Mortal Engines

Fiction | Novel | YA | Published in 2001

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Summary

Background

Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Part 1, Chapters 1-4

Part 1, Chapters 5-8

Part 1, Chapters 9-12

Part 1, Chapters 13-16

Part 1, Chapters 17-18

Part 1, Chapters 19-23

Part 2, Chapters 24-26

Part 2, Chapters 27-30

Part 2, Chapters 31-34

Part 2, Chapters 35-37

Character Analysis

Themes

Symbols & Motifs

Important Quotes

Essay Topics

Tools

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Discussion Questions

Part 1, Chapters 1-4Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Part 1, Chapter 1 Summary: “The Hunting Ground”

Over the last 10 years, prey cities have become scarce, and London has hidden from larger cities that would eat it. Now, London has reentered the Great Hunting Grounds and chases a small mining town. As the city picks up speed, 15-year-old Tom Natsworthy feels the rumble of the motors “like a big drum beating inside his bones” from where he cleans in the London Museum (3). He wants to watch the chase, but Chudleigh Pomeroy, his supervisor, forbids it. As a Third Class Apprentice, Tom works on Wednesday, when the museum is closed and everyone else has the day off, and he’s sure no one will notice if he sneaks down to the observation deck to watch the chase for a bit.

The town London chases is a salt mining town with powerful engines. As London bears down, the town’s airships take off, carrying away goods so that London can’t lay claim to them. Finally, the town loses a wheel, and London overtakes it. In the ensuing celebration, a pretty girl a year or two older than Tom invites him to a party that night. One of the First Class Apprentices argues that they don’t want Tom at the party because he’s a poor nobody from the slums, and Tom punches the apprentice, knocking him down. The apprentice retaliates, dazing Tom, who staggers right into Chudleigh Pomeroy.

Part 1, Chapter 2 Summary: “Valentine”

As punishment for disobeying his supervisor, Tom is put on Gut duty, where he must make sure anything related to history is preserved and delivered to the Guild of Historians. The Gut is where new cities are digested after being caught, and it smells terrible, is too hot, and is staffed by convicts. Far below, huge machines dismantle the town, and Tom hurries across the catwalk to the Guild of Historian’s office, where he finds Thaddeus Valentine, leader of the guild and Tom’s hero, on duty. Valentine remembers Tom’s parents, who died in an accident 10 years ago. He tells Tom what good Historians they were, which makes Tom tear up because “nobody had ever spoken like that about them before” (20).

Katherine, Valentine’s daughter, arrives with her pet wolf. The group heads down to where the town is being torn apart, and Tom is amazed that Valentine is doing grunt work rather than sitting by while Tom does everything. Tom finds an old seedy (CD) in the wreckage. While London’s Engineers have done many amazing things, they haven’t been able to duplicate computer technology from the time before the Sixty Minute War. Tom holds on to the seedy, hoping he’ll be able to discover what’s on it someday.

There’s little for the Guild of Historians to collect, so Valentine takes Tom and Katherine to the edge of the Gut, where scavengers mingle. He asks if any of them have something to sell the Guild of Historians, and one girl says she has something for him before lunging forward and “whipping out a long, thin-bladed knife” (27).

Part 1, Chapter 3 Summary: “The Waste Chute”

Tom knocks the knife out of the girl’s hand, and she takes off into the crowd. He pursues her across catwalks and down to the Digestion Yards, catching up at a railing overlooking a waste chute. The girl asks why Tom didn’t let her kill Valentine. He can’t fathom why anyone would want to kill such a wonderful man, and the girl reveals her scarred face, telling Tom to “ask him what he did to Hester Shaw” (32). Hester jumps over the railing and down the chute. Valentine catches up to Tom, who tells him the girl’s name. Valentine gives Tom a kind smile before pushing him into the waste chute after Hester.

Part 1, Chapter 4 Summary: “The Out-Country”

Tom wakes to find himself lying in a pool of mud in Out-Country, the term for static earth outside cities. His shirt is missing, and nearby, Hester uses it to bandage a wound in her leg from the chase. When she finishes, she stomps away, and Tom hurries after her. Valentine killed Hester’s parents, and she won’t rest until he’s dead. Tom needs to get back to the city because it’s the only home he has, and the two form a hesitant truce before following London’s tracks eastward. However, Tom’s not sure why the city’s still moving. It usually stops for a few days after it eats, and he finds himself wondering, “Where on Earth is it going?” (40).

Part 1, Chapters 1-4 Analysis

The opening chapters of Mortal Engines introduce the novel’s main characters and conflicts of the novel. The novel primarily uses Tom’s point of view, though he shares the role of protagonist with Katherine. Both of them grow and change dramatically throughout the book. Tom begins as an orphan nobody, and the main part of his character arc is learning that he can make a family and find a place where he belongs. By contrast, Katherine begins the story thinking she has a nearly perfect life. Her status in society and her relationship with her father keep her blissfully unaware of the hardships experienced by others and the cutthroat world of London’s upper ranks. As the book progresses, she learns how others live and that some things are more important than preserving her own comfort and happiness. Her character arc illustrates the theme The World as More Than What We See.

Valentine is one of the novel’s antagonists. Seven years ago, he murdered Hester’s parents and gave Hester the scar that mars her face. These events kick off Hester’s motivation to kill Valentine, as well as Tom’s journey toward realizing that the world is different than he once believed. Valentine murdered Hester’s mother to obtain part of MEDUSA, a weapon of mass destruction left over from the Sixty Minute War, so that he could present Lord Mayor Crome of London with something to solidify his and Katherine’s places in society. Valentine’s actions, motivated by the desire to do right by his daughter, lead to London’s increasing threat to the rest of the world (and ultimately lead to London’s destruction).

The hunt in Chapter 1 shows the “normal world” of Mortal Engines. Ever since London became a traction city, it has hunted other cities and towns to keep itself moving and thriving. This forced other cities and towns to move and birthed the idea of Municipal Darwinism, in which bigger, stronger predator cities feed on smaller prey cities. With the book’s society rooted in Victorian-era Britain, the hunt shows colonialism as it works in a world of moving cities. Smaller towns are overtaken and dismantled so that all their goods and equipment become part of London, effectively eliminating whatever identity the town had before. The airships leaving the town right before its demise are the town’s attempt to save part of its heritage from London’s takeover.