Mortal Engines

By Philip Reeve

This is a steam punk industrial revolution sci-fi fantasy story set in a time when the major cities of the world are individual self-contained entities that travel across the barren earth. This is a world eat world time and bigger, stronger cities chase after smaller, weaker cities and towns and devour them, keeping scrap that might be useful and discarding the rest. 

There is your usual scavenger crew, those out to make a quick buck off the misfortune of others who scavenge the discards of cities devoured. 

There is also the typical class systems of upper and lower with the power hungry upper class leaders readily betraying each other to further their own interests – who can really be trusted in this world? 

Tom is a 3^rd class apprentice historian living in the traction city of London in this world. He has been sent to work in the gut of London, which is the bottom station that is currently dealing with the recent acquisition of a small town and needs to filter the material to decide what to keep and what to get rid of. While there, Tom saves his mentor from a seemingly deranged assassin, but then suddenly finds himself outside of London in the mud pit with Hester, the would be killer. 

Weighing his options, Tom decides to follow Hester and their adventures begin as they both try to get back to London, which by now has moved away from them at a rapid pace. Hester and Tom join forces to uncover the truth about what is really happening on London and meet a wide array of friends and foe along the way to the final battle.        

For sci-fi fans who love a detailed story with mini battles, setbacks and triumphs, this is a must read. this is the first in the four book Mortal Engines series.       

The Last Namsara

By Kristen Ciccarelli

I would like to preface this review by stating that I read this entire book in one day. It was it was raining, it was the long weekend, and it was just that good!  

In the beginning, there was the Namsara: the child of the sky and spirit, who carried love and laughter wherever he went. But where there is light, there must be darkness-and so there was also the Iskari. The child of blood and moonlight. The destroyer. The death bringer.

Asha, the daughter of the Dragon King, is that destroyer.  And what a fearsome destroyer she is! Her grandmother enslaved a whole population of foreigners, made enemies of the dragons, and banned the old stories.  Asha follows in that legacy. She goes out into the Rift with her trusty ax and takes down dragon after dragon. She is ferocious, fearless, and just plain fierce.  

Feared and reviled by all in the kingdom, it is illegal to touch her or even meet her gaze. As a child, she did the forbidden; she told the ancient stories outlawed by the king. For breaking this rule, the First Dragon, Kozu, set fire to her entire town, killing hundreds, destroying homes, and disfiguring the entire side of her face and chest. To atone for her sin, she became a killing machine, destroying as many dragons as she can find. Her other act of atonement will be to marry the cruel commandant on her eighteenth birthday. Jarek is a cruel, drunken, brute of a man that Asha will do anything to be rid of. 

When Asha’s father offers her a chance to gain her freedom in exchange for the head of the First Dragon Kozu, she eagerly takes up the challenge.  What should be an easy task becomes much more complicated when her brother Dax asks her to save one of Jarek’s slaves from a deadly lashing. Rescuing Torwin requires Asha to help him escape and an unlikely alliance is formed. With his help, her quest to kill Kozu seems to get more and more complicated.  Truths start to be revealed that cannot be denied. Are dragons really the bringers of destruction she has been lead to believe, or has someone been lying? 

Realistic characters, ancient stories, and Dragons make for an awesome debut novel by Kristen Ciccarelli. If you like great fantasy novels, with realistic, flawed, but tough as nails heroines, this book is for you. Similar reads I`ve tried out recently are Seraphina by Rachel Hartman or the Throne of Glass series by Sarah J. Maas.