Some months ago I missed out this wonderful work from my full listing because it did not quite fit my definition of magical fantasy. Now I have tried to free myself from some of these sillier constraints and it just has to be included. It is without doubt one of the greats of children's literature of recent years.
The Mortal Engines quartet, now re-titled Predator Cities, (Mortal Engines, Predator's Gold, Infernal Devices, A Darkling Plain) does not have wizards but is nevertheless a most wonderful and imaginative fantasy. Probably more Sci-Fi than anything, it is, however, totally itself; unique and quite magnificent. Its inventiveness is truly magical and the spells cast by its vast array of incredibly-imagined characters are over the reader if not over each other. Its protagonists are some of the most engagingly and sensitively developed of recent creations (the kind you leave behind with almost a sense of bereavement at the end of a book) and its plot progressions are complex, rich and gripping; always vastly entertaining. It is quite simply a masterwork of contemporary children's literature - terrifying, exciting, jokey, humane, thought- provoking and staggeringly original.
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