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mortal engines world map project

Lowtuff

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just a project of mine i've been working away at for a while now...
i just love this ridiculous, thoughtful, punny universe a lot ok
there isn't really much in the way of helpful context i can think of for anyone who hasn't read mortal engines / its related books, but.
  1. *there's a fair amount of worldbuilding not just in the fever crumb books, but also in additional material like the traction codex. so i'm working from that in addition to the first 4
  2. *here are the basics: some Time In The Future the earth is sent to hell and back* in an apocalyptic conflict called the 60 minute war. orbit-to-earth kinetics and atomics, ultra-effective bioweapons, asteroid-based revenge weapons & various technologies humanity would have best left untampered are all used in some kind of final conflagration between the ancients. humanity struggles on through the darkness and bleak prospects of their new world
  3. *what. do you expect me to list out all the juicy stuff in the books.
  4. *they're really good!!
  5. *it's an amazing universe and i'd be liable to be doing you a disservice by not letting you discover it for yourself
feel free to ask questions or talk mortal engines or whatever!
 
I feel like you're missing the newer mountain ranges there.
i'm counting my blessings i don't have to show topography. i've tried to show glaciation in the mountains of the moon (northwest of uganda), tannhausers in europe and the massive uplift in western china (zhan shan, batmunkh gompa, etc). still not sure quite how to do that justice, but if i get this done it does open up the door for elevation or climate.
 
Funny, I had always imagined that the changes would be a lot more pronounced than that. I guess because the North Sea drying out and the nature of the geographic changes lead me to think that some serious shit must have gone down. I can't atm remember if the meditarranean is ever directly mentioned. Were any of the features pure artistic license?
 
Funny, I had always imagined that the changes would be a lot more pronounced than that. I guess because the North Sea drying out and the nature of the geographic changes lead me to think that some serious shit must have gone down. I can't atm remember if the meditarranean is ever directly mentioned. Were any of the features pure artistic license?
oh, tons surely must be. i started on this quite a while ago (and then completed much more in a recent burt) so some of the reasoning is a bit hazy to me, but i was mostly just aiming for a cohesive 'feel'.
great britain and the north sea were more or less picked wholesale from the map in scriveners moon, and wherever there is mention of a place in the books i've tried to make it fit in.
fwiw the canon answer of 'whats going on with britain' more or less is that the ancients did SOMETHING that sunk the crust down at the atlantic coast and elevated the north sea in turn. similarly esoteric effects can be seen in other aftereffects of widespread volcanism after the war. ofc, who knows what impossible weapons were volleyed alongside the meteors, particle weapons, nukes, etc.
the med is mentioned a fair bit yeah! off the top of my head; (usually) called the middle sea, hosts a local food chain of raft cities.
there's an illustrated guide to mortal engines coming out in november or thereabouts, so that may well give some extra tidbits for geography and all sorts besides.
 
there's an illustrated guide to mortal engines coming out in november or thereabouts, so that may well give some extra tidbits for geography and all sorts besides.
First of all, excellent map and very well done, as a long-time fan of the series, though I admit I still have to fully finish the last book or so of the Fever Crumb series. Also, I wasn't aware of the illustrated guide, do you have more on this? It's exciting to hear the series isn't dead.
 
First of all, excellent map and very well done, as a long-time fan of the series, though I admit I still have to fully finish the last book or so of the Fever Crumb series. Also, I wasn't aware of the illustrated guide, do you have more on this? It's exciting to hear the series isn't dead.
awww ty!
yeah, they're releasing a bunch of new covers for the original books as well, what with the movie and all. the illustrated guide should be coming out in the vicinity of november. in the meantime, if you've not read the traction codex it's a lil 'guide to mortal engines' style book that was published for a world book day or something like that; you should be able to grab a digital copy for a pound or two.
oh and there's another book coming out?? like a short story about anna fang.
 
Hmm. I actually prefer the old ones. Those covers look just a bit... dead? I mean just compare the first one in each (I'm having to use the large image for the new one)

Screen-Shot-2018-03-28-at-18.04.28.png


I mean OK, London itself is a lot more imposing in the new one (and the Jenny is just hopelessly inaccurate in the old one), but fundamentally the old one is more dynamic, we've got movement, visual diagonals drawing the eye across from one side to the other, a sense of action. The new one is just... well it's a figure standing still in front of something. There's not much going on really.

The best way to put it, is that if you cut out the figures in the foreground, I'd love to have a poster of the cities themselves as shown there, but I'm not sure I'd have been as likely to buy these books as the old ones if I didn't know about them.
 
awww ty!
yeah, they're releasing a bunch of new covers for the original books as well, what with the movie and all. the illustrated guide should be coming out in the vicinity of november. in the meantime, if you've not read the traction codex it's a lil 'guide to mortal engines' style book that was published for a world book day or something like that; you should be able to grab a digital copy for a pound or two.
oh and there's another book coming out?? like a short story about anna fang.
Wow, there's a film coming out too? I am mortally (heh) behind in my knowledge of the series, apparently, though it leaves me rather excited. I do have to agree a bit with @Alex Richards on the covers, though I hope that the re-releases will get more people reading. I'll check out the traction codex while I'm at it and hope to get the illustrated guide as well. Thanks very much for the information!
 
These are looking really good :)

I walked past Philip Reeve at Cheltenham Lit fest and didnt realise until that following evening . damn
 
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