Thunder City

Tamzin Pook does battle with Revenants in Margate’s Amusement Arcade where she is the star fighter, having survived forty-nine fights. Others are not so lucky.

When a brutal coup takes place in the wheeled city of Thorbury, Miss Torpenhow, a teacher from that city, seeks Tamzin’s help, breaking her out of the Arcade. Events progress at a rapid pace and Tamzin finds herself part of an ill-matched group, banded together in their desire to free Thorbury- and find a new life.

No poor attempt at a summary could ever do justice to the perfectly paced, tightly plotted and absolutely absorbing experience which reading a Moral Engines book offers. It was an absolute joy to return to this world!

Set about a hundred years before the setting of the first book, ‘Thunder City’ is as imaginative and richly drawn as the other stories. It is easy to read it as a stand alone story, but for anyone who has read the other books, it is fascinating to see this world following the rules of Municipal Darwinism yet before the more ruthless town-eat-town era to come.

Tamzin is a wonderful character. Thrown into the brutal world of the Amusement Arcade, she has developed her own survival strategies, trying hard not to form attachments. However, with her freedom from this life, she learns she can trust and be trusted, forming new bonds, showing her to be a courageous and loyal friend. The other characters who become part of her group are equally well developed and believable (Miss Torpenhow is just brilliant!) and I am convinced that Philip Reeve will not be heartless enough to deprive the world of more stories leading from this wonderful beginning!

 Thunder City

Philip Reeve

Scholastic    ISBN: 978-0702335471