Reginald Paul

“Miss Kropotkin!” Spiney shrieked. “Fetch help! Fetch help at once, or I’ll make sure you end up photographing pet shows and garden parties for the rest of your worthless —” And with a presence of mind that ensured she would never have to photograph another pet show as long as she lived, Miss Kroptkin raised her camera as the net gave way, and took the picture that would appear on page one of the next edition of The Probe beneath the headline Writers Perish In Airhaven Death Plunge Horror.”
― Philip Reeve, A Darkling Plain

“I’ve been operating undercover to discover her whereabouts. All that stuff you read in the papers was just a ruse, designed to make the enemy think I was in disgrace. I’ve actually been working for the Murnauer”
― Philip Reeve, A Darkling Plain

“Tom gazed down at the tiny forms of Londoners clambering over the new city, laying cables, welding girders, marking out the shapes of streets and buildings on the bare deckplates. “But it’s got no wheels,” Wren pointed out. “I can see you don’t know what Mag-Lev stands for, my dear,” said Dr. Childermass. “It’s a code name, isn’t it?” asked Tom, who didn’t know, either. “Oh no,” Dr. Childermass said. “Mag-Lev is just a shorter way of saying Magnetic Levitation.” “It floats!” said Wolf, gazing down at the new city entranced. “Like a gigantic hovercraft …”
― Philip Reeve, A Darkling Plain

“They seemed simple people, and he imagined that their society had no machines at all, but as they brought him through the town gates he saw delicate airborne ships of wood and glass rising like dragonflies from tall stone mooring-towers. Silvery discs, like misty mirrors, swivelled and pivoted on their undersides, and the air beneath them rippled like a heat-haze.”
― Philip Reeve, A Darkling Plain