Predator's Gold

[sawyl]

I actually read Philip Reeve's Predator's Gold a few weeks ago, although for some reason I failed to write it up — my reading rate has outstripped my ability to blog. But since I've already written about Mortal Engines, it seems only reasonable to write up the other books in the series.

The plot opens two years after the events of Mortal Engines, with Tom and Hester happily plying the bird roads in the Jenny Haniver, the airship they inherited from Anna Fang. When they take on a passenger, the famous and extremely self-important explorer Nimrod Pennyroyal, they accidentally attract the attention of a group called Green Storm, a radical offshoot of the Anti-Traction League founded by some of Anna's disciples. Forced to crash land on the city of Anchorage, they find themselves in a place all but depopulated by a recent Old Tech plague.

To Freya Rasmussen, the Margravine of Anchorage, the travellers are a godsend. Having decided to return her city to the ruined American continent, where there are rumours of green oases, she is only too happy to welcome Pennyroyal, the only man to have travelled to the Americans and survived to tell the tale. She's also rather taken with the hansom Tom, but not at all taken with the sulky Hester. As events unfold, it becomes very clear that something is wrong on Anchorage. There are strange noises and things keep disappearing: the city has been targeted by the Lost Boys, a group of young urchins lead by the sinister and all-seeing Uncle from his base in sunken wreckage of Grimsby.

When Hester, always worried that her Tom will ditch her for someone whose face isn't scarred, catches Freya in a clinch with boyfriend she comes up with an appalling plan to secure his affections. The scheme goes horribly wrong when she runs into a group of Green Storm fanatics, intent on resurrecting Anna Fang in form of an unstoppable battle stalker, and the other characters are forced to choose between their own desires in order to survive.

I really liked Predator's Gold, especially the way that Reeve gives his characters room for moral development. Freya starts out so ritual bound that, following the death of her servants, she is unable even to wash her own hair. But as she grows in to her role as Margravine and accepts the consequences of her decision to take her city over the arctic ice, she comes to realise the responsibility that she bears for her citizens. Caul, the Lost Boy with a concealed streak of romanticism, has to decide between his loyalties to Uncle and his own hopes, such as his belief in Tom's and Hester's relationship. While Tom has a few key moments, it is Hester who lies at the heart of the story.

Hester is a complete and utter delight; a genuinely rounded character who is loyal and determined in the right circumstances, but who is also deeply flawed and capable of the most appalling acts of betrayal and violence. The reasons for her behaviour also have an authentic feel to them: she saw her mother and father murdered, losing an eye and suffering facial scarring during her escape; she has been raised by a killing machine, the stalker Shrike, who is obsessed with turning her into a machine like himself; and finally, discovering that the man who killed her parents was, in fact, her real father. Her paranoia about her appearance leads her to doubt Tom's feelings for her — from the beginning of the book she's convinced that their relationship can't last — while her paternity causes her to worry that she is turning into the same sort of ruthless monster as Thaddeus Valentine.

Reeve's other great strength is that he doesn't shirk the moral consequences of his characters' actions. Pennyroyal finds himself caught by his years of braggadocio and, forced to do something he really doesn't want to, spends much of the book drinking himself into a stupor. Freya finally grows up and in doing so, helps the remaining citizens of Anchorage to recover a sense of purpose and self belief. Hester's actions are so appalling that not only do they colour much of Predator's Gold, but they also shape the course of events in the final two novels of the quartet, set twenty years later.

As with the other books in the series, the setting is a pure delight. The traction cities are beautifully realised and the mad dash across the arctic ice has real tension to it. There are some wonderful puns and in jokes, while some of the minor characters, especially the comic Widgery Blincoe and his many wives, add humour to what might otherwise be a bleak story.