What to Read After Mortal Engines

You closed Mortal Engines and the traction cities are still rolling around in your head. You want the next book to feel like that — big machines, crowded skies, and a young hero thrown into a world that won’t slow down for anybody. The closest matches are Leviathan by Scott Westerfeld, Airborn by Kenneth Oppel, and Autumn’s Anthology by J.B. Ramsey, a 41,000-word steampunk adventure about a young adult asking the question nobody else will ask: why did the sky fall?

Here are the picks, from the famous ones to the one you probably haven’t found yet.

Leviathan by Scott Westerfeld

If Mortal Engines hooked you with its alternate-history machinery, Leviathan is the natural next stop. It retells the First World War with a twist: one side fights with living, fabricated creatures, while the other marches in giant steam-driven war machines. The centerpiece is the Leviathan itself, a vast flying whale that works as an airship. It’s fast, playful in places, and built around two teenagers from opposite sides of the war. It’s also the first book of a trilogy, so there’s plenty more waiting if it lands.

Airborn by Kenneth Oppel

Airborn takes the airship idea and makes it the whole world. Matt Cruse is a cabin boy aboard the Aurora, a luxury airship crossing the ocean, and he’s never happier than when he’s aloft. Then pirates attack, a strange island appears on the horizon, and a quiet job turns into a rescue mission. It’s lighter than Mortal Engines — more swashbuckle than war story — and a great pick for younger teens, or for anyone who wants the adventure without the grim parts.

Fever Crumb by Philip Reeve

The sneaky answer to “what do I read after Mortal Engines” is: more Philip Reeve. Fever Crumb goes back to London long before it grew engines, when the city still sat still and strange orders ruled it. Fever is a foundling raised by engineers, which gives you the same London flavor and the same wry voice, with fresh eyes on how Reeve’s world got built. And if you never finished the original quartet, A Darkling Plain closes out Tom and Hester’s story properly.

Boneshaker by Cherie Priest

This one’s for older readers. Boneshaker is set in a Seattle walled off from the world after a massive drilling machine cracked the earth and let out a gas that turns people into the shambling dead. Airships drift over the wall, smugglers run the skies, and a mother slips back inside the poisoned city to find her runaway son. It’s grittier and more adult than the rest of this list, but the steampunk atmosphere is thick enough to chew on.

Autumn’s Anthology by J.B. Ramsey

Here’s the one most readers haven’t found yet. Autumn’s Anthology is a sci-fi/steampunk prose novel — about 41,000 words, a Prologue plus 31 chapters — so next to Reeve’s epics it’s a quick, one-or-two-sittings read. Autumn Gail is a young adult, red-haired, and full of questions about the day the sky fell and humanity lost its own history. Her world runs on Ark technology: wingless copper dirigibles with smooth, clean hulls (the engines, crew, and passengers all ride inside), wheel-less Ark Cycles that hover at ground level, and Ark Power Cores that glow blue. The book’s whole mood fits in its tagline: “Every journey changes you.” If you loved the roaming, mechanical-world feeling of Mortal Engines but want something tighter and faster, start here.