Mini Book Review – Predator’s Gold

Recently I have been reading Predator’s Gold; and it was alright! Written by Philip Reeve, and published by Scholastic; Predator’s Gold is the second book in the Mortal Engines Quartet. This second entry in the series sees Tom and Hester drifting into the ice wastes aboard the Jenny Haniver, where they land on the traction city of Anchorage, which has decided to travel to the lost continent of America. The second book was a bit of a long, laborious and tricky read as it doesn’t carry the spectacle, nor the excitement of the incredibly awesome first book. The plot just plods along, and it can feel like whole books pass by before anything actually happens. For the most part the book reads like an awkward teenage romance novel, and loses sight of the spectacle of these giant moving cities. By the time one of them actually appears, it just gets a brief mention and then moves on. The ending is rather predictable, and also pretty anti-climactic, as the giant city of Arkangel finally makes a more glorious arrival, only to then be shunned out the picture a few paragraphs later. It is an enjoyable read, and is not necessarily very boring, but in comparison to the previous entry, it’s a bit of a disappointment!