↠ What are 'Stalkers' in Mortal Engines?

What are the Stalker Soldiers in Mortal Engines?

CAUTION: EPIC SPOILERS BELOW FOR BOTH BOOK AND FILM


The Stalkers of Mortal Engines are a kind of 'universal soldier' / Robocop combatant, that can be programmed for warfare and assassination.

Stalkers and their variations play various parts in each of Philip Reeve's Quartet of Mortal Engines, Predator's Gold, Infernal Devices and A Darkling Plain.

What are the origins of the Stalkers?

Stalkers originally were designed as mechanisms for humans to transfer their consciousness from one body to another, thus defeating death. The human mind could literally be saved to the hard drive and then transferred into the body of another human.

It was long after the events of 60 Minute War that 'old technology' was adapted to make Stalkers into emotionless monsters to serve at the whim of their masters.

Often referred to as 'Resurrected Men' Stalkers were originally built by the Nomadic Empires that battled each other across the volcano maze of what was once Europe long before the Traction Cities Era began.

The Nomadic Empires built Stalkers by recovering dead bodies from the battlefields, placing them in laboratories and then bringing them back 'life' by using 'Old Tech' machines that were physically connected to the dead body's nervous system. 

This practice continued on to the Traction City Era.

The bodies were also operated on so internal organs were no longer necessary. The designers also would graft on a metal carapace to the body. Weapons could be implanted into the body and the use of claws was a common feature. 

Shrike did not have claws in the film, unlike in the novel.

The best subjects were taller specimens and they looked a scary sight with their glowing green eyes that all Stalkers had.

Stalkers are generally considered emotionless automatons, only acting at the will of their Masters.

Once a dead human is resurrected as a Stalker, they have no feelings, displays no emotions and they will not have any memory of who they were before they died. Any past memories are jumbled messes and lost glimpses of their former life.

In Mortal Engines, the City of London manufactures its own Stalkers.

The London Guild of Engineers builds new Stalkers from dead prison convicts at their experimental prison in the Deep Gut. These particular Stalkers are not considered as refined as the infamous 'Shrike' due to the use of less sophisticated stalker-brains, the devices used in the brains and nerves of Stalkers.

The origins of these Resurrected Men, begin to be explained in the first prequel in the Mortal Engines series, Fever Crumb. Scrivener's Moon expands on the details as well.

Shrike was played in the film by Stephen Lang.

What is the Shrike in Mortal Engines?

The 'Shrike' was the first Stalker to be mentioned in the original Mortal Engines book.

His character was under the control of the Mayor of London Traction City, Magnus Chrome. Chrome used the Shrike to find Hester Shaw and Tom Natsworthy and he was ordered to kill them.

At face value, this seemed a straightforward plot point however it was later revealed that The Shrike had once looked after Hester in a past life.

Due to his emotionally retarded state, his own goal in life was to turn Hester into a Stalker like himself, so they could live together forever.

In terms of memory retention, Shrike appears to be the exception to the rule as was able to recall his past life as 'Kit Solent' shortly before his death at the hands of Tom Natsworthy by the sword. Kit Solent's tale and how he became a Stalker of the Lazarus Brigade was covered in the prequel novel, Fever Crumb.

In the film Shrike is played by veteran actor Stephan Lang - you may remember him as the evil general in Avatar.

>> Stuck for yeast when making beer? You can ferment your beer with baker's yeast! <<

Are Stalkers invulnerable?

Stalkers are heavily protected by their armour but vulnerable to small arms fire and hand-held weaponry.

Due to their 'programming' they do not feel any pain as their nervous systems are rendered. This means they are pretty handy in hand to hand combat as even if their opponent is able to stab them or cause injury, they will not feel it and be able to continue to fight and thus increasing their chances of winning.

In Mortal Engines, Tom Natsworthy did manage to kill the Shrike Stalker with a sword by impaling it through his neck. The Shrike was however suffering from some performance issues as he'd actually been run over by a Traction City!



But there's a reason Stalkers are known as Resurrected Men....

Anna Fang as a Stalker in the sequel novels

In Mortal Engines, Anna Fang was Tom and Hester's rescuer from the Shrike when he originally caught up with them on Airhaven.

Despite her heroics, Fang was ultimately killed by the dastardly Thaddeus Valentine in a sword fight.

In Predator's Gold it was revealed that a splinter group of the famed Anti Traction League called Green Storm had recovered Fang's body and applied the Stalker Resurrection techniques to it.

Green Storm had intended that the revived Anna Fang would lead them in battle against the remaining Traction Cities.

Eventually, the resurrected Fang stalker would take part in many battles and features in Infernal Devices and A Darkling Plain where her character wreaks some pretty spectacular havoc using the ODIN device.

Shrike fan art

Extra for Experts (spoilers):

• Stalkers are sometimes referred to as 'Jaegers'
• All Stalkers have green glowing eyes
• Stalker tech can be used on animals such as birds and even whales
• In some American versions of Mortal Engines Shrike is named 'Grike'.
• Shrike is named after the bird of the same name.
• Shrike is actually the narrator of the Mortal Engines books as discovered in the final paragraph of A Darkling Plain. making beer

Leave a Comment anna fang, grike, kit solent, london, shrike, stalkers, stephen lang

Here's our pitch for a Mortal Engines Netflix series - featuring @jihae as Anna Fang

Why Mortal Engines should be turned into a Netflix show

We've had the Mortal Engines movie and it bombed at the box office, yet it's a good watch, and probably will become a cult film over time.

There's plenty of stories to be told in the Mortal Engines realm - so what if, it was re-born as a Netflix television series?

Given the movie has told the first part of the story of Tom and Hester, a new approach could be to do a series which focuses on the story of Anna Fang and how she came to be a leader of the Anti Traction League. 

This kind of approach would be a fresh lens to attract new viewers to the franchise.

Author Philip Reeve has crafted such a wonderful character in Anna Fang, she's really a fan favorite. Night Flights rounded off some really good plot origins that were merely hinted at in the novels and this could provide the grounds for a really good origin story that sets up the franchise afresh.

Let's say that's season one, the Anna Fang story. You could tell her origin and then cut to her death at the end of the season.

Season two could be a soft reboot of sorts that tells the story of Tom and Hester but perhaps it doesn't need to focus on the story of the first novel. It could be covered pretty quickly and then they could move onto new adventures, the kind perhaps found in Predator's Gold.

Indeed, one doesn't have to focus on Tom and Hester at all really - you could indeed skip to book three of the Mortal Engines series, Infernal Devices and tell the tale of Wren, the daughter of Tom and Hester. T&H could then play more supporting roles.

Given how the character of Anna Fang is resurrected and turned into a Stalker in Wren's story, Anna Fang's 'bad guy' arc could be wound really epically into a central storyline, which sort of bounces off the season one story points so the conflicted character could come out to play.

Naturally, Jihae should play the adult Anna again.

Leave a Comment anna fang, jihae, netflix, predator's gold, television show

The full set of new Mortal Engines covers by Ian McQue including prequels

Scholastic have revealed the full set of new cover designs for the Mortal Engines quartet - and also the first look at the cover for Night Flights, the short stories collection that features Anna Fang.

The illustration of the art has been done by the pretty ace Ian McQue and was designed by Jamie Gregory.


The Illustrated World of Mortal Engines was co-written with Jeremy Levett - he did a Reddit AMA on the book and the collaboration with Reeve.

The prequel novels, Fever Crumb, A Web of Air and Scrivener's Moon have also had a make over:

Here's the cover for Night Flights:

Here's our review of Night Flights. It's a quick read but we kinda liked it.

Here's a quick doodle sketch Ian did of a traction city:

1 comment anna fang, ian mcque, jaime gregory, jeremy levett, night flights

Review of Mortal Engines: The Movie

Review of Mortal Engines 

This review of the Mortal Engines film is long, over opinionated and full of unnessary concern about how The Last Jedi played out.

Deal with it.

Oh, and spoilers.

Making movies is a risky game of kind. For the studios, it's a numbers game. The successful movies fund and offset the duds. Sometimes you throw some celluloid at a wall to see what sticks.

But no movie is going to get a green light if it's a gonna be a dud on delivery.

So at the face of it, Mortal Engines being a love story set against the background of a post-apocalyptic Earth where some of the remaining humans live on giant traction cities that eat other for precious resources in some kind of zero-sum game called Municipal Darwinism perhaps does seems like it has dud potential (in the eyes of a risk adverse studio exec anyway).

Just throw that celluloid!

Anyways, Peter Jackson steps up to the plate along with his offsiders, Fran Walsh and Pippa Boyens so the royal they let him throw some celluloid.

I think this is a phrase I just made up. I'm copyrighting it just in case.

So anyways a trio from New Zealand that has more Oscars between them than most major Hollywood production teams stepped up.

And so, with a bit of American cash and some Kiwi splash, yet another Kiwi Oscar winner, Christian Rivers, was unleashed to direct the adaption of Reeve's YA novel.

And when the first trailer was released this author truly feared a dud was on the cards. We didn't say this publically (yeah, we know but wanted to support this film) but it looked like a cool idea with a wrong color palette that got zapped by a taser on acid.

Or something.

Details slowly came out which suggested promise and finally, we saw Shrike we were feeling a lot better about things.

Was a story about giant cities eating each other with Sir Peter Jackson's name splashed over it going to get a leg over the other hordes of films released this month (Mary Poppins, Aquaman, Bumblebee) or would it be a one and done?

For this reviewer, one who is closely attached to the books, the associated lore Reeve has built up through short stories and prequels and the fans, I can't quite bring myself rate it as a "That will do pig, that will do" but I can sneak in a "The battle of Helm's Deep is over; the battle for Middle Earth is about to begin."....

By that I mean, where's my damn sequel already?

I look at this film like I look at Transformers movie where giant robots kick each other in the head or giant Yeagar rise up out of the sea to kill everyone a la Pacific Rim. You accept it, buckle in for the ride and enjoy it for what it is.

Which is:

Some. 

Big. 

Dumb. 

Fun!

If you look at Mortal Engines as a concept any other way, you're probably going to end up feeling like the hordes of fan boys and girls who hated The Last Jedi.

Because this film is not about a box of err... Roses.

What are you looking at Dear Reader?

So after all these words, what of the damn movie?

It's probably the most spectacular train wreck of a movie that I've ever seen. And I saw the Transformers sequel twice.

THIS MEANS I LOVE IT!

That said, I'm pretty sure the haters are gonna hate, hate, hate, but the players...

The players will turn this major motion picture by a Hollywood studio into a cult film.

I'm certain there will be legions of book readers out there who have turned each page with fear and trepidation as to what would befall Tom and Hester next, who will want to see what it looks like when London calls and when they do, their mortal hearts will be happy.

So what of the movie then?

The Love Story

The story of Mortal Engines is often pitched as a Young Adult love story (of an inverse kind) but this movie has aged the characters into their mid-twenties so the love story that evolves is more natural in a sense but it certainly feels like Tom Natsworthy and Hera Hilamr didn't stay up all night together drinking Steinlager and working on their characters before they began rolling film.

Or pressing play on the record button or however they do it these days.

Both are clearly excellent actors but the relationship feels stilted (even despite the plot point of it)  - that's presumably what happens when you change the character dynamic of Hester by not making her the ugliest girl on any traction city... They sure took the feral out of that girl.

But by the ending of the movie, it's a believable enough relationship and leaves that nonsense with Rose saving Finn at the end of The Last Jedi in the sands of Crait...

The Heroes

You know how in Stranger Things, the guy that sings Sledgehammer sung Heroes by David Bowie?

That should be Anna Fang's theme song. Despite some hokey one-liners, the casting of Jihae is a triumph of the film.

In the novel, Fang was inspired by Han Solo from Star Wars and in this film, she treads those boards as a badass so well, she may as well star in the next couple of prequels...

Time will tell on that.

There's many a supporting player in ME that can be classed as a hero too.

Chudleigh Pomery (superbly played by Colin Salmon)

Yasmina

Captain Khora

Nihls, oh Nihls.

All just great characters and well played by the actors.

They all have a chance to shine and do so very well - indeed Fang's Anti-traction league team are possibly one of the most underrated crews to have flown in an airship in recent times.

Anna Fang, naturally gets a special mention in dispatches all of her own

In the novel, Anna Fang is a mysterious bad ass.

Sensing a fine character in the making, Peter Jackson kept her as less mysterious but upped the ante in the bass add department.

The character is great fun.

It was wonderful to see the books' Jenny Hanniver come to life. Piloted by Fang, the airship is a central part of all four original novels so it was great to see it in action, even if it's now powered to be as fast and deadly as an F14 Tomcat.

Jiahe's delivery of a few lines is pretty loose (which heads into Star Wars' I hate sand territory) but if you can get past that, you'll see Anna Fang is one of the hearts of the movie that pumps along quite nicely, especially with a triple powered shotgun in hand...

The Villains

Mrrrrr Anderrrrsooon.

That was my proper introduction to Hugo Weaving as the Agent in The Matrix.

A Lord of the Rings alumni, Peter Jackson and team clearly love working with the man and why wouldn't you want to when he can turn on a dime as Elrond or Agent Smith and become this horrible, horrible man.

Have you seen The Lovely Bones where Transformers alumni Stanley Tucci plays a horrible child killer? Every scene with Tucch was in felt like I was being violated by the mere force of his acting.

Weaving does the same thing here.

He's a fucking psycho yet he doesn't even know it. He thinks that he is the good guy in all of this.

Sure, he knows he's cut a few corners here and there or the odd young girl's face or murdered his lover to get where he's going but he's done it all for London.

So it's OK then, you see?

Magnus Chrome, Mayor London. 

I expected good things but this was a kind of a by the numbers caricature of the character in a way.

Patrick Malahides's Chrome didn't feel like he was as dangerous as he did in the novel and the plot point change for this character doesn't help, but makes for a good movie.

Shrike

Did you know a shrike is a bird that impales captured insects on cactus thorns? It's very helpful if you know this going into the film...

When you ask a man with the gravitas of Stephan Lang to play Shrike, you hope that this is a casting that will flow on perfectly into the sequel films...

And it is.

Shrike is perfectly played by Lang.

Judging from interviews with him prior to the film's release, he really got into the lore of the character (we suspect he read ALL the novels) and put his achting heart into a character that in many ways literally and figuratively has no heart (or does he?!)

Lang's green-eyed version of The Terminator is a chilling representation of what could be humanity's future: an embryonic cyborg where feelings might matter, but killing is a preference. Make no mistake though, this character is not a retread of a classic 1980's robot killer, it's a whole new take on love, which the film's ending sequences slowly reveal in a most poignant manner. It's like Peter Jackson has read the books or something...

I loved the look and feel of the character and the action sequences that featured Shrike are just bang on the money, and reason enough to see the film alone.

What about the look and feel of the movie?

Being a Peter Jackson produced film where all the elements of his empire in Miramar, Wellington, NZ have been brought to bear, you'd expect this film to be a CGI gore fest.

And yes it is just that, but frankly, that's probably why PJ wanted to do this movie as there has never been ANYTHING like this on screen before (Can all those people talking about Howl's Moving Castle now please quietly shuffle along?).

This movie's effects are arguably the best that Weta Digital have ever produced. I'm not an expert at all but I suspect they are certainly some of the most complicated, apes aside.

Let's talk London.

When London is framed as a hulking metal mass, the angles are so menacing. When starring up at the screen in the opening chase, I felt like I was about to get squashed by the damn thing.

How do you show and project a city that's 2.5 kilometers long chasing a smaller traction city? This is not Darth Vader's Executor ship in Empire that just sittings unmoving in space, this city needs contrast around it as otherwise how will you believe what you are seeing?

And: Holy Cow Batman >> when that city rolled by as I sat in my seat, I truly felt I was about to be monstered by 100000 tonnes of cold British Steel.

So, it looks great.

Shrike as a CGI motion capture is some fine work and gosh, the ending where the Medusa weapon comes alive is just magical.

Airhaven was a visual spectacle and seems like a fun place to hang out, despite it being a little too easy for robot assassins to turn up and try and kill everybody.

The soundtrack

The music of Mortal Engines is composed by Tom Holkenborg and it is simply superb. One of the things that has infuriated me about the development of Mortal Engines is the comparisons people make to Mad Max: Fury Road.

Mortal Engines is not Mad Max, it's just Mad, Max.

But they do now share a composer.

Holkenborg is clearly one talented composer. The film soars with his music as it needs and there's some crucial, heart breaking moments in the film where it feels like his music is the thing that is turning the dagger in one's heart.

So what's bad about it?

If we're to get critical for a moment, and remember, we are accepting this movie as just some big dumb fun!, the acting is pretty clunky in parts - have a think to some of the early Star Wars films and you're on the mark. Indeed, the film has some key plot points from Star Wars.

Some of Anna Fang's revelatory speech to Hester is a bit OTT. I'd rather replace a broken LG dryer lint catcher than go through that again in a hurry.

There's also several plot points that have been changed which have some drastic effects on the story - so much so that in the film premiere the author Philip Reeve had to pause to figure out what was happening.

This is basically to say, Mortal Engines the movie has a very different ending than the book, but it works, even if it sneaks a moment which allows Tom Natsworthy to pull a Lando Calrissian move out of the Return of the Jedi playbook cross with a bit of The Guns of Navarone.

Katherine Valentine - well played as a character but went simplynowheree in terms of plot, like you could cut the character (and Bevis) and have no consequnce to the ending of the movie, which is completely different to the ending of the novel. 

If you've followed this site, you'll know we lamented that Hester's scar was toned down from 11 to 4. We got over it and enjoyed Hera Hilmar's version of Hester for what it is. FUN. Not FERAL. FUN.

The verdict?

Mortal Engines is a fun ride, a visual treat to enjoy while you eat overpriced popcorn.

We rate it a strong 7.5 out of 10.

It features a lot of talent on screen and behind it. While it differs from the book in many ways, this feels like the best version of the world of Mortal Engines that we ever could expect to see on the silver screen. 

Christian Rivers has done a fine job on his first gig as director and should be commended for making a decent BIG DUMB FUN! film. 

Sadly it appears the movie is a box office flop, on the level of John Carter of Mars.

Leave a Comment anna fang, christian rivers, hera hilmar, review, stephen lang

Anna Fang's 'in movie' wanted poster is from ... the movie

If you've spied that the Mortal Engines marketing has tracked up a notch, you'd be right and you may have seen this shot of Palt's Yard Dairy which supplies the city of London with cheese derived from algae.

Check out the picture of the wanted picture of Anna Fang on the video screen on the top right. Anna Fang is a spy and leader in the Anti Traction League and if you've read Night Flights or the original novel, you'll know she's no friend of London.

So having a wanted video of Anna Fang all makes sense.

What makes little sense is that the shot of Anna appears to be from within the actual movie, not at a time in the past.

See, here's a movie shot of Anna as played by Jihae:

It would seem a shot similar to this has been used by the production team for the Palt's Dairy warning sign - however, it's of Anna in 'movie real time' - presumably, the shot was supposed to be a warning for people prior to the events of the movie. Thus it's kind of an anachronism.

I could be wrong, Anna could stand around all day on London for pictures wearing the same coat with the collar in the same position against her neck, the same undergarment, and same glasses every time she visits London...

Or of course it could be a real time warning but where's the fun in that... we also know Anna often wears a red coat...

Leave a Comment anna fang, palt's yard dairy

Review of Night Flights by Philip Reeve

Does Night Flights stack up as a good read in the Mortal Engines realm?

I was both happy and sad to pick up my copy of Night Flights.

It’s collection of short stories written by Philip Reeve as kind of as a tie-in to the Mortal Engines movie. Reeve is on record that having met Jihae, the actress who has played Anna Fang in the movie, he was inspired to go back to some discarded story ideas from the novels and rework them into this collection.

He said:

"The original idea was just to re-publish an existing story, Traction City, with a lot of new illustrations. But while I was in New Zealand last year I talked to Jihae, who plays Anna in the Mortal Engines movie, and it made me realise we need More Anna Fang. So I thought a group of stories about her, at different points in her life, might be a more interesting idea."

Reeve kindly acknowledges this inspiration in a dedication to Jihae in the book.

Some mild spoilers probably follow...

Night Flights features a cover by Ian McQue and he has drawn a series of pictures that appear throughout, my favourite being his interpretation of a Stalker.

I was happy because I was going to be able to read some more about the coolest character in the novels, Anna Fang. She’s kind of the Han Solo of the first Mortal Engines novel and then the character goes into hyperdrive but you’d be best to read A Darkling Plain to understand that...

I was sad to pick up the book. The first being that it was probably the last set of stories to ever come out in the Mortal Engines series and the second that it was so thin! I knew there were only three stories but maybe my expectations were too high.

That out of the way, I’m delighted to report that the three stories are an excellent read. Each of them flesh out the character of Anna Fang (correctly pronounced as Fung we learn).

The first, Frozen Heart, is a great insight into how as a slave Anna Fang escaped on the Jenny Hanniver. The first two novels merely hinted at this backstory and with it so fleshed out here, it makes the character appear even more human and it certainly gives the character her own 'moral authority' for joining the Anti-Traction League.

The second, Traction City Blues, takes place on London itself.

While Anna is playing spy, she comes across a Stalker and a game of wits with the London Police, herself and the Stalker plays out. It’s good fun and once again (from the novels), Reeve demonstrates the humanity of a Stalker so very well.

The final story, The Teeth of the Sea, is a self-contained adventure were Anna is sent by the Anti Traction League to act as an assassin to kill the Sultana of Pulau Pinang Island.

It’s a well set up vehicle to show how Anna Fang not only believes she was on the right side of the ‘war’ against Municipal Darwinism but that her moral compass is hers alone and that she is not a killer that simply follows the orders of her Masters.

It’s a quick but fun romp around the island with a fantastic ending (as all short stories should have).

On either side of each story is a narrative that binds together the three stories very well and it has a very nice pay off which I can’t reveal here but for anyone who has read and enjoyed the very first novel, they will probably quite enjoy it.

You can probably read this book in less than an hour so Reeve has left this reader with a case of wanting more which is probably a good way to leave things.

I just can’t help wonder what a full length novel featuring the adventures of Anna Fung may have been like...

One day Philip?

Check out the book's availabity on Amazon.

Leave a Comment anna fang, night flights, philip reeve, review

Ian McQue's full cover of Night Flights

If you've been living under a disused traction wheel, you may gave missed that legendary concept designer and artist Ian McQue has recently drawn new covers for the first four Mortal Engines novels and the new shorty story collection about Anna Fang, Night Flights.

He has now released the full cover art in all its majesty!

If you've seen the recent Han Solo movie or played Grand Theft Auto, you've probably seen some of Ian's work!

Leave a Comment anna fang, ian mcque, night flights

Philip Reeve explains the stories of Anna Fang in Night Flights

Here's author Philip Reeve giving us the inside scoop on how the new short story collection Night Flights came to be - serving as a promotional tie-in for the forthcoming Mortal Engines movie, the novel gives the coolest character in the series a very strong back story.

Over to Philip:

The original idea was just to re-publish an existing story, Traction City, with a lot of new illustrations. But while I was in New Zealand last year I talked to Jihae, who plays Anna in the Mortal Engines movie, and it made me realise we need More Anna Fang. So I thought a group of stories about her, at different points in her life, might be a more interesting idea. It would have been nice to do five or ten, but I was busy writing Station Zero at the time, so I settled on three. 

Here’s a brief description of each. I’ve included some of Ian’s pictures, but only as thumbnails – you really need to see the book to appreciate them in their full glory.

FROZEN HEART

The first of the triptych is the story of how Anna Fang escaped from the slave-holds of Arkangel by building her own airship. It’s a tale which was referenced several times in the Mortal Engines quartet: Anna mentions it to Tom in the first book, and we hear it from Stilton Kael’s point of view in Predator’s Gold. 

But both of them are unreliable narrators who have twisted the facts to reflect better on themselves (or maybe in Anna’s case just to cut a long story short). Now, for the first time, the truth can be told… I’d written and cut various versions of this from various books in the quartet, so it’s nice to find a home for it at last.

TRACTION CITY BLUES

An earlier version of this story was published as Traction City, a World Book Day book in the UK back in 2011.  It’s been fairly heavily rewritten to place Anna at the centre of events. 

It’s set about twenty years before Mortal Engines, after Anna’s escape from Arkangel but before she joins up with the Anti-Traction League, and most of the action takes place aboard London, which is dragging itself over what’s left of the Alps in search of fresh prey on the plains of Italy. 

Little do most Londoners realise that they have picked up a very sinister stowaway…

THE TEETH OF THE SEA

In Mortal Engines, Anna mentions in passing one of her previous missions, to the island of Palau Penang. 

Combined with an idea that came up while Jeremy Levett and I were brainstorming predator towns for The Illustrated World of Mortal Engines, it sparked off this, the only completely new Mortal Engines story I’ve written since Scrivener’s Moon. Anna is older in this one, much closer to the Anna in Mortal Engines and an intelligence agent for the Anti-Traction League.

One of the problems of working up a throwaway remark into a full-length story is that it shows up the paucity of my original research. Is ‘Palau Penang’ meant to be modern-day Penang? I dunno – it was just the first name that sprang to mind when I was setting up a cheap’n’cheerful raisin/sultana joke, it never occurred to me that I’d be actually setting a story there twenty years later. 

After much fussing over atlases, I decided that it MIGHT be some much-altered future version of Penang and, equally, it MIGHT NOT. (Palau Penang means ‘the island of the areca nut palms’ I think, so it could well have been applied to another island by the time of Mortal Engines.) 

Wherever it is, Anna’s mission there leads her into dangerous waters and an unexpected alliance. Perhaps Anna Needed a reverse osmosis water purifier to make the water safe to swim in?

AIRHAVEN

All these stories are – hopefully – linked seamlessly together by the conceit that they are incidents Anna remembers while stopping at Airhaven on her way west to investigate London’s mysterious movements on the night she first meets Tom and Hester. 

When I was writing Mortal Engines she seemed like an enormously important character, but once I’d trimmed the manuscript down into its final, published form she had surprisingly little page-time. I hope these stories will work on their own for people who may not know Mortal Engines, or know it only from the movie. 

But I also like to think of them as a sort of expansion pack, restoring some of the lost AF backstory which I lopped out twenty years ago. If you’re re-reading Mortal Engines you could try stopping when she first appears, reading Night Flights, and then carrying on, with a bit more of Anna’s background coloured in.

Order Night Flights from Amazon. It's out in the UK now, and North America in September.

Leave a Comment anna fang, arkangel, frozen heart, ian mcque, night flights, philip reeve, the teeth of the sea, traction city blues

Who is Anna Fang from Mortal Engines?

Meet Anna Fang of the Anti Traction League 

Spoilers below for those who have not read the novel.

In the Mortal Engines novel, Anna Fang is an Asian aviator that Hester Shaw and Tom Natsworthy meet shortly after their 'expulsion' from the city of London.
She's mysterious.

She's cold.

Yet warm.

She might slice and dice you.

She might make you a cake.

When we first meet Anna it quickly transpires she is a pretty handy in a tight spot. Shortly after she meets Hester and Tom at Speedwell, they escape. At the floating city of Airhaen she saves Tom and Hester from the Shrike when he attacks.

Further into the novel Anna Fang leads a successful attack on  the pirate town 'Tunbridge Wheels' and destroys it. She then later picks up Tom and Hester for a second time. Despite knowing she is an Anti-Tractionist (which gives Tom concerns) our dynamic duo quickly find friendship with Anna.

Anna's mortal fate occurs at the end of the novel when she is killed by dastardly Thaddeus Valentine when he stabs her through the neck, during an epic sword fight.

But wait, there's more!

While plenty of people die in Mortal Engines, it's hard to keep a good anti-tractionist agent down and in the sequel Predator's Gold, her character is literally brought back to do. Pretty easy in a world where Stalkers roam eh?

So meet stalker Anna Fang

If you've got this far, you know of the stalkers.

They are the re-animated dead beings corrupted by unexplained technology from long dead civilizations.

Stalkers are usually under the control of their masters but it's hard to keep a good Anna Fang down....

In Predator's Gold, Anna Fang's body is stolen from her burial place by the rebellious 'Green Storm' and subjected to the re-animation process and brought back to life.

Stalker Anna Fang quickly assumes control of the Green Storm, absorbs the Anti Traction league and sets out to assert her will across the land. She basically becomes a military dictator.

This new version of Anna Fang proves to be a fantastic character as Philip Reeve casts her as a bit of a Jackel and Hyde character. While she is indeed a re animated corpse that's hell bent on the destruction of just about the entire human race, her original, more loving personality continues to bubble through.

Poor Fishcake gets to see both personalities as he escorts her on her mission to wreak havoc across humanity by using the ODIN weapon.

Eventually Stalker Anna Fang is killed by Professor Nimrod Pennyroyal, but only after the 'good' Anna Fang surfaced long enough to turn of the ODIN device.

What is Anna Fang's back story?

If one picks through the books one can work out some details about the life Anna Fang led prior to when we first meet her in the original novel. Of course one has to read all four novels in the series...

Here we go then.

Anna's life and thus back story begins as the child of air traders in the Ice Wastes.

When the family  airship was captured, she became a slave in the northern ice city of Arkangel, under the control of Stilton Kael (Whom readers of Predator's Gold, might know as 'Uncle').

As she grew, Fang managed to build the Jenny Haniver in secret by taking  parts from here and there like she was the subject of some kind of Johnny Cash song and then escaped in it.

Anna made her way to raft city Perfume Harbour. She  was eventually introduced to and ended up working as a spy for the Anti-Traction League. Her claim to fame was the destruction of mechanical cities that threatened the safety of  static settlements (anti tractionist) including the celebrated city of Marseilles.

Night Flights will add to the back story of Anna

When Philip Reeve's new short story collection Night Flights is released, we will be able to fill in all the details around Anna's back story because the stories are all about her!

"The official synopsis says the stories show gripping, moving, exciting moments in Anna Fang's life: her childhood as a slave aboard the moving city Arkangel, her daring escape, an attempt to sabotage the moving cities, a showdown against a Stalker, her free life as an intelligence agent for the Anti-Traction league, and an adventure into the haunted skies of the Dead Continent, America."

Who plays Anna Fang in the Mortal Engines movie?

Singer Jihae has stepped up to play the character. If you've seen the trailer for the Mortal Engines, you may have heard her singing a cover of Vera Lynn's There'll Always Be An England.

Check out Jihae's excellent cover version of the over-covered Hallelujah by Leonard Cohen.

Here's a sketch of Fang's ship, the Jenny Hanniver:

Here's a sweet sketch by char_loot1095 of Anna:

Here's the our heroes at Batmunkh Gompa:

Leave a Comment anna fang, anti traction league, arkangel, batmunkh gompa, fish cake, green storm, nimrod pennyroyal, stilton kael

Jihae's Anna Fang from Mortal Engines revealed

Looking like she stepped out of The Matrix, here's Jihae as Anna Fang from Mortal Engines.

This is a instant classic look - we love the red coat!

Leave a Comment anna fang, jihae