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A review by timburbage
Infernal Devices by Philip Reeve
5.0
So this series goes in several different directions, but nails almost every single one.
First of all, there is a 16 year time jump. Anchorage is now Anchorage in Vineland and we follow a grown up Tom, Hester and their daughter Wren. Wren is a YA protagonist and does some stupid things to move the plot forward, and she really feels like Tom in the first book.
Hester is still the most interesting character, and this if you grow up with a killing machine as a parent, you are going to be messed up. She is like a tiger, and doesn't like being kept in a cage.
Some characters return, and we see a bit more on the war between Traction Cities and the Anti-Traction League. Stalker Fang is now head of the Green Storm and the war that was running in the backround steps more to the foreground.
We see some new locations, such as Brighton. A small quibble is that we spend quite a lot of time on Brighton and some more stuff could have possibly happened. Very minor quibble. We also return to some places, and see how the past 16 years has, or has not, been kind.
The action is well written, the characters are three dimensional and we learn about the world organically as always. You then get the ending. What a cliffhanger. Part of me wants to start reading A Darkling Plain straight away.
Another part of me wants to leave it a while, mainly so that I wouldn't have finished this series that has been absolutely outstanding.
First of all, there is a 16 year time jump. Anchorage is now Anchorage in Vineland and we follow a grown up Tom, Hester and their daughter Wren. Wren is a YA protagonist and does some stupid things to move the plot forward, and she really feels like Tom in the first book.
Hester is still the most interesting character, and this if you grow up with a killing machine as a parent, you are going to be messed up. She is like a tiger, and doesn't like being kept in a cage.
Some characters return, and we see a bit more on the war between Traction Cities and the Anti-Traction League. Stalker Fang is now head of the Green Storm and the war that was running in the backround steps more to the foreground.
We see some new locations, such as Brighton. A small quibble is that we spend quite a lot of time on Brighton and some more stuff could have possibly happened. Very minor quibble. We also return to some places, and see how the past 16 years has, or has not, been kind.
The action is well written, the characters are three dimensional and we learn about the world organically as always. You then get the ending. What a cliffhanger. Part of me wants to start reading A Darkling Plain straight away.
Another part of me wants to leave it a while, mainly so that I wouldn't have finished this series that has been absolutely outstanding.