Shine On, Scrivener's Moon...

While some areas of the Internet are awaiting the arrival of winter, here at HeroPress Towers it is as though Christmas has come early - with the appearance today of my review copy of Scrivener's Moon, the latest World Of Mortal Engines novel from Philip Reeve.

This is the concluding part of the Fever Crumb trilogy, that stands as a prequel to Mr Reeve's original Mortal Engines books.

The first thing that struck me about the book was the lovely map, spread across two pages inside the cover, of the futuristic Europe where these tales unfold.

One of the things that attracted me to fantasy novels as a child was the cartography and my bedroom wall was covered with posters of The Shire, Middle-Earth and Narnia long before Charlie's Angels and various bands started contesting them for space.

Maps also helped get me hooked on Dungeons & Dragons (and we all know how that worked out), and still hold a magical fascination for me, whether of real or imagined locales, for the stories outside the main story that they conjure in my imagination.

Don't forget, as I reported earlier, that Mr Reeve is offering a personalised copy of Scrivener's Moon in an auction in aid of the Japanese Tsunami Appeal by British Red Cross.

As I write this, that auction already stands at £80.