Mortal Engines
By Philip Reeve
Mortal Engines Quartet #1
Genre: Science Fiction, Dystopian
Marketed toward: Pre-teens
Marketed toward: Pre-teens
Publisher: Harper Collins
Publish Year: 2004
Review:
Okay, two things are actually good in this book:
- The ending
- The fact I managed to finish it, so it couldn't be THAT catastrophic, right?
Let's start with the idea of it. I can picture this scenario in my head: Reeve went to his friend or publisher or whatever and said " listen, listen! I have SUCH a great idea for a story. You hear? It's about what of cities were actually ON WHEELS. And, hear this, they fight each other like animals! And also, there are cities that are not on wheels, and they fight them, too!! Isn't it awesome?!"
Well, maybe... If it's executed well. And, sorry Reeve, you failed.
From the first page until the last the thought that triumphs my mind is "why?! Why would this happen?!"
WHY would cities decide to start moving on wheels? What is the benefit?
And you know what, I forgot about it for a while, until we learned that there ARE cities that are not on wheels. So why would there be moving cities? There is clearly still a benefit to make your city immobile. Why?
The second thought is: "okay than, Phil. If that's what you want, fine. At least tell me HOW the world came to it. How?"
But, Philly boy here fails to answer this question too. The answer I got in this book is something like "just cause". London tried it a few centuries ago and then everyone did it. Except the immobile cities. That brings me back to point one, but I think I clarified it enough.
Point three is the science. It's not good. Listen, I have no degree, I only moderately interested in stuff and learned biology in high school, but even I can call bullshit. The first time I saw it was with the claims that atomic bombs were the end of the 21st century, and well, I can except that, BUT if that happened, this would mean the end of agriculture, because (excuse my poor vocabulary) this would make the atmosphere less permeable, which means (to put it simply) no sun rays coming into the atmosphere, and no rays leaving it. In other words - the greenhouse effect getting stronger. So no light, no life. End of the 21st century, yes. And every century after that.
The bad science doesn't stop there, in medicine, chemistry, astrophysics, biology and more fields were having flaws in this book.
Listen, I can suspend my disbelief, I CAN forgive stuff though they are not logical, but there is a limit. And every time it was crossed (which were numerous times) I had to put the book time for a while. That is not good.
The characters might be likeable, I'll give you that, though we don't really get in their head, I can't really KNOW them.
I am so sorry for the marketing with the movie cover, it seems fitting for older teens. Unfortunately it's not, I think that as another reviewer said, this is for pre-teens, who are much more forgiving than I am.
This could be such a better book, if the world was more established, there characters more understandable, the plot more driven, the massage clearer.
No questions left unanswered, so why is it part of a series? I mean, the big bad guy of the entire book, with the big bad machine was destroyed, the good people apart from our main characters, are dead, and we have nothing in their journey to look forward to. This book is done.
I'm sorry if I came off mean in some parts of this review, I had a lot of problems with it, and had to power through it till the very end. There were enjoyable parts and I could glide over a fair amount of it, but 90% of the book I checked the page number to see how far I've gone.
I might recommend it to pre-teens as I said above, and not later.
1.5 Stars out of 5 Stars
Alice.
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