Mortal Engines: Chapter 1 Summary & Analysis

One windy afternoon in spring, the Traction City of London goes hunting after a small mining town across a barren stretch of land that used to be the North Sea. Big cities like London can move around on tank-like tracks, and they eat up smaller, rural cities in a place known as the Hunting Ground. The mining town sees London coming and tries to flee.

At London’s Museum of Natural History, a 15-year-old apprentice named Tom Natsworthy feels the city begin to move under him. He’s lived in London his whole life and knows this feeling well. Tom’s boss, Chudleigh Pomeroy, comes in and asks what’s going on. Like all Guild members, Pomeroy has a Guild-mark on his forehead. Tom explains to Pomeroy that a chase has begun. Tom asks to go see the chase, but Pomeroy forbids him.

After Pomeroy leaves, however, Tom decides that since the museum is closed to the public, he’ll go ahead and watch the chase anyway. As he slips out of the museum, he passes 35th-century ceramics and a 21st-century exhibit of the ancient gods Pluto and Mickey from the lost country of America. As Tom exits the museum, he goes from the street-level Tier Two of London to Tier One near the rooftops. There, he joins a crowd of people watching a camera at Tier Six, where an announcer describes the action. The announcer says London is moving toward the mining town of Salthook at a rate of 80 miles per hour.

Tom decides to go to an observation deck so he can watch the chase in person instead of on camera. He heads to Bloomsbury Park, which isn’t a real park anymore but a place to produce food, mainly cabbage and algae. The crowd at the park is even bigger, and a fellow apprentice named Herbert Melliphant sees Tom and greets him. Melliphant cheers London on as it goes after the salt-mining town. Tom doesn’t like Melliphant because he’s a bully, albeit a subtle one who uses words instead of physical violence. Tom knows Melliphant is only talking to him because Melliphant wants to impress Clyde “Clytie” Potts, another Historian standing near them. Historians are one of the four Great Guilds that rule London.

As London approaches Salthook, airships of Salthook residents flee their city. Clytie is a more advanced Historian than Tom or Melliphant, so she seems bored by the hunt. Tom watches tiny people scurrying around down in Salthook and reminds himself that he shouldn’t feel sorry for them, since it was the natural order for big cities like London to eat small towns like Salthook. This is also known as Municipal Darwinism. It’s been this way ever since Nikolas Quirke made London the first Traction City. Soon, Salthook loses a wheel, slowing down, and the Jaws of London close around it.

People on the observation deck cheer the capture. Clytie invites Tom to a celebration party, which annoys Melliphant. Melliphant tries to explain that Tom is lower-class, with parents who lived on Tier Four until one day an accident called the Big Tilt killed both of them. Tom gets angry and hits Melliphant without thinking. But Melliphant is much bigger and hits back hard. Tom tries to run away, but as he does, he runs into Pomeroy.