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dr_matthew_lloyd 's review for:
Infernal Devices
by Philip Reeve
Picking up about sixteen years after the end of [b:Predator's Gold|48722|Predator's Gold (Mortal Engines Quartet #2)|Philip Reeve|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1390103686s/48722.jpg|1065641], the third book in the Mortal Engines quartet finds Tom and Hester living a settled life in Anchorage-in-Vineland with their fifteen year-old daughter, Wren. When the Lost Boys find their way to Anchorage to steal an ancient artifact, they end up kidnapping Wren and leading Tom, Hester, Freya, and Caul back out into a world ravaged by a war between the traction cities and the Green Storm, led by the Stalker Fang.
Infernal Devices is, perhaps, the Mortal Engines book that leans most into the fact that most of the series protagonists are bad people. Wren, now the age her parents were in [b:Mortal Engines|287861|Mortal Engines (The Hungry City Chronicles, #1)|Philip Reeve|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1352173057s/287861.jpg|3981652], longs for adventure and is pretty horrible to her friends and mum when it comes along. Tom, though sweet, takes his naïvety to new levels of trusting horrible people. And Hester becomes more and more the monster that people believe her to be; failing to settle into Anchorage for fifteen years because her particular, violent, skills have not been needed - and because she still holds the secret of how she betrayed the city to Archangel in Predator's Gold. When the opportunity comes to leave the settled life that she finds so unsatisfactory, she seises it.
In some ways, Infernal Devices shares its predecessor's fault that it feels as if much of this action is just to move these characters into the positions that they need to be in for the next part of the story: in Predator's GoldTom and Hester must be in Vineland, away from the action, to have Wren and raise her to be the new teen protagonist; Anna Fang must be resurrected as a Stalker so that the Green Storm has a leader for the decades-long war that is to come. Meanwhile, in Infernal Devices, the Tin Book exists to draw Wren, Tom, and Hester back out into the world; Freya and Caul come too so that they can return to Anchorage and have the closest thing to a happy ending the series allows anyone; Oenone Zero must resurrect Shrike for a reason, so that he and Hester can reunite at the end. The difference, largely, is that while much of Predator's Gold feels like the characters are just sitting around waiting for other people to do things, in Infernal Devices there's much more action, people are actually doing things, and though they are generally horrible, the characters (well, Hester) are not unlikable. It's much more fun to read (or listen to, as I was doing this time around).
Nevertheless, I remember the denouement of [b:A Darkling Plain|219110|A Darkling Plain (The Hungry City Chronicles, #4)|Philip Reeve|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1172801990s/219110.jpg|2470237] being the best part of the series after the first book. I will see soon if I still think that is the case. Infernal Devices is an enjoyable step on the way there.
Infernal Devices is, perhaps, the Mortal Engines book that leans most into the fact that most of the series protagonists are bad people. Wren, now the age her parents were in [b:Mortal Engines|287861|Mortal Engines (The Hungry City Chronicles, #1)|Philip Reeve|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1352173057s/287861.jpg|3981652], longs for adventure and is pretty horrible to her friends and mum when it comes along. Tom, though sweet, takes his naïvety to new levels of trusting horrible people. And Hester becomes more and more the monster that people believe her to be; failing to settle into Anchorage for fifteen years because her particular, violent, skills have not been needed - and because she still holds the secret of how she betrayed the city to Archangel in Predator's Gold. When the opportunity comes to leave the settled life that she finds so unsatisfactory, she seises it.
In some ways, Infernal Devices shares its predecessor's fault that it feels as if much of this action is just to move these characters into the positions that they need to be in for the next part of the story: in Predator's Gold
Nevertheless, I remember the denouement of [b:A Darkling Plain|219110|A Darkling Plain (The Hungry City Chronicles, #4)|Philip Reeve|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1172801990s/219110.jpg|2470237] being the best part of the series after the first book. I will see soon if I still think that is the case. Infernal Devices is an enjoyable step on the way there.