extraordinary post-apocalyptic dystopian world quite unlike anything else in the genre. where the mobile Traction cities battled the Anti-Traction League, and coming after we have already had a best-selling trilogy of prequels, beginning in 2009 with Fever Crumb; one couldn’t help but wonder if there were more stories to tell? Oh, my goodness- Yes!
We first meet the extraordinary Tamzin Pook, a complex character enslaved since childhood and now the star gladiator of Margate’s Amusement Arcade, battling fearsome Revenant Engines created from dead animals. Then we witness the capture of the traction town of Thorbury by Gabriel Strega, who plans a ruthless expansion of ‘Municipal Darwinism’ and non-stop growth for Thorbury, after murdering the Mayor. The city’s hopes are pinned on the return of the Mayor’s son Max, who is away on Paris, and a plan is hatched to bring him back. Tamzin is liberated from Margate to assist in this daring mission. The motley band which comes together find loyalty, companionship and love as they evade various attempts to capture or kill them.
Thunder City is absolutely unputdownable, vivid, exciting and dramatic, but also with such well-developed, nuanced and credible characters and a beautifully tender exploration of what it means to find your ‘family’ in the most unexpected of circumstances, it is an exquisitely written tour de force with especially delightful flashes of humour and commentary on our world. (Literal Air Bnb’s may be my favourite!)
I am reliably informed by the Mortal Engines Fandom Wiki, that the events of Thunder City fall between the prequel trilogy and some 125 years before the opening of Mortal Engines. But really that is not relevant to the reader. It stands alone perfectly, but established fans will relish discovering different aspects to the world they love and those entirely new to the series will definitely want to explore the other books.
Joy Court
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Philip Reeve Press Reviews
Praise for Mortal Engines and Philip Reeve:
“Big, brave, brilliant” Guardian
“Superbly imagined” The Times
“Reeve has managed to marry the hugeness of his imagination with an utterly compelling and child friendly storyline” Anthony Horowitz
"My favourite contemporary children's author is Philip Reeve" - Charlie Higson
About Philip Reeve
Philip Reeve was our Guest Editor for June 2012. Click here to see his books and some that inspired him.
Philip Reeve was born and raised in Brighton, where he worked in a bookshop for years while also producing and directing a number of no-budget theatre projects. Philip then began illustrating and has since provided cartoons and jokes for around forty books, including the best-selling Scholastic series Horrible Histories, as well as Murderous Maths and Dead Famous. He's been writing stories since he was five, but Mortal Engines was the first to be published.
Mortal Engines defies easy categorisation. It is a gripping adventure story set in an inspired fantasy world, where moving cities trawl the globe. A magical and unique read, it immediately caught the attention of readers and reviewers and won several major awards. Three more Predator Cities novels followed, and Philip's latest project are the Fever Crumb books, prequels set centuries before the events of Mortal Engines. Philip has also written Buster Bayliss, a series for younger readers, and stand alone novels including Here Lies Arthur, which won the Carnegie Medal. Philip lives in Devon with his wife and son and his interests are walking, drawing, writing and reading. You can keep up with Philip here on Instagram @thesolitarybee
Photo © Sarah Reeve
Click here to see a Philip talking about his new adventure book, Oliver and the Seawigs, a collaboration with Sarah McIntyre.
Philip Reeve's fiction publisher, Marion Lloyd, describes his Predator Cities series:
“..inspiring adventure stories, in whose futuristic, post-apocalyptic setting, moving cities trawl the Earth. They attack and consume each other in wastelands where natural resources are scarce, and Ancient technology is fought for. Fast-paced, sometimes violent, always surprising and original, Reeve’s epic sequence of love, war and adventure are richly rewarding for both adults and children.”
Praise for Philip Reeve:
‘Conveys big truths while being witty and playful...clever and moving’ - The Sunday Times on Fever Crumb
‘Intelligent, funny and wise’ - Literary Review on Fever Crumb
‘I felt as if the pages themselves were charged with electricity... Fever Crumb is a terrific read, a sci-fi Dickens, full of orphans, villains, chases and mysteries’ - Frank Cottrell Boyce in The Guardian on Fever Crumb
‘Reeve drives his juggernaut of a talent through the streets of a mob-crazed futuristic London with Cecil B DeMille grandeur. Resent being suckered into sequels? Fever Crumb is a complete story – but it may prove addictive’ - Geraldine McCaughrean, Daily Telegraph on Fever Crumb
‘A bold, brightly honed narrative that grabs and holds the attention from the start’ -
Interzone on Fever Crumb
‘A masterpiece’ - Sunday Telegraph
‘Big, brave, brilliant’ - Guardian
‘A majestic achievement’ - Sunday Times
‘Mind bogglingly well-imagined’ - Independent
‘Marvellous… utterly captivating in its imaginative scope and energy’ - Daily Telegraph
‘Brilliant… an absorbing and emotionally engaging work’ - Amanda Craig, The Times
More About Philip Reeve
