Book or Binge? Mortal Engines by Philip Reeves
Why is Agent Smith in this movie?
What’s worth looking into first? The inaugural book of Philip Reeves’s post-apocalyptic steampunk series, or its big-budget, Peter Jackson–produced counterpart? Ladies and gentlemen, start your figurative engines; we’ve got a Mortal Engines review to discuss.
Mortal Engines: The Book
This was my first foray into the steampunk genre (a shocking realization for this not-so-picky fantasy reader), and I hate to say it: I was disappointed; which sucks, because the concept behind this fictional world is awesome. Reeves sums it up in a nutshell with this stellar line: “It was natural that cities ate towns, just as the towns ate smaller towns, and smaller towns snapped up the miserable static settlements. That was Municipal Darwinism, and it was the way the world had worked for thousands of years, ever since the great engineer Nikolas Quirke had turned London into the first Traction City.” Did he just say Municipal Darwinism? Done. Sign me up. This guy just took the world’s greatest theory and turned it on its head: Dog-eat-dog world but with enormous machines necessary for human survival.
Before we go any further into the Mortal Engines review, here’s a brief summary: Wannabe-pilot (who is actually a historian) Thomas lives in the Traction City of London, which is basically run by the highly revered Valentine. When London chases down a smaller city and “eats” it, a spry girl with facial scars, Hester Shaw, climbs aboard and attempts to assassinate Valentine. Thomas stops her, she gets away, and Valentine thanks Tom for saving his life by shoving him off the edge of London into no man’s land below. Thomas regroups with Hester, who tells him that V-Daddy murdered her parents (and mangled her face). Oh, and he has plans involving a massive and dangerous machine that could destroy many, many lives.
Sounds like a wild ride.
Yeah, well my biggest overall gripe is how much potential this high-concept story has, but how badly it underdelivered. Talk about a missed opportunity. Reeves set me up to expect some serious world-building, but there was just a serious lack of detail. I wanted to learn about London. Fuck, it’s on wheels! What does it look like? What do people do? How do they make a living? How many Tiers are there? Reeves gave me 8% of the info this story deserved and it left something—a lot of something—to be desired.
At least Hester sounds like a badass?
She’s the only character that didn’t royally piss me off. She delivered a few quips that had me chuckling and, for the most part, she didn’t put up with Thomas’s shit. (However, I came dangerously close to writing her off entirely after a nonsensical plot-twisting decision near the end.) Thomas is included in my top five list for the least likable characters of all time. For one, he’s a coward. Listen, I’m okay with a major character who isn’t a courageous superhero, but if you make that character literally pee himself (does this count as a spoiler?), you have to eventually give him more redemptive qualities. Instead, Reeves made him pine over a girl he barely knows and wrote him as pretty thickheaded. As for everyone else: Valentine’s daughter Katherine is slightly delusional. Secondary character Bevis Pod was clearly only written because Reeves needed a way to advance a certain plot point. Also…Bevis Pod? That name should not exist anywhere.
Most of my issues came down to things that simply didn’t make sense. Whether it be a confusing love interest, a kid learning how to expertly fly a plane in a day, or someone else conveniently remembering something that alters the story completely. I’ll sum this up to lazy writing—and maybe editing?
Dishonorable Mentions
- The POVs switch constantly, sometimes mid-paragraph.
- Annoying lines like, “They climbed out of darkness into darkness.”
- Killing off characters that had no purpose anyway.
Adaptation Expectations
Before I press play, here’s what I hope to see (and not see):
- Hester is described as a gruesome-looking girl, with a scarred-up face, a missing eye, and a Voldemort-like nose. Fingers crossed they don’t Hollywood-ify her and actually stay true to the character.
- This CGI better come through. I’m pumped to see cities eating cities.
- Do I expect the movie to be better? Yeah. I mean, the guy who brought us the gift of The Lord of the Rings trilogy is at the helm. I’m hoping for, at the very least, a cinematic spectacle to help me look past the flawed plot.
Mortal Engines: The Movie
Let’s just get this out of the way: Hester Shaw is supposed to be the female equivalent of the Goonies monster, but on film, she is basically a model with a scratch on her face. Her scars are the most important physical detail of the book. Not only are they Hester’s daily reminder to seek revenge, but they also affect the way she sees herself as a woman. Her mangled face gave me some insight into the only character that didn’t read surface level, so minimizing this major detail wasn’t a great start.
Thankfully, everything gets a lot better. In fact, I’ll save you the time it will take to finish this review/rant right now: Just watch Mortal Engines on the big screen. Thomas is a snack (I will always and forever stan Robert Sheehan in anything I watch). I’ll forever be confused as to why Hugo Weaving signed onto this (probably a favor for Jackson?), but his acting chops made this could-have-been garbage film much better. Also, the film ages all of the kid characters up (they’re supposed to be around 15, but now look like they’re in their mid-twenties), so you don’t have to feel weird about loving a few budding relationships—or in my case, obsessing over Sheehan.
And the CGI?
Ask and you shall receive. As I hoped (and expected), the film did a great job visually. The cities basically looked like mechanical monsters with gears for muscles and hydraulic claws for teeth. Logically, did I think about how the hell they are running this ginormous thing every day; just the amount of fuel alone? Sure. But I quickly cast the thought aside after seeing a collection of beat-up Minions (yeah, the funny yellow cartoon dudes from that kid movie), old iPhones set in a glass case with “The Screen Age” carved into it, and maps of today’s world that have people saying, “I can’t believe the world looked like that once.” You can laugh these off as funny Easter Eggs, but more importantly, they showed just how far into the future this dystopian tale takes us. I would like to personally thank the screenwriters for the Strike and Hester scenes. Strike is the Stalker (half-human, half-robot) who raised Hester after the death of her parents. Most of the questions I had regarding their relationship were answered, but they also wrote him an arc that made more sense this time around.
Interested in an unnecessary rant full of spoilers?
EVERYONE DIES IN THE END.
Not really, but we come pretty close for some reason? The book kills off Valentine, Katherine, and Bevis within pages of each other, and I can’t even begin to explain why. Also, can someone explain what kind of moral brain fart Valentine experiences at the end? His daughter gives him a verbal lashing about the differences between right and wrong, and suddenly years and years and years of bad-guy planning is thrown out the window. He sees the error of his ways and decides to become a good guy… Huh? It’s that easy? I guess it’s not because he attempts to kill Hester a few pages after making that decision. AND THEN Valentine and Hester work together after Katherine is stabbed… Are you confused yet? The confusion gets worse when reading about Katherine and Bevis, who act like weird versions of Romeo and Juliet. Except they hardly know each other, Bevis gets blown up, and I’m sitting here wondering why he was involved in the story in the first place.
I didn’t get this heated while watching the movie, which saw the book’s terrible ending and raised it a slightly better one. In this version Valentine is a bad guy through and through; at one point he actually ditches his daughter to get to safety. Katherine doesn’t sacrifice her life for a girl she’s never met, and she cuts ties with her crazy dad. And Bevis…well, they forgot about poor Bevis (honestly, he was so pointless in both storylines that I forget what happened to him in the movie). AND, the film gives Anna Fang the death that bad bitch deserves.
Other than Hester’s face, I’m a fan of all the film changes. The big one was London actually blasting the wall. Not once, but twice. That kicked the action into high gear, and I’m here for it.
Final Thoughts
Just watch the movie. It might not have the best reviews, but if you’re genuinely curious about this story, just waste two hours on the couch instead of the time it takes to read 326 pages.
Too lazy to check Goodreads? I got you:
Title: Mortal Engines
Author: Philip Reeve
Series: Mortal Engines Quartet #1
Pages: 388 (ebook)
Publish Date: September 1, 2004
