Philip Reeve Audiobooks

Traction cities, chases and real human stakes: the Mortal Engines finale, A Darkling Plain

1 audiobook reviewed

★ 4.7/5 average

2 listener ratings

Who is Philip Reeve?

Philip Reeve (born 28 February 1966) is an English author and illustrator of children’s books, known above all for Mortal Engines, published in 2001, and the sequels that grew into the Mortal Engines Quartet over the five years that followed – the series that made his name and won him a devoted readership.

He is not a one-series writer, though. His 2007 novel Here Lies Arthur, drawn from the legend of King Arthur, took the Carnegie Medal, and the pairing tells you the range: invented futures on one side, Britain’s oldest stories reworked on the other. That he illustrates as well as writes only sharpens the sense of a complete world-builder.

Philip Reeve in audiobooks

Our catalogue carries A Darkling Plain, and it drops listeners into the territory Reeve is celebrated for: vast, perilous and restlessly inventive. His storytelling has the scale audio loves – journeys, pursuits and set pieces a narrator can really drive – with quieter human stakes underneath to stop the spectacle floating free.

For UK families he sits in that sweet spot where children’s fiction stops talking down to anyone: younger listeners get the adventure, adults get the craft. Series newcomers may prefer to begin at the beginning; either way, A Darkling Plain shows Reeve at full stretch, and it makes a strong case for hearing him rather than merely reading him.