#hungry cities

[ctheldraws]

[360degreesasthecrowflies]

1st book review of 2026 - thoughts on Infernal Devices by Phillip Reeve

Just finished book 3 of Mortal Engines, Infernal Devices. Was very surprised to see the negative Goodreads reviews. I thought this one was just as solid as I remembered. I suppose this is one of those cases of an aggregator where everyone can review a book meaning we get an overfill of reviews like "I didn't like X character and thought they were mean therefore I'm giving the book 2 stars!" which is absolute ass-backwards logic. You mean the writer succeeded in giving you a strong emotional response to a character...

Spoilers for the full book under the cut

So, so much to say about this one, so I'll bullet it out for brevity:

Freya was better in this, though she clearly hadn't learned much despite becoming a schoolteacher and moral authority in the town

Tom was worse. Still loving of course but his worst moral impulses and tendency to see the best of people and total lack of suspicion despite living in a literal dystopian nightmare were his undoing once again. But that was the point of his character, to satirise that kind of moral hero that in another kind of story would have the plot and setting twist around on itself to validate his character and approach

Hester really amped up the bloodthirstiness in this one. But Reeve made it if not relatable per se, understandable. The people of Anchorage never really tried with her. Even the children, even her own child, were not discouraged from bullying, shaming and ostracizing her. She was not only one of the few adults in the community, but she was directly responsible for anyone in the city being free at all, and indirectly responsible for Anchorage even attaining the land it did at all in the first place by facilitating Pennyroyal to come to the city to even give Freya the idea of trying to reach the old continent. I enjoyed reading her as much as I did the first time I read this 16 or so years ago, although this time I was much more aware of how slightly concerning it was how comfortable she was with killing strangers - which is again meant to satirise the kind of action hero who only sees 'grunts' and 'people of value' and is happy to murder their way through any number of the former to get to the latter. How many soldiers or other lives were killed by heroes like Luke Skywalker and Han Solo, or Captain America and Iron Man, who might have had backstories and loved ones if only the camera had focused time on them like Reeve chose to on Hester's opponents?

Wren was pretty irritating, but that was the point of her. Though, she felt a little like a second bite for Reeve at making a Hester-like heroine who didn't have any of Hester's baggage (and apparently wasn't troubled by her own past actions like how she had bullied and belittled her own mother)

The setting was wonderful and Reeve introduced a great array of supporting characters. I was suspicious of Cynthia from the off although Boo Boo would also have made a great double agent

I liked what was done with Shrike

Dr OneOne Zero was a fascinating character and the scene where she had to dissect her own brother or else be killed herself was chilling to find in a book ostensibly aimed at a young audience; though not inappropriate, threading the line well without threatening to cross it. The kind of thing that probably causes a stronger horror reaction in adults than in children who can speed past it without thinking too much about the implications

A couple of references to Theo as 'The African' seemed a little out of place in what was otherwise a generally very mixed setting

The offhand references to catastrophic nuclear war and orbital weaponry were a bit too close to home in 2026

I really enjoyed how the story developed in general; the machine leadership was also a little chilling at a time in which AI is being pushed in everything

Pennyroyal spared again. Wren is too soft just like her father

You really get the feeling that things might have gone better for Hester if anybody around her had ever actually tried to properly listen to her without judgement and silencing or shaming her point of view; but unfortunately she has had the bad luck to be continually surrounded by characters whether heroic or villainous who want to rewrite the narrative and reframe her actions, choices and character, whether that's Pennyroyal, Freya, or Tom!

I felt sad for what happened to Uncle even though he was not a good man

Going in to the final book... Hester is really the one I care about the most still. She's the most interesting character. I feel like Anna Fang and Fishcake are going to end up fucking something up in a major way though. And Tom is going to cause things to go badly as well.

At least Hester and Wren got to briefly reuinte happily. That might be Wren's last happy memory of her mother.

I think what gets me about some other readers' (re)views of this series is that... a lot of what Hester says, she doesn't actually mean as fact. She just doesn't know the words to process her own feelings because she's never been taught and everyone around her assumes she does know and is being deliberately unhelpful or blunt because she wants to. This book revealed she can't read as fast as a regular adult. She wasn't schooled or educated. She lives by her wits because she has to. She literally has a physical disability and may well also have brain damage from her childhood disfigurement. Yet she's constantly held to an educated neurotypical standard and punished harshly both physically and morally by those around her when she doesn't meet it. Reading this book I see a woman with severe untreated post-natal depression who sees herself as a weapon because that's the only thing those around her have ever let her be.

Which is probably why she gets on so well with Shrike who was made the same way.

[commanderdazzle]

Finally reading Web Of Air and Scrivener's Moon after years of being obsessed with Mortal Engines and Fever Crumb but being too chicken to read the other two Fever books.

I decided on a wacky reading order; I did Fever Crumb first, then Mortal Engines and Predator's Gold, I just finished Web Of Air last night and started Scrivener's Moon, then I'm going to do Infernal Devices and A Darkling Plain.

I'll be back with a full opinion piece later.

[evelynstarshine]

You aren't a hero and I'm not beautiful and we probably won't live happily ever after But we're alive and together and we're going to be all right

OK. I’m not still angry about the movie, but right, this is the show point. Aside of the enviromentalism anti-capitalist stuff, EVERYTHING, every arc, relationship, betrayal, triumph and horror in the series is all about this. Hester carries guilt and shadows and hate with her, let alone look at herself she can’t even think about herself without being overtaken with what happened to her. She can’t be a hero, she’s saved the world multiple times but she looks at herself and see’s a villainous, vengeful broken doll who self sabotages because, look at this face it could not belong to someone who is right or deserves happiness. And that’s it, it’s not complicated, it’s her whole character. Tom is introduced daydreaming about being the hero, and discovers through his adventure that he’s normal and spends his whole life trying to return to that as he spends the series trying to hide from praise for his heroics that he see’s as murder, and slowly dying of a meaningless injury. Neither of them are heroes, and neither of them are beautiful. They are broken and beaten and praised but they’re people and only people. That’s the point. AND THE MOVIE MADE THEM BOTH BEAUTIFUL HEROES. Not people, superheroes, she’s beautiful has a only you can save the world destiny and he lives out his daydream and discovers that he’s just like Valentine just a good guy. The movie Tom and Hester would not die, unknown in Erdene Shan. Everything about them that makes that end perfect is gone, instead they’d be conquering heroes who’d blow up Stalker Fang and quip about and return to New London victorious to get medals. They are Valentines.

[nestofstraightlines]

A few years ago I created a fan-design for a cover for a book I love, Mortal Engines. I really liked it, and I always wanted to create one for one of its sequels too.

Infernal Devices isn’t the direct sequel, it’s actually the third in the quartet, but it’s set to a large extent in (the Municipal-Darwinism-future version of) my silly beloved hometown, Brighton. So it’s the other one in the series that I yearned to base a design on.

Appropriately enough it ended up being this year, when I came home from my usual city of residence, London, to isolate with my family back in Brighton, and started thinking about a permanent move back to the city, that I picked this project back up. The last few weeks have been characterised by me mulling over flat listings and drawing this.

Philip Reeve also comes from Brighton. He went to the same Junior school as I did, I found out! And he wrote Brighton in a way I think only born-and-bred Brightonites would understand, with a kind of vicious affection. Maybe that’s the way a lot of people feel about their hometowns. But Brighton does have a very unique image and character and this thing where it’s not the kind of place you come from, it’s the kind of place you visit or move to. Coming from Brighton is a bit like coming from Disneyland.

So I really appreciate his depiction of Brighton in all its tacky, beautiful, self-satisfied, generous glory and I’m delighted to feel I have finally drawn something to represent that.

[serving-count]

Did she mean it? Or was it just one of those loves you end letters with, not trying to convey desire, just ending.

[sitahx3]

[thefiresontheheight]

Welcome back, and now for a thing literally no one asked for: this is temporarily becoming a Mortal Engines fanblog.

Because, y’all, the movie was amazing.

To be clear, I read the books growing up and loved them. And the movie was different, yes, but also good. Yes, they way toned down Hester and Tom’s romance (the one straight romance I’ve ever loved) but it still worked, in that she didn’t need romance, just someone to trust.

Also, as far as Hester is concerned, when I was growing up I loved her. And now, watching the movie, years later and living as another gender, it struck me why I related to her. Having been through trauma changes you. I’ve felt like she has, murderous, vengeful, despairing. Had the opportunity been given to me to cut out all my emotions I would’ve taken it. I fell in love with Hester again. I cheered for her. And dear god seeing her smile and laugh at the end was the best thing ever.

Also, while we are talking about immortality, Shrike was amazing. I love me my immortal cyborg killing machine greatly.

And of course dear god the visuals were amazing. The opening was spectacular. Just: the world took sixty seconds to die, let’s throw you into a chase scene reminiscent of Fury Road but with cities, and London growing closer and closer inexorably. It was grim, and tense, and fantastic. And the airships too! The finale was like a steampunk Battle of Yavin in the best possible way.

And finally, Anna Fang. What can I say. A butch icon. Classy pirate lady. The coat. The hair. The ass kicking. The chainmail tank top. I’m gay, and as far as I’m concerned she is peak post-apocalyptic lesbian goals.

The movie will almost certainly bomb and be forgotten but y’all should see it.