A fantasy novel with a darker and more sincere tone, Mortal Engines and the following books in the quartet blew my mind when I first read them, and it still baffles me as to how underrated these books are especially with the current popularity of dystopian futures and romance, in cinema and young adult literature. Whilst the world that Phillip Reeve creates is now undoubtedly less original than it may have been when it first came out, the idea of steam powered moving cities warring against each other over a barren earth is still a fascinating vision of one dystopian future. Amidst all the original and diverse characters, organisations and devices that populate this world there is a slightly atypical love story and a sprawling adventure of epic proportions.
