Predator's Gold - Hardcover

Reeve, Philip

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0439978890 ISBN 13: 9780439978897

Publisher: Scholastic Press, 2003

Synopsis

Philip Reeve is back with this gripping sequel to the Smarties Gold Awardwinner, Mortal Engines. Fleeing from an Anti-Tractionist sect, the Green Storm, Tom and Hester are left drifting in the frozen Ice Wastes, slowly dying of cold after the Jenny Haniver's engines have failed. They are saved at the last minute, finding Anchorage, a once-beautiful ice city that has fallen on hard times. Crippled by plague, there are barely fifty souls on Anchorage now, and the teenage margravine has made a desperate choice. They are heading for America, the Dead Continent.

About this title

Review:

Predator's Gold is the stunning sequel to the award-winning Mortal Engines and, incredibly, it is just as exciting and page-turning as its predecessor. Reeve's further stories of cities on wheels, flying over a ravaged future Earth are compelling--complete with characters that you care passionately for, action that leaves you lost for words and inventiveness that takes some beating.

Two years after their escape aboard the airship (the Jenny Haniver) at the end of Mortal Engines, Tom and Hester, now lovers, find themselves the twin objects of attention of a terrorist organisation called Green Storm. In the misguided belief that the grotesquely incomplete preserved body of their hero, Anna Fang, can be resurrected to ensure their anti-traction goals, they cite Tom and Hester as essential capture targets.

But when they take shelter aboard the once-magnificent city of Anchorage, after a bruising air battle with some of Green Storm's gun ships, Tom and Hester encounter a whole new set of problems. This prestigious ice city is heading disastrously towards America, the fabled Dead continent, under the guidance of the fraudulent explorer Pennyroyal. There is danger everywhere and the travellers must be careful to survive.

Sequels can sometimes disappoint, but the eagerly awaited Predator's Gold cannot be faulted. Reeve's exemplary novel has the depth to satisfy the most literary and demanding readers, and yet his story delivers enough verve and white-knuckle drama to keep the lighter readers well-served too. Neither is it a slight to describe this novel as full of old-fashioned adventure--because there is something reassuringly familiar about its accessibility. It has a whiff of the classic about it and that is certainly no bad thing. (Recommended for ages 10 and over.) --John McLay

Review:

Praise for the Mortal Engines series
* "Exciting and visually descriptive." -- School Library Journal, starred review
"A page-turner, this adventure in a city-eat-city world will have readers eagerly suspending disbelief to follow the twists and turns of the imaginative plot." -- Booklist
"Big, brave, brilliant." -- Guardian (UK)
* "Reeve's [Mortal Engines Quartet] remains a landmark of visionary... imagination." -- School Library Journal, starred review
"Phenomenal . . . violent and romantic, action-packed and contemplative, funny and frightening." -- Sunday Times (UK)

Praise for the Mortal Engines series
*"Exciting and visually descriptive." --School Library Journal, starred review
"A page-turner, this adventure in a city-eat-city world will have readers eagerly suspending disbelief to follow the twists and turns of the imaginative plot." --Booklist
"Big, brave, brilliant." --Guardian (UK)
*"Reeve's [Mortal Engines Quartet] remains a landmark of visionary... imagination." --School Library Journal, starred review
"Phenomenal . . . violent and romantic, action-packed and contemplative, funny and frightening." --Sunday Times (UK)
Praise for the Mortal Engines series

*"Exciting and visually descriptive." -- School Library Journal, starred review

"A page-turner, this adventure in a city-eat-city world will have readers eagerly suspending disbelief to follow the twists and turns of the imaginative plot." -- Booklist

"Big, brave, brilliant." -- Guardian (UK)

*"Reeve's [Mortal Engines Quartet] remains a landmark of visionary... imagination." -- School Library Journal, starred review

"Phenomenal... violent and romantic, action-packed and contemplative, funny and frightening." -- Sunday Times (UK)

About this edition

• Publisher: Scholastic Press
• Publication date: 2003
• ISBN 10: 0439978890
• ISBN 13: 9780439978897
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 336
• Illustrator: Frankland David