London, as well as being a real city, is a Traction City in the Mortal Engines Quartet. It appears in "Mortal Engines", "A Darkling Plain" and the prequel "Fever Crumb".
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London is divided into seven tiers. This encourages the system of social classes, with the higher classes living at the top of the city and the lower classes living further down, closer to the noise and pollution of the city's massive engines. Above all of London sits St Paul's Cathedral, the only building from pre-traction times which is known to have survived.
At this time, the Mayor of London was Magnus Crome, who was also the head of the Guild of Engineers. The book began with London devouring the mining town of Salthook. However, little known to the citizens of London as yet that the Engineers and the Guild are gathering the ancient super weapon MEDUSA from the Sixty Minute War for several years. They finally finish the weapon and also create Stalkers by studying how Shrike was made. They use MEDUSA to destroy a city which is chasing them. Magnus Crome then turns London towards the Anti-Tractionist shield wall Batmunkh Gompa, to feast upon the static towns and if any town doesn't willingly let itself be eaten by London then MEDUSA would destroy it and the remains would be eaten anyway, then when all the cities are eaten they would turn the entire Earth into a planet which eats other planets. The Anti-Tractionists are unfazed by the threat as they believe they could destroy London with their fleet of airships. However after Thaddeus Valentine destroys the airfleet, the Anti-Tractionists are left defenceless. Tom and Hester return to London. Meanwhile the Guild of Engineers and the Guild of Historians declare war in the London museum. After a battle in St Pauls Cathedral to stop them firing the weapon, MEDUSA is left charging too long and the blast seemingly destroys all of London while Tom and Hester only just escape.
For twenty-one years London had been destroyed. Tom is surprised when he sees who he thinks is Clytie Potts, a historian apprentice when he was in the London Museum. They find out she is collecting little pieces of old tech and flying them off to a mysterious destination. There are rumors that London is haunted. Tom, Wren and Wolf Kobold travel to London on the Jenny Haniver. When they arrive they soon discover that it had not entirely been destroyed and that around two hundred people still lived in London. Some parts of London are full of left over energy from MEDUSA called ‘sprites’. Wren thinks they are just a trick until she sees a stalker birds get vapourised by one.
New London was a small town that was developed inside the wreck of London using spare parts and old-tech. It hovers on magnetic disks and can fly over land and water. It does not need to eat towns as it is supplied by the power of the Earth's gravity. When Wolf sees it he returns to Harrowbarrow which then returns towards London with the intent of eating new London and using the new technology to become a flying predator. However with the help of the Green Storm New London escapes. Wren Natsworthy and Theo Ngoni become citizens of New London. Wren says they will visit Zagwa often as well as returning to Anchorage-in-Vineland to visit their old friends occasionally.
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