History Literature / MortalEngines

** The Green Storm takes this UpToEleven. Expect to see massive air-destroyers with tech modern humans won't develop today, dropping kamikaze Tumblers and firing more guns than a fleet of AC-130s, providing backup to cavalry armed with machine guns and Killer Zombie Robots while they're being strafed with armed Wright Flyers, which are in turn coming under attack from undead birds and fighter airships. Yes, seriously. Like an F-16 in airship form.

%%** Anna Fang.
%%** Tom, as can be seen on the second book cover.
%%** To a lesser extent, the London Engineers and their white rubber lab coats.

%%* BlackBox

%%* BigBad: [[spoiler: Stalker Fang.]]
* BodyguardBetrayal: [[spoiler: Shrike attacking the Stalker Fang.]]

* BrokenBird: Hester, so much.
* BrokenAce[=/=]BrokenPedestal: Thaddeus Valentine isn't as nice as he seems...

%%* ClosetKey: [[spoiler: Cluny for Fever.]]

* ConvectionSchmonvection: Zig-zagged with [[spoiler:ODIN's beam]]. [[spoiler:Orla Twombley]] was badly burnt despite being miles away from it, while [[spoiler:Naga]] was right next to it and wasn't harmed.
* ColonyDrop: Slow Bombs are remote-controlled asteroids.

%%* DistantFinale
* ADogNamedDog: Despite actually being a wolf.

** [[spoiler:Bevis]].

%%* EverybodysDeadDave: What it looks like at [[spoiler:the end of the first book.]]

%%* FantasticRacism: Between the Scriven and humans.

** America, incidently, was first discovered in 1924 by Christopher Series/{{Columbo}}, the notable detective and explorer.

* HeroicSacrifice: [[spoiler:Katherine Valentine]] in the first book. Also, [[spoiler:Naga]] in the last one.

* IDidWhatIHadToDo: Magnus Crome, in particular (I wanted to make London strong!), but also Hester, Thaddeus Valentine, Oenone Zero, Shrike, Anna Fang, Wolfram von Kobold... Usually just makes things worse for everyone.

* ImplacableMan: All Stalkers, but ''especially'' Shrike, who gets; hit by multiple times an emplacement-weapon grade Tesla cannon, buried for centuries, torn apart, shot (ineffectively), stabbed multiple times by many different people and other Stalkers (likewise, [[spoiler: though Tom manages to put him into a sort of hibernation for fifteen years by ramming a sword into his damaged chest]]), Battle Frisbee-d (makes sense in context) blown up, ''run over by a city'' (literally), dropped out of an airship into a frozen lake, and [[spoiler:and is still alive in the DistantFinale, where he tells the story]].

* KilledOffForReal : Employed liberally; a great number of major and minor characters get the chop, usually quickly and horribly. In the first book alone, [[spoiler:Shrike, Anna Fang, Thaddeus Valentine, Kate Valentine, Bevis Pod, Magnus Crome, and ''pretty much the entire city of London'' die]]. Partly subverted as in the course of the second, third and fourth books, some of these characters turn out to have survived [[spoiler: or have been Stalker-ized]], but then at the end of the fourth book (before the DistantFinale) [[spoiler:Pomeroy, Naga, Stalker Fang and, last but not least, Tom and Hester, die]].

* LayeredMetropolis: London has become this, thanks to Quirke, who transformed it into the world's first mobile city. The 7th tier houses the engine district, while St Paul's Cathedral sits on the uppermost tier. Later in the series, as we see more and more Traction Cities, we find that they're all layered -- in fact, the number of layers a city has becomes a sort of short-hand for the amount of power and wealth it possesses. Small cities might have just two layers, with the poor citizens sharing the lower tier with the engines and other machinery [[UrbanSegregation while the wealthy live in the fresh air and sunshine above]]. Some of the largest and most powerful cities may have up to a dozen layers (the higher, the more respectable). Only small towns make do with only a single deck.
* LetsGetDangerous: The Guild of Historians at the end of the first book.

* KillSat: ODIN (Orbital Defense Initiative), used to obliterate cities and make volcanoes.

%%* MadScientist: Dr Popjoy.

* MamaBear: Hester.
* ManchurianAgent: [[spoiler:Shrike in ''Infernal Devices'', programmed to destroy Stalker Fang if Oenone Zero utters the TriggerPhrase "The moment of the rose and the moment of the yew tree are of equal duration."]]

* MasculineGirlFeminineBoy: Hester and Tom, complete with romantic tension, and especially in the first half or so of ''Mortal Engines''. Tom is a sensitive, emotional, often naive NonActionGuy, while Hester is a badass ActionGirl who doesn't talk much and suppresses her feelings. Tom is constantly shocked by the rough world beyond London, while Hester is the one who's seen it all before, has a tough skin, and gets irritated by Tom's difficulty coping until he starts to adjust. As a bonus, Tom is handsome and conventionally attractive, while Hester has a huge disfiguring scar.

** Some characters' and vehicles' names may be meaningful (such as the airships ''Jenny Hanniver'' and ''Shadow Aspect'', or the steam powered-ram ship ''Supercolider''), but others are just as often meaningless (there's a minor character called Lurpak. Yes, really. And his first name is Cat.)

** In Greek mythology, the medusa was a half-woman half-monster creature who would turn anyone into stone if they looked directly at her. The MEDUSA from ''Mortal Engines'' does do this after a sort ([[spoiler:it's mentioned that there are carbonised statues of people on the lower levels of Panzerstath-Bayrouth, the city London fries with MEDUSA, that were flash-cooked by its intense heat]]), but it mostly just kills everything in it's path.
** In Norse mythology, Odin was the one-eyed All-Father, known for hurling lightning as his signature weapon. This about says it all.
* MegaMawManeuver: How the cities hunt each other.

* MobileCity: A central conceit in the stories. The series focuses on the mobile "traction cities" that sprung up following an apocalyptic nuclear war, which rove endlessly over the plains of Eurasia on giant caterpillar treads and consume each other for the resources they need to keep themselves running. Traditional, static cities still exist, and those who live in mobile cities think of people living in them as barbaric and backward. After all, it's only ''natural'' for cities to move across the landscape eating smaller cities and towns to survive.

* MockingTheMourner: When Melliphant tries and fails to impress Clytie Potts and notices she seems more interested in Tom Natsworthy, he decides to wind Tom up by discussing the accident that killed Tom's parents with Clytie while Tom's in earshot.

%%* ObfuscatingStupidity: [[spoiler:Cynthia Twite a.k.a Agent 28.]]

%%* OmnicidalManiac: [[spoiler:Stalker Fang.]]

* ScrewTheRulesIHaveMoney: The Huntsmen of Arkangel will happily pay rewards to anyone who gives them co-ordinates for Traction Cities they can hunt, but Tom considers this practise a betrayal of Municipal Darwinist principles.

* SchizoTech: Heavier than air flight is literally re-invented in the series. It's primitive and unreliable, whereas drive systems that can move entire cities at motorway speeds across uneven and often constantly shifting terrain are universal.
** ''Hot air balloons'' are reinvented in Fever Crumb. Though they only get one use.

** In the DistantFinale, Shrike awakens to see that human civilization has become a peaceful, agrarian society living in simple dwellings amid the ruins of the old traction cities...with gravity-defying hovercraft floating around.

*** The limpet ''Naglfar'' was a ship in Norse mythology made of the ''toenails of the dead''.

%%* UnderwaterBase: Grimsby.

* WretchedHive: Brighton after the Lost Boys take over is described as this.

The ''Mortal Engines Quartet'' is an award-winning, critically acclaimed series of novels by the English author Philip Reeve. It was initially marketed (somewhat ridiculously) as ''The Hungry City Chronicles'' in America. (This possibly happened because of the Creator/StanislawLem collection that was released as ''Mortal Engines'' in the US.) Four books were written in chronological order: ''Mortal Engines'' (2001), ''Predator's Gold'' (2003), ''Infernal Devices'' (2005), and ''A Darkling Plain'' (2006). A prequel series has come out set long before the first book, made up of ''Fever Crumb'' (2009), ''A Web of Air'' (2010) and ''Scrivener's Moon'' (2011). The short fiction collection ''Night Flights'' (2018) takes place relatively soon before the first book and features the secondary character Anna Fang, while a companion book, ''The Illustrated World of Mortal Engines'', was published in the same year. More will come... [[DevelopmentHell eventually.]]

%%* BaldWomen: The female Engineers.

Traction Cities' military and ideological counterpart, the Anti-Traction League, is a vast Eastern coalition of static settlements, who aim to remove the abomination of Traction Cities from the world, [[NotSoDifferetnRemark though some of their methods may be no worse or better than the very Traction Cities they oppose]].

Traction Cities' military and ideological counterpart, the Anti-Traction League, is a vast Eastern coalition of static settlements, who aim to remove the abomination of Traction Cities from the world, though some of their methods may be no worse or better than the very Traction Cities they oppose.

Mortal Engines takes place in a post-post-post-post-post-apocalyptic future. Nations no longer exist, except in the lands of the Anti-Traction League. Traction Cities -- entire cities mounted on caterpillar tracks for mobility -- are fiercely independent city-states, using giant jaws to devour one another for resources in a horribly unsustainable city-eat-city environment known as Municipal Darwinism: large cities eat small cities, small cities eat towns, towns eat suburbs, and everyone eats non-moving or "static" settlements. Trade is mostly accomplished by airship, though sometimes cities of roughly equal size (unable to devour each other) will stop to trade. Much of the AppliedPhlebotinum involves Old-Tech, ancient remains of lost civilisations ranging from statues of MickeyMouse ("animal-headed gods of lost America") to {{Lost Superweapon}}s.

* NoOneCouldSurviveThat: Shrike, several times. [[spoiler:Also Anna Fang. Subverted in that she actually dies, and is brought back as a Stalker.]]

* GettingCrapPastTheRadar:
** About triples in quantity in the fourth book. Particularly when [[spoiler: Wren is trying to get aboard Harrowbarrow to delay it from eating New London,]] and is caught by some of its soldiers: "One of the men searched her for weapons, more thoroughly than Wren felt was really necessary (surely they must know that you couldn't hide anything ''very'' dangerous inside your bra?)."
** Although never explicitly mentioned, its obvious that Tom and Hester had (or almost had, due to an interruption) [[PreClimaxClimax sex]] right before [[spoiler: confronting the Stalker Fang]] in the last book
** This is also heavily implied without being stated outright in the second book, ''Predator's Gold'', where Hester passionately kisses Tom after their escape from some villains, then we cut discreetly to another scene, and then we come back to the couple much later, entwined in a loving embrace... And then at the end of the book what went on in between is rather confirmed when [[spoiler: Hester learns that she's pregnant]].

Creator/PeterJackson and WETA Digital have worked on a film adaptation of the first book, ''[[Film/MortalEngines Mortal Engines]]'', to be released in December 2018.

See also ''LightNovel/ChromeShelledRegios'', a LightNovel series with a similar setting.

* AndIMustScream: Aspects of this in stalker technology. Individuals do not find rest in death, i.e. [[spoiler: Anna Fang / Kit Solent]], but instead are nightmarishly brought back to life through creepy old-tech (there are some gruesome descriptions of how this happens). What makes it eligible for this trope is [[spoiler: they often remember who they were, and quite possibly are unable to destroy themselves for various reasons -- such as due to tinkering done to their brains. They must endure as half-preserved, monstrous killing-machines.]]
* ArousedByTheirVoice: Fever with [[spoiler: Cluny's TrrrillingRrrs.]]

* ArtisticLicenseEngineering: The books [[AcceptableBreaksFromReality probably could not exist without this]]. The premise of entire ''cities'' that roll around on giant wheels and tracks, reaching speeds of a hundred kilometres per hour or more, using technology for the most part ''inferior'' to what exists in RealLife today, poses quite a few engineering challenges. (What structural material is light, strong, and easy enough to mass-produce to allow this? How are the engines powerful enough? How do they get -- or even ''store'' -- enough fuel to run these engines continuously for days or weeks at a time? How is the weight of an entire ''city'' distributed amongst the wheels?) Of course, the answer is that the cities run on RuleOfCool -- and they're certainly cool enough to make it all worth it.

** Anna Fang.
** Tom, as can be seen on the second book cover.
** To a lesser extent, the London Engineers and their white rubber lab coats.
* BaldWomen: The female Engineers.
* BaseOnWheels:
** Base? Pff. ''City'' on wheels. Really BIG cities on wheels.
** On a much smaller scale, ''A Web Of Air'' features funicular houses, which only move up and down on rails.

* BlackBox

* BigBad: [[spoiler: Stalker Fang.]]

* ClosetKey: [[spoiler: Cluny for Fever.]]

* CrazySurvivalist: On an enormous scale.

* DistantFinale

%% zce * EndearinglyDorky: Hester sure thinks Tom is.

-->'''Fever:''' All right. I'll kneel down and worship your goddess if you'll kneel down and worship my giant hen.
-->'''Orca Mo:''' What giant hen?
-->'''Fever:''' This one here.
-->'''Orca Mo:''' There is no hen here...
-->'''Fever:''' Of course not, I made her up. She's imaginary. So she's worthy of exactly as much respect as your goddess.

-->'''Masgard''': What are you playing at, aviatrix? You [[spoiler: sell me this city]], then you [[spoiler: try and help them take it back]]. I don't understand! What's your plan?
-->'''Hester''': There isn't one. I'm just making it up as I go along.

* MadScientist: Dr Popjoy.

* NiceJobBreakingItHero: If Hester hadn't abandoned [[spoiler: Fishcake]], half of ''A Darkling Plain'' wouldn't have happened.
** In the Fever Crumb series, Fever saves Charley from drowning outside Nonesuch House. [[spoiler: He shoots her "dead" immediately afterwards (she's saved by the mechanimalculae Godshawk injected in her blood), sets her up in the third book (to not much success) and later becomes hands-down London's most incompetent Lord Mayor.]]

* ObfuscatingStupidity: [[spoiler:Cynthia Twite a.k.a Agent 28.]]

* OmnicidalManiac: [[spoiler:Stalker Fang.]]

* ScavengerWorld

* ShowWithinAShow: In ''Predator's Gold'' the historian Pennyroyal writes a book, ''also'' called ''Predator's Gold,'' which covers pretty much the same events as the Real Life book -- only from Pennyroyal's own, ah, ''[[BlatantLies unique]]'' perspective. This has both dramatic and comical consequences. Amongst other things, it's used to parody common adventuring tropes, and much is made of the HistoricalBeautyUpdate / HollywoodHomely treatment he gives his version of Hester...
** Pennyroyal becomes a recurring character, and his books generally play a not insignificant part in the plot of the series.

* TrrrillingRrrs: Cluny, full stop.

* UnderwaterBase: Grimsby.
* UrbanSegregation: Goes hand-in-hand with the widespread use of the LayeredMetropolis trope. In the first book, Tom being from Tier Two defined him as a respectable citizen of London (at least, in the eyes of people from smaller towns); the lower of London's seven Tiers were populated by progressively poorer workers. Every Traction City is segregated in this way, however many layers it may have (some only two, some a dozen). The topmost Tier will be occupied by mansions, landmarks, and the Mayor's residence; the next one below may have respectable businesses and offices; below that -- working class residences. On the meaner cities, the lowest tiers may house slaves; on the nicer ones, some literal social climbing may be possible. Because the lowest tiers also house the giant engines that move Traction Cities, they are usually very unpleasant places to work and live, and of course only the top Tier gets full sunlight and fresh air.
** An alternate variant is seen in ''Predator's Gold'' in the case of the polar Traction City ''Arkangel''. The less well-to-do of ''Arkangel'' live in the outer regions of the city where they are more exposed to the cold, while the city's elite live near the center where thay can benefit from the warmth given off by the city's engines.

* WorldHalfEmpty: The basic premise is living on a giant mobile city, eating cities smaller and slower than you and running away from bigger ones. If your city gets taken by a bigger and meaner one, it will be taken by force, completely looted, stripped down for raw materials and its population enslaved.
** In the third and fourth books, the antagonism between Traction Cities and the Anti-Traction League turns into a total war between the Traktionstadtgesellshaft, a union of militarised German cities and their allies, and the Green Storm, a band of psychotic air-pirates who overthrow the previously peaceful League leaders and turn it into a totalitarian state obsessed with the annihilation of cities. Aboard any Traction City, even non-militarised pleasure cities, you're liable to be blown apart by man-piloted heavy bombs, fleets of giant airships and psychotic undead cyborgs armed with finger-blades; fighting for the Green Storm, you're likely to be either piloting one of the bombs or attempting to fight conventional battles against ''war-rigged mobile cities'', and if (when) you die on the battle lines, may have the bad luck to get your corpse turned into one of the aforementioned psychotic undead cyborgs and have to do the whole stupid thing again.

* {{Yandere}}: Hester in the second book onwards.

* {{Adorkable}}: Hester sure thinks Tom is.

* EndOfTheWorldSpecial

* EverybodysDeadDave: What it looks like at [[spoiler:the end of the first book.]]

* TheFagin: Uncle.
* FantasticRacism: Between the Scriven and humans.

The ''Mortal Engines Quartet'' is an award-winning, critically acclaimed series of novels by the English author Philip Reeve. It was initially marketed (somewhat ridiculously) as ''The Hungry City Chronicles'' in America. (This possibly happened because of the Creator/StanislawLem collection that was released as ''Mortal Engines'' in the US.) Four books were written in chronological order: ''Mortal Engines'' (2001), ''Predator's Gold'' (2003), ''Infernal Devices'' (2005), and ''A Darkling Plain'' (2006). A prequel series has come out set long before the first book, made up of ''Fever Crumb'' (2009), ''A Web of Air'' (2010) and ''Scrivener's Moon'' (2011). The short fiction collection ''Night Flights'' (2018) takes place relatively soon before the first book and features the secondary character Anna Fang. More will come... [[DevelopmentHell eventually.]]

* HufflepuffHouse: Nuevo Maya and Australia are mentioned to be players in the world politics, but they are never explored. WordOfGod states that he intends to avert this by giving them ADayInTheLimelight in a future book.

* NarratorAllAlong

* BiTheWay: [[spoiler: Fever Crumb and Auric Godshawk.]]

Creator/PeterJackson and WETA Digital have worked on a film adaptation of the first book, ''Mortal Engines'', to be released in December 2018.

*** The "Clear Air Turbulence" may be named for the mercenaries' Hronish assualt ship in the first of Iain M. Banks' 'culture' space operas.

* AnyoneCanDie: And HOW. See KilledOffForReal below.

The ''Mortal Engines Quartet'' is an award-winning, critically acclaimed series of novels by the English author Philip Reeve, marketed (somewhat ridiculously) as ''The Hungry City Chronicles'' in America. (This possibly happened because of the Creator/StanislawLem collection that was released as ''Mortal Engines'' in the US.) Four books were written in chronological order: ''Mortal Engines'' (2001), ''Predator's Gold'' (2003), ''Infernal Devices'' (2005), and ''A Darkling Plain'' (2006). Prequel books set many centuries before the first book are currently being published. ''Fever Crumb'' (2009), ''A Web of Air'' (2010) and ''Scrivener's Moon'' (2011). Short fiction collection ''Night Flights'' (2018) takes place before the first place and features the secondary character Anna Fang. More will come... [[DevelopmentHell eventually.]]

The ''Mortal Engines Quartet'' is an award-winning, critically acclaimed series of novels by the English author Philip Reeve, marketed (somewhat ridiculously) as ''The Hungry City Chronicles'' in America.[[note]]possibly because of the Creator/StanislawLem anthlogy that was released as ''Mortal Engines'' in the US[[/note]] Four books were written in chronological order: ''Mortal Engines'' (2001), ''Predator's Gold'' (2003), ''Infernal Devices'' (2005), and ''A Darkling Plain'' (2006). Prequel books set many centuries before the first book are currently being published. ''Fever Crumb'' (2009), ''A Web of Air'' (2010) and ''Scrivener's Moon'' (2011) are out so far, with more to come... [[DevelopmentHell eventually.]]

Mortal Engines takes place in a post-post-post-post-post-apocalyptic UsedFuture. Nations no longer exist, except in the lands of the Anti-Traction League. Traction Cities -- entire cities mounted on caterpillar tracks for mobility -- are fiercely independent city-states, using giant jaws to devour one another for resources in a horribly unsustainable city-eat-city environment known as Municipal Darwinism: large cities eat small cities, small cities eat towns, towns eat suburbs, and everyone eats non-moving or "static" settlements. Trade is mostly accomplished by airship, though sometimes cities of roughly equal size (unable to devour each other) will stop to trade. Much of the AppliedPhlebotinum involves Old-Tech, ancient remains of lost civilisations ranging from statues of MickeyMouse ("animal-headed gods of lost America") to {{Lost Superweapon}}s.

Creator/PeterJackson and WETA Digital are currently working on a film adaptation of the first book, ''Mortal Engines'', to be released in December 2018.

* EcoTerrorist: In the first book, the Anti-Tractionist League attempt to end the environmentally destructive policy of Municipal Darwinism through acts of sabotage and the occasional assassination of prominent Tractionist leaders. In the later books the are deposed by the considerably more militant Green Storm, who wage all-out war against the Tractionist cities and deploy {{Cyborg}}s and {{Suicide Attack}}s as part of their war effort. [[spoiler:The Storm's leader, Stalker Fang, eventually hatches a plot to fire a KillSat to trigger a chain of dormant volcanoes, hoping that humanity will die off but life itself will survive and return the planet to its natural state]].

*** As shown in the second trailer, she does have a fairly substantial scar across her cheek and mouth, but still has her nose

The Mortal Engines Quartet is an award-winning, critically acclaimed series of novels by the English author Philip Reeve, marketed (somewhat ridiculously) as ''The Hungry City Chronicles'' in America.[[note]]possibly because of the Creator/StanislawLem anthlogy that was released as ''Mortal Engines'' in the US[[/note]] Four books were written in chronological order: ''Mortal Engines'' (2001), ''Predator's Gold'' (2003), ''Infernal Devices'' (2005), and ''A Darkling Plain'' (2006). Prequel books set many centuries before the first book are currently being published. ''Fever Crumb'' (2009), ''A Web of Air'' (2010) and ''Scrivener's Moon'' (2011) are out so far, with more to come... [[DevelopmentHell eventually.]]

Creator/PeterJackson and WETA Digital are currently working on a film adaptation of the first book, Mortal Engines, to be released in December 2018.

* [[spoiler:EverybodysDeadDave: What it looks like at the end of the first book.]]

** Discussed trope: When Pennyroyal writes [[ShowWithinAShow a book with a character based on Hester]], he leaves out Hester's disfigurement, and instead gives the character a cute little scratch on her cheek. Hester, when hearing this, exclaims -- "is that supposed to be ''me?''"