Musings on the Mortal Engines series

I read the Mortal Engines series by Philip Reeve not too long ago; I can't really review them now, since there was so much to them. They're an epic; and, as in some epics, I never really liked most of the characters, but was more interested in the world they dwelt in.

Actually, the truer relationship between myself and a number of the characters was that I did not approve of them, nor of what they did most of the time.

But the series really did something like stand up in my mind and begin rearranging furniture. I do like the "steampunk" genre, and Mr. Reeve is a terrificly good writer. And the books are nothing if not action-packed and suspenseful.

Still, it was the female characters - or two of them especially - that really stood out to me even in the midst of everything else.

So when my mind is stirred, I have a tendency to write poetry. Sometimes even good poetry. I wouldn't go so far as to say that what I have below is an example of that type, but here it is, for anyone who's read the series or somesuch.




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What did Tom see in Hester Shaw
but a bird with her wings broken
too convinced of her own unfitness to fly again
unless someone lifted her high?

And it was the greater tragedy than the Sixty-Minute War
that in all the shattered world, only one person would do that.

But later
three and a half books brought me to a moment that turned my head around
with that girl,
Oenone,
because
I
too
have
a
brother
and in the silence of churches I, too, remember God selflessly stricken on Calvary
but
did she ever learn about the Easter sunrise
and the One more powerful than death,
more powerful than undeath?

Because a scarred planet
and scarred girls can all be healed,
someday
when a light brighter than all stars appears -

Don't give up hope, you in your steaming engines
and roving cities:
He is not slow in keeping His promises
as some understand slowness
and He has made everything beautiful
in its time.