Mortal Engines - Philip Reeve

I learned about this book by the Peter Jackson movie (which I really enjoyed btw), and when ordering it I found out it's not a book, but the first volume of a whole setting.

And truth to be told, the first 2/3rds of the movie and the book are quite similar, so that's top points for adaptation.

Surely, the book has a few more detailed exploits, like Valentine's daughter playing a bigger part in the city of London, Hester and Tom having a few more detours on the way of their journey, and Hester being far more disfigured then how she appears in the film, but all in all...

It's the last part of the book where the movie wildly deviates from, the moment the Great Wall comes in sight.  You see, millenia after the 60 minutes war, in which mankind nearly nuclearly razed itself into extinction, cities have become large rolling monstrosities.  Always on the look-out to "feed" on smaller ones, the hunting grounds are getting empty.  But the Anti-Tractionist League, or more "settled down" parts of the population, are mostly gathered behind a huge wall.

London has set it's sights on this area of Earth in an attempt to gain more power and become the biggest and strongest of them all.  But a mysterious girl named Hester Shaw is out for revenge on chief archeologist Valentine of London, who brought from one of his expeditions the mighty weapon called MEDUSA...

The biggest difference from the movie is that the book explores the route to the connection between hester and Valentine through the point of view of his daughter Katherine, but also that the "battle for the Wall" resolves very; very different from the movie version.

An enjoyable read, I will be over time getting my hands on more volumes from the series, and guard them afterwards for Thorin to read as well as this is some nice young adult fiction work.