It was a dark, blustery afternoon in spring, and the city of London was chasing a small mining town across the dried-out bed of the old North Sea.

The one thing worse than an enemy is a friend turned false.

Moving cities are a fairly hoary old sci-fi trope - I seem to recall they were always cropping up on Doctor Who when I was young, though I may be misremembering.

But we're alive, and together, and we're going to be all right.

As a child I always steered clear of science fiction, but in the autumn of 1977 the bow-wave of publicity for the first Star Wars movie had already reached me, so I was eager for anything science-fictional.

It was a dark, blustery afternoon in spring, and the city of London was chasing a small mining town across the dried-out bed of the old North Sea.

I used to be very fascinated by Victorian stuff, and my best known books, the Mortal Engines series, have a sort of retro, Victorian vibe, despite being set in the far future.