Larklight

Description

From the author of the international blockbuster Mortal Engines, adapted by visionary Peter Jackson, Larklight is an utterly unique and page-turningly brilliant Victorian space adventure Art Mumby is just a normal boy living in space, but all that changes when an ancient race of gigantic white spiders called the First Ones arrive to seize his family home, Larklight. Forced to flee, Art and his annoying sister Myrtle are chased across the galaxy, from the fiery rivers of Mars to the distant rings of Saturn. But the First Ones have trouble on their hands. They don't bank on Art falling in with Jack Havock and a motley crew of notorious space pirates ...

Philip Reeve's debut novel, Mortal Engines, was published in 2001. It won the Smarties Gold Award, the Blue Peter Book of the Year Award and the Blue Peter 'Book I Couldn't Put Down' Award. Four sequels followed, the last of which, A Darkling Plain, won both the Guardian Children's Fiction Prize and the Los Angeles Times Book Award. The brilliant trilogy of steam-powered Victorian space adventures, Larklight, Starcross and Mothstorm followed, to critical acclaim, as well as a novel set in Dark Age Britain called Here Lies Arthur, which won the 2008 Carnegie Medal. Philip and his wife Sarah moved from Brighton to Devon in 1998, and now live on Dartmoor, where their son Sam was born in 2002. David Wyatt has illustrated many beautiful covers for authors including Terry Pratchett and Philip Pullman. He lives in Devon and is a keen lutist, cyclist and wanderer of the moors.

Reeve's mechanical fantasy world is every bit as enthralling as in his Mortal Engines, and Wyatt's illustrations add to the fascination * Independent * Larklight is completely engrossing, miss-your-tube-station excellent * Telegraph * Remarkable ... Out of this world * Sunday Times *