Customer Reviews

Fever Crumb (Mortal Engines Quartet)

5 star:		(9)
4 star:		(9)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Fever Crumb is a great book... with a rather silly name.

And I think that's probably the most disappointing part of the book. The others in the series are named Mortal Engines (taken from Othello), Predators Gold, Infernal Devices and A Darkling Plain (from a Matthew Arnold poem) which I believe are all great titles, yet Fever Crumb sounds a bit silly when compared.

However, as this is not a direct prequel and more just a book set in the same world I don't suppose it matters that much.

Fever Crumb is the main character in the book and it is her quest to find out who she really is. Along the way she will meet murderous Skinners (a group who helped over throw the previous dictatorship of the 'patchskins') insane Stalkers (cyborg soldiers) and the first of the Traction Cities.

Fast paced and full of action Fever Crumb is not a book that is easy to put down, but truth be told you probably wont need to put it down as it is sadly quite short. Fever is likeable, as are the other good characters, whilst the baddies are suitably frightening, but I cant help but feel its aimed at a slightly younger audience than the previous 4.

All in all this is a fun and exciting book which, although not as good as the other 4, is still a worthy addition to the series.

if this was a completely new book instead of a prequal to the mortal engines books i'd have given it 5 stars but having read all the other books in the series i know what Phillip Reeve is capable of and i just felt there was something missing, i cant even tell what it is but somethings missing :P
having said that the book is a great read and almost up to the other books standards, the characters are great and its amazing to learn some of the back stories to London in the books and some of the characters we already know, it's funny, dark and addictive but if i have one complaint its this, i find it funny when in the books things and places from our time are said wrong e.g st pickleel circus instead of picadilli or st kylie but he did go a bit overboard in this book, oh and at first i thought the title was stupid but once you know what it means it makes sense =S
its all good though and i hope this is just the start of a new mortal engines series based on Fever Crumb and i hope we dont have to wait long for the next :D

Having considered the Mortal Engines quartet to be as good as Philip Pullmans work, I was a little concerned a prequel might be a marketing mans idea- Mortal Engines really extends the range of what childrens fiction can do so why on earth cash in with a prequel "set centuries before the events of Mortal Engines". I am delighted to say my fears were unfounded. Reeve's new book is a wonderfully witty but also haunting and elegiac story that manages both to tell a rip-roaring, well paced story whilst also creating a world his readers will recognize and another fabulous set of characters that come off the page with real verve and drive. There are great jokes that will please his adult readers as well as colour and excitement aplenty for younger fans. Fever Crumb has an almost Dickensian resonance, whilst also managing to combine adventure, comedy and sure footed plotting with an ease that still astounds. Philip Reeve can be proud of his achievement. The prequel label ignores the fact that the story stands up in its own right and is a worthy introduction to the rest of the books. Crumbs, its good. My only caveat is the hardback editions huge hole on the cover which is rough to the hand and makes the book occasionally difficult to hold...however, there are no holes in the storytelling- Fever Crumb rocks!

I was excited to find that Philip Reeve had returned to the world he created in the Mortal Engines stories; they are in my view some of the most original ideas in recent years. This offering didn't disappoint.

As a prequel this book starts to explain how the world of the traction cities came about and to bridge the gap between the world we know and that distant future the author has created. As usual Philip Reeve has created characters who are engaging and through them he unfolds the story in a way that keeps one interested through to the last page. The clever and sometimes subtle nods to our world are amusing and remind us that just as the past has been lost and distorted by the passage of time so what we take for granted now will also be lost in the future. What will people make in the future of our cultural references!

There were a few aspects that were not as clear as they might have been; the plot got a bit convoluted. For that I have only given 4 stars but still a good read.

This is a somewhat different book from the previous Mortal Engines trilogy but so is the world it depicts. This is the Dark Age before the world of Mortal Engines and it reads somewhat 'younger' than it's predecessors I must admit but I think what Philip Reeve has done is really challenge us to consider how our own world changes and how we will change in time. This is the nadir of London's civilization -an angry, backwards, violent world where things happen to it, never controlled by it's denizens, Fever Crumb's journey is about the main character's taking control of herself as a person, and London with it. It is a fascinating precursor to the next book in this series...

When does a prequel then extend an original series, ( in this instance the Mortal Engines Quartet ), and when is it just a stand-alone companion? Well, I don't know, although I do think of the Quartet now a Quintet I also take other reviewers' points that it is really on its Todd.

Ok, minor muse/digression over, this is a great book. Philip Reeve brings a serious story to you in such a delightfully light, witty style, it is almost a paradox. You can be still on the dregs of a worthy chuckle when next thing someone is dead. But, I do stress. this is not a comedy as such.

The story involves a foundling, a baby named Fever, who grows up with the most practical of all breeds, the Order of Engineers. This is set in London, eons, ( well, centuries but eons sounds better ) before the main stories of the Quartet. But there are similarities as it is still well beyond our own time and cities are at least isolated grand fortresses even if not to the degree later on.

We are brought into the tale not too long after a civil uprising rids the city of its tyrannical rulers, the Scriven, these are a highly intelligent race who do not believe themselves to be human as we are, Homo Superior they jokingly refer to themselves. But their tyranny finally sees something snap and they were duly despatched by otherwise ordinary Londoners, who rise up and reclaim their city. But, and I know not everyone likes these too much in books ( myself I don't care a jot as long as it's still a good read ), the use of many flashbacks for certain characters let's us in on the time of Scriven rule, thus allowing greater understanding of current events.

I won't relate specifics, the book is too new to inadvertently introduce class one spoilers, but, I will say this, Fever, due to being brought up by the Engineers who of course come with a Spock-like devotion to reason and logic, goes through childhood and adolescence void of all emotions, either squashed out of her or due to it being ( almost . . . ) totally absent in her paradoxically caring but cold clinical guardians.

Mr Reeve, after reading this, is for my money, the best family-cum-kids author on the planet, just edging out the other Philip of Lyra fame and of course, JK. His writing style, is quite simply, fantastic, so much so it can make a long long tale seem like a breeze ( actually, none of his books are that long on their own, but I read the Quartet without breaks so it seemed like a mammoth single book. ) His humour comes in two main forms, he either makes you chuckle through bringing you the foibles of life in a delightfully whimsical style, mainly in dialogue but in the narrative on the odd occasion ( wait till you read the lines about the Londoners shouting who they want for their new leader ), or, he shoots you with a humorous buckshot, made of a literary alloy of in-jokes and references to our own culture here and now. Wait until you read who the LA style mantra-bleating zealots actually proclaim, I really did chuckle at that.

He also pays a clever but covert tribute to his peer, Philip Pullman, one or two of the chapters could just be in Lyra's haunts, brick marshes, alternative folks with coloured barges etc. I liked that, I really did.

Finally, whether a Quartet still, or now a Quintet, please, if new to the whole saga, do start with this, it's just like the later Star Wars films, all six make sense if you start with the Phantom menace, but here of course, it's Fever Crumb.

Set centuries before the events of Mortal Engines, the story is much in the same vein, steampunk machines and devastated landscapes with the odd reference to contemporary culture.
Funny, exciting and with some heart wrenching moments, i couldn't recommend this more for children and adults alike.

The Mortal Engines series undoubtedly ranks among my favourite books, and so when I discovered that Philip Reeve had written a prequel, I felt excitement and trepidation in equal measure. Would it enrich the universe I'd enjoyed so much, or ruin it?

It is certainly a good read, as engineering apprentice Fever Crumb finds herself embroiled in impending war, simmering tension among the people of London, and her own mysterious parentage. As usual, Reeve conjures a host of interesting characters, and the novel moves at a quick pace which will keep younger readers hooked.

Fever Crumb also provides an insight into the history of Mortal Engines. For example, we discover the origins of traction cities, the stalker Shrike, and even one of London's gods. But in a way I found that this actually detracted from the universe Reeve had created. When I first read Mortal Engines, it was the suddenness of the immense imagination that thrilled me. There was no explanation as to how cities had become wheeled, and I think that added to it's magic. Likewise, knowing who Shrike was before he was 'Stalker-fied' diminishes his menace and power, similar to what the Star Wars prequels did for Darth Vader.

Fever Crumb is a rollicking ride, and a very entertaining book (even if the references to the old world, including a certain boy wizard, are a little heavy handed), but some people may find that it doesn't add to the Mortal Engines universe so much as it detracts from it.

I'm a big fan of mr reeve and his traction cities quartrt. This book doesn't disappoint and is the usual mix of odd science and history-here we have the downsizing rather than the original 6 minute war (i might be wrong with the time!)-explains shrike and quirkmas ok-almost made me re-start the originals. Hope we get a sequel to the prequel.

Slightly tamer than the original series of dystopian novels by Philip reeve and not quite the fascination of municipal Darwinism but altogether an intriguing and enjoyable foray into how our world became Tom and Hester's.