Fever Crumb

Synopsis: "Fever Crumb" is a stunning, stand-alone prequel to Philip Reeve's brilliant science fantasy quartet. It is set many generations before the events of Mortal Engines, in whose dazzling world huge, predatory cities chase and devour each other. Now, London is a riot-torn, ruinous town, clinging to a devastated landscape and hiding an explosive secret. Is Fever, adopted daughter of Dr Crumb, the strange key that will unlock its dangerous mysteries?

Review: I hadn't read any of the 'Mortal Engine' books so I had no idea what to expect from this prequel. It's a story set in futuristic London, a story about Fever, an orphan, abandoned at birth and brought up by scientist Dr Crumb. She is the youngest member and only female of the Order of Engineers.

Fever has had a practical, unemotional upbringing and is very realistic and serious. She has a shaven head, hair is .. 'just a vestige of our animal past and provides a home for lice and other parasites'. She drinks boiled water .. 'it is deeply irrational that dried leaves should be transported halfway around the world aboard ships and land barges simply to flavour water. Besides tea is a stimulant, which leads to nervousness and irrationality' and she cannot see the purpose of jokes.

London had once been ruled by The Scriven, who were brilliant, cruel and not entirely human .. they liked to call themselves 'Homo superior'. However, like most mutant strains, they hadn't thrived for long. Largely unsuccessful in breeding and held in contempt by native Londoners they were sought out and slaughtered in an event known as the 'Skinners Riots'.

One day Fever is sent on a placement to archaeologist Kit Solent's house, he has specifically requested that she help him study some artefacts. But her odd coloured eyes and shaven head evoke suspicion in some of the native Londoners, and it isn't long before the Skinners get wind of this odd looking traveller and set about trying to track her down.

She expects to be taken by Kit to some ancient site, but instead he takes her to a secret passage that runs underneath his house. The passage leads to a chamber in which there is a door, with no handles or hinges .. just a 'lectronic keypad'. It requires a code to break it and for some strange reason, Kit expects Fever to know that code and even stranger than that is that Fever thinks she does remember that code.

She starts to find her stay at Kit Solents house unsettling, she begins to have thoughts and feelings that she's never experienced before. She wonders about her past, who were her real parents?. She begins to remember things, memories of other yesterdays which could not possibly have been hers for she has always lived at Godshawk's Head with Dr Crumb.

And all the while a huge army makes it's way South, tribes of people from the North who have been set wandering by the plagues and firestorms. Travelling in gigantic wagons and traction castles, huge cities moving ever onwards towards the 'Moatway' gates and London.

I thought the writing was fantastic, if Dickens had ever written a futuristic novel for children then it would be very much like this one .. with the Skinners, the Scriven and the Patchskins .. The Mott and Hoople Pub, Pickled Eel Circus, Cripplegate, Stragglemarket and St Kylie. Clearly Philip Reeve is a David Bowie fan as there is graffiti saying 'This ain't genocide, this is rock'n'roll' and there is also a pub called 'Scary Monsters and Super Creeps' (also Fever has mismatched eyes as Bowie has). Central to it all is Fever, and though she is a weird little unemotional thing, you can't help but be interested in her and anxious about her welfare.

Apparently, though this is a prequel, it's best if you read it last. I haven't done that but I'm still interested to read the others because they sound even more fantastic.