Wow... just... WOW.
I.. .don’t think I’ve been impacted this much by a book since either The Wolf
Chronicles or The Forges of Dawn if I remember correctly. While writing this
I’m still feeling the emotions...
Let’s
start with the plot. So...I want you to imagine Earth, far into the
future, long after a disastrous war that lasted for only sixty minutes. A lot of
cities and villages have been put on caterpillar tracks, and now traverse the
world, “eating” one another for resources.
Our main character, Tom, lives in London, one of the bigger
traction cities. He is an assistant working in the Natural History museum of
said city, and adores daring explorer Thaddeus Valentine, and has a special
liking to his daughter, Katherine.
One day, though, a mysterious severely-scarred girl shows
up and tries to murder Valentine. Tom manages to prevent this and gives chase,
which ends up getting them both thrown off of London. The girl, Hester, Tom and
Katherine, who remains in London, now have to try to stop a mysterious device
called MEDUSA from destroying whatever the city’s corrupt government wants.
I really liked the plot, especially because I had no idea
where it was going for a lot of the book. There are a lot of mysteries to
uncover within the book, and some are even left open by the end of it, which
can be explored in the other installments in the series. At first it may seem
like Tom and Hester kinda get dragged from one place to the other before the
real plot gets started, but it picks up pace soon enough, and all protagonists
end up being proactive characters in the end.
The characters are amazing as well, for the most part.
We’ve got Tom, Hester and Katherine as our main leads.
I will say that, out of all of the, Tom appeals the least to
me. Don’t get me wrong, I still really like him, but he’s just the least
defined of our protagonists in my opinion, especially early on in the book. But
I do find his pro-traction point of view throughout most of the book
interesting.
Hester is an amazing character in my opinion. I can’t
wait to read more about her and she’s definitely the coolest character in the
book if you ask me.
Aside from Hester, I think my other favourite characters
were Katherine and Bevis. Katherine started out as a character I thought I really
wasn’t going to like, but I gradually really grew to love her. She’s
strong-willed, curious, gets stuff done, and a leader.
Bevis was a smaller character and not a protagonist. At
first he is just there to contribute to Katherine’s journey in finding out
matters, but they develop a bond I thought felt genuine and really sweet. I
also liked the characters Shrike and Anna.
The villains are awesome, too. We have a few of them, but
the main villain is Crone, the major of London. He isn’t a super deep villain,
but his motivations are clear and I enjoyed him enough. I wish I could say a
lot about him, but that would be delving into spoiler territory!
The pacing was just perfect to me. We discover many new
locations, but I never felt like we lingered somewhere for too long. I
definitely feel that the shifting perspective between the main characters, and
thus their locations, really helps the story.
The world and setting I love as well. This futuristic,
steampunk-esque world with traveling cities and airships is a world I’m glad to
travel to when I read this book!
I also love how the book doesn’t dumb things down. When
characters bring something up that they obviously knew about, but the reader’s
don’t, it won’t instantly be followed up with some exposition explaining it.
Stuff gradually gets explained along the way.
The climax is one of my favourites of any book as well.
Everything, many of these characters and plot points come together in a climax that just keeps on giving, one shocking moment after the other. I’ve rarely
been this hyped for the high point of a book, and I was broken after reading it.
It’s that awesome.
At this point I’m even wondering if this book has any
real flaws, because I’m really having trouble thinking of them, to be honest! I
guess my only and smallest nitpick is that I thought the relationship between
Tom and Hester maybe could’ve been done a little better? Like, they are
supposed to slowly grow close over the book, but I never really felt a strong
connection between them like I did with Katherine and Bevis. The connection is
definitely there, just not as strong as it could’ve been and probably should be
by the end of the book.
But that’s literally the only hypothetical flaw I can find
here. I’m rarely blank when it comes to picking apart what doesn’t work about
something, but here I just pretty much am.
Overall, this is just one of my favourite books I’ve read
so far and I’m looking forward to seeing how the series continues. I definitely
recommend this book to you all.
In 2018, a movie adaptation of the story has been released. While I don't think it's very faithful to the book, I still enjoyed it thoroughly nonetheless!
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