Philip Reeve

The first book in the award-winning Mortal Enginesquartet. In a dangerous future, huge motorized cities hunt, attack and fight each other for survival. As London pursues a small town, young apprentice Tom is flung out into the wastelands, where a terrifying cyborg begins to hunthim down. Mortal Engineslaunched Philip Reeve's brilliantly-imagined creation, the world of the Traction Era, where mobile cities fight for survival in a post-apocalyptic future. Mortal Engineswon the coveted Gold Smarties Award. Now a feature film of the same name, starring Hera Hilmar, Robert Sheehan and Hugo Weaving. Produced by Lord of the Rings director, Peter Jackson.

Mortal Engines

London is hunting The great Traction City lumbers after a small town, eager to strip its prey of all assets and move on. Resources on the Great Hunting Ground that once was Europe are so limited that mobile cities must consume one another to survive, a practice known as Municipal Darwinism. Tom, an apprentice in the Guild of Historians, saves his hero, Head Historian Thaddeus Valentine, from a murder attempt by the mysterious Hester Shaw -- only to find himself thrown from the city and stranded with Hester in the Out Country. As they struggle to follow the tracks of the city, the sinister plans of London's leaders begin to unfold ...

Jule

Ich glaube ich war einfach nicht die Zielgruppe. Wäre ich noch in meinen Teenagerjahren, hätte ich dieses Buch möglicherweise mehr gemocht. 
Bin ich allerdings nicht, daher stieß mir einiges auf. Die Charaktere waren mir zu 100%, vollkommen, egal. Als ich bei "Part Two" der Geschichte ankam, war ich zu 0% investiert in die Geschichte. Die Idee an sich gefiel mir sehr, nur wurde nichts so richtig erläutert, was mich stutzig machte und wahrscheinlich auch der Grund war, warum ich mich eher von der Geschichte distanziert habe als dass ich mich wirklich darum scheren konnte. 
Das Ende war wirklich süß und höchstwahrscheinlich werde ich die Reihe irgendwann (!) auch mal weiterlesen. 
Bei diesem Buch stelle ich mir die seltene Frage, ob der Film vielleicht sogar besser war als das Buch?!

Wilde

A good, if slightly macabre read. The only thing that annoyed me was the use of the present tense, thought it was more than a little unnecessary.

Nessa Luna

Gillian Rose

** spoiler alert **
           This was such a quick read! I didn't realize until I picked up my copy from the library but this is technically YA and it checks out. Still, I love adventure YAs. The world building wasn't as great as it could have been and the characters were a little one-note but I had such an enjoyable time. And I loved all the female characters being great. But *SPOILER ALERT* they kill a dog! Not cool, book.

I was really intrigued by the premise of the book, however the book itself couldn't live up to what was promised. It lacked everywhere. The worldbuilding wasn't great. The characters felt flat. And the whole story was full of ideas that weren't really thought through.

Mortal Engines (The Hungry City Chronicles)

This book slapped with I was 10 and it was far more gruesome than I remembered at 23! Municipal Darwinism is a killer name for a silly idea

Eli Alvah Huckabee

Julia Lotz

WARUM WOLLTE ICH ES LESEN? Der Film zum Buch kam vor kurzem in die Kinos und gefühlt jeder hat über Buch und Film geredet, davon geschwärmt. Meine Lust, das Buch zu lesen, stieg so auch immer weiter an und auch das Cover sieht einfach wunderschön aus.

HAT ES MEINE ERWARTUNGEN ERFÜLLT? So leid es mir auch tut: Nein.

WAS HAT MIR GUT GEFALLEN? Die Idee hinter Mortal Engines, der gesamte Weltentwurf ist einfach der Wahnsinn. Das kann man nicht anders sagen und ich will es auch gar nicht anders sagen. Von vorne bis hinten durchdacht und so genial. Zudem gefiel mit die Kürze des Buches sehr. Recht viel Geschichte findet auf 330 Seiten Platz und das ist nicht besonders viel. Dennoch ist es gelungen, den Inhalt auf das wichtigste heruntergebrochen perfekt darzustellen, wodurch die Geschichte ordentlich Fahrt aufnahm.

WAS HAT MICH GESTÖRT? Ich bin mir nicht wirklich sicher, ob das was ich an Mortal Engines bemängele auch direkt im Zusammenhang mit der Kürze des Buches steht. Ich habe jedoch mehrere kleine Probleme mit dem Buch: Die Protagonisten sind sehr oberflächlich. Sie haben alle eine enorm tiefe HIntergrundgeschichte und dennoch kommt in der Gegenwart nichts davon an. Zudem wird eine Handlung nach der nächsten abgehandelt und das ging teilweise viel zu schnell. Ich hätte mir so gerne mehr Zeit mit der Geschichte gelassen.Überhaupt hat mir an so vielen Stellen die Tiefe gefehlt. Ich habe das Gefühl, Mortal Engines ist an mir vorbei gezogen, ohne dass ich das überhaupt richtig wahrgenommen habe.

FAZIT. So sehr ich mich auch auf Mortal Engines gefreut habe und es lieben wollte: Es hat einfach nicht funktioniert. Zumindest nicht für mich. Der Weltentwurf ist der Wahnsinn und die Geschichte hat sehr viel Fahrt und ist super spannend, mir blieb jedoch vieles zu blass, vielen Handlungen fehlte die Tiefe und so konnte mich dieser Auftakt nicht gaz von sich überzeugen. | ★★★☆☆

MORTAL ENGINES launched Philip Reeve's brilliantly-imagined creation, the world of the Traction Era, where mobile cities fight for survival in a post-apocalyptic future.The first instalment introduces young apprentice Tom Natsworthy and the murderous Hester Shaw, flung from the fast-moving city of London into heart-stopping adventures in the wastelands of the Great Hunting Ground. "No 11-to-16-year-old should miss the superbly imagined debut novel from Philip Reeve" - The Times "This big, brave, brilliant book combines a thrilling adventure story with endless moral conundrums" - Guardian

Rowan Myers

I'm a sucker for worldbuilding, and this book does it extremely well. It starts in media res, but is so skillful at setting the scene that you feel like you've always read about this universe. It's delightfully dark and bleak for a YA novel in a way that's reminiscent of the His Dark Materials universe.

Zurizadae

This book presents a dystopian future where you realize that there are humans in the world but humanity has extinguished forever. The story is incredible as well as the characters. However I found it is a little difficult at the beginning because you can get confused really quickly due to the writing of the author. If you like science fiction and dystopian worlds I highly recommend this book .

Joana

I've seen the movie countless times and after listening to the book, I can say for sure that it is a horrible adaptation. The story is so much more complex, the characters have so much depth, and the world-building is as gorgeous if not even better than in the movie.

Audiobooks and I don't mash up very well and the only reason I'm giving only 4 stars is that I missed a lot of details when my mind started to wonder. I wasn't sure if I was going to like this series so I decided to listen to it on Spotify even though I knew it wasn't the best input method for me.

But now, I know this series is for me, and I'll buy all the books and read them at my own pace with all my attention. And then, I'll be back here to update those 4 stars to 5.

In the distant future, when cities move about and consume smaller towns, a fifteen-year-old apprentice is pushed out of London by the man he most admires and must seek answers in the perilous Out-Country, aided by one girl and the memory of another.

Nicole Dykeman

The audiobook narrator was FANTASTIC. I enjoyed this a lot more than I was expecting.

Latitude Tamarind

This sure was a book I read. It felt kind of like playing Final Fantasy 3.

Sonja H

Fraser Simons

DNF around a few hours into the audible book. The movie has different problems than the book, with the book having some cool world building ideas around technology but everything else is pretty thin and the constant reiteration at how ugly the main character was by everyone all the time, along with the audible reader trying to do Asian accents for characters like Fang make it not worth the effort to finish.

Erin Russell

This one definitely pulled through in the end. I was questioning wether to drop this story because of the sometimes childish tone, but I'm glad I pulled through. It really picks up and gets serious about 55% through so if that seems like too long to wait then this book isn't for you. It actually a pretty dark outlook by the end. No happy endings here.

Kendra Jones

There were many things that I didn't like in this story. Firstly, it was very forgettable; I didn't like the characters and the plot wasn't for me. Also, I thought that most of the deaths were pointless. Oh! And the insta love in this story was so much cringe.

Angelique Dvali

Sabrina Weck 

Lucy

3.5

Meh for most of it. Good towards the end. Don’t think I’ll continue with the series...

Sarah Jackson

There were parts of this story I really liked... and then parts which I really didn’t.

I thought the setting with moving cities was a unique idea that I haven’t seen done before and I really liked the pairing of Tom and Hester.

On the other hand, I felt that including Katherine’s perspective was unnecessary and just added extra complications. I couldn’t tell if the story was supposed to be about Tom and Hester or her and Valentine. And then Valentine... if he is going to be the villain, it wasn’t a great move trying to redeem him in the final moments. The author tried pulling a Snape... but no one likes Snape.

Chelsea Breher

Overall this was a decent novel, I didn't hate it but I also didn't love it. It was an intriguing concept and managed to hold my attention most of the time. I will likely finish the entire series as it was decent so far.

Katharine Lumley

Charlot van Dijk

Oke, eerlijk? Ik snapte er helemaal niks van. Ik denk dat ik echt de film moet gaan kijken om een goed beeld te krijgen, want op deze manier heb ik geen goed beeld kunnen creëren van de wereld en de omgeving. De personages zijn wel redelijk uitgewerkt, ik heb een goed beeld van Tom zijn idealen, Hester haar doel en Katherine haar zoektocht naar zichzelf en de waarheid. Maar ik leefde totaal niet met ze mee. Normaal gesproken ben ik gek op dystopian boeken, echter kwam ik dit boek niet goed door. Ik kwam er maar niet over uit hoe alles eruit zag en wat er nu daadwerkelijk aan de hand is. Jammer, want ik keek er echt wel naar uit. Ik ga wel de film kijken, misschien dat deze dingen wat duidelijker maakt, maar ik heb op dit moment geen behoefte om het volgende boek te gaan lezen.

Zoe Stanford

Admittedly I would probably have never picked this up without having to for uni, but it's a perfectly enjoyable story with some really deep ideas at the core of it.

Mortal Engines

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