Mortal Engines

Mortal Engines by Philip Reeve (Scholastic, 2001), the first book in the Hungry City Chronicles series, follows several characters on an emotional and physical journey across a dystopian Europe while exploring how the quest for power ultimately leads to destruction. The novel won a Nestlé Smarties Book Prize and the Blue Peter Book Award (2003) and was shortlisted for the Whitbread Award (2004), the ALA's Notable Books for Children award (2004), and the Blue Peter Awards 20th anniversary prize (2020). In addition, the novel inspired a feature film (released by Universal Pictures in 2018), to which critical reception was mixed.

Reeve was born in 1966 and is the award-winning author of several books for young readers, most notably the Hungry City Chronicles (also known as the Mortal Engines Quartet in England). Reeve studied illustration at Anglia Ruskin University (earning a bachelor’s degree) and the University of Brighton (earning a master’s degree). Before writing books full-time, he wrote comedy skits, worked in a bookstore, and provided cartoons for books such as the Horrible Histories and Murderous Maths series. He lives in the Dartmoor area of the UK with his family.

This guide follows the 2003 EOS/Harper Collins American Edition of Mortal Engines.

Plot Summary

Mortal Engines is set in Europe, centuries after the Sixty Minute War, a conflict that demolished America and changed the rest of the known world. In the story’s present-day world, Europe is a dystopian wasteland populated by traction cities, metropolises on wheels that hunt other cities to keep themselves moving. After several years of hiding, London has reemerged in Europe’s Hunting Grounds and moves eastward, intending to use MEDUSA (a reconstructed weapon from the war) on the barrier wall between the Hunting Grounds and the Anti-Traction League settlements, where traditional, static cities live in harmony with nature.

As the story opens, 15-year-old Tom Natsworthy cleans the London Museum of History, where he works as an apprentice, when London starts its first chase of a town in years. Wanting to watch the chase, Tom sneaks out to the observation deck but is caught and sent to do an evening of work in the Gut, where overtaken towns are digested and repurposed. There, he meets his idol, Thaddeus Valentine, head of the Guild of Historians, and Valentine’s daughter Katherine. Together, the three meet with a group of scavengers, people who follow cities and pick through the spoils of a hunt to see if they have anything to sell to London. One masked figure says she does and then tries to stab Valentine.

Valentine dodges, and the girl runs. Tom pursues her to a waste chute, where she reveals her scarred face and tells him that Valentine wounded her the night he killed her parents. The girl, Hester Shaw, is there to kill Valentine for what he did, but now her is cover blown, so she jumps out of the waste chute. When Valentine arrives and Tom asks him about Hester, Valentine throws Tom out after her. Katherine observes the scene from afar. She didn’t see what happened but knows by her father’s reaction that something’s wrong and vows to find out what it is.

Out on the bare earth, Tom and Hester form a tentative alliance, both wanting to get back to London for their own reasons. Valentine and London’s mayor send a Stalker—one of the mechanical men resurrected during the Sixty Minute War—to track them, and Tom and Hester stay one step ahead of the Stalker while dealing with pirates, airships, and people who want to sell them in exchange for parts. Meanwhile, in London, Katherine investigates Hester’s connection to her father, and her investigation slowly reveals that he isn’t the man she thought he was.

Katherine sneaks into a meeting of the Guild of Engineers, where MEDUSA is tested on a city that’s pursuing London. MEDUSA leaves a flaming pile of rubble in the city’s place, and the blast is felt across the continent, prompting Katherine, Hester, and Tom to act against the massive weapon and London’s mayor. Tom and Hester join up with the Anti-Traction League, even as Tom grapples with betraying London, and Katherine seeks the help of the Historians and a rebel Engineer to hide from the mayor and build a bomb to destroy MEDUSA.

After Valentine destroys the Anti-Traction League’s airship fleet, Tom and Hester return to London via a remaining airship to stop MEDUSA from firing on the wall protecting the league and thus giving London access to static cities as prey. Katherine and Hester each make their way to MEDUSA as Valentine, the mayor, and the Engineers prepare to fire the weapon. Valentine tries to kill Hester, but Katherine jumps in the way, taking the deadly strike instead; she falls on MEDUSA’s keyboard, causing the weapon to malfunction. Seeing Valentine’s grief, Hester abandons her mission to kill him. As MEDUSA nears detonation, Hester flags down Tom in the airship, but Katherine dies before Valentine can get her on board. Hester and Tom pilot the airship away as MEDUSA implodes, destroying London and everyone aboard.