Fever Crumb (Mortal Engines Prequel #1) ~ Hardback ~ Philip Reeve

Outstanding new novel from the Carnegie-winning Philip Reeve. The author of the best-selling and critically beloved Mortal Engines quartet has written a stunning, stand-alone prequel.  Fever Crumb 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, ruinouse town, clinging to a devastated landscape and hiding in an explosive secret. Is Fever, an adopted daughter of Dr Crumb, the strange key that will unlock its dangerous mysteries?  Reviews "… Fever Crumb is a terrific read, a sci-fi Dickens, full of orphans, villains, chases and mysteries. There's even a balloon-chase climax. I worry that if you read it before reading the others, you'll miss out on the electric shock I had when I was plunged straight into that jungle of predator cities. Like The Magician's Nephew, or the story of how your parents met, it's a beginning better told at the end" Frank Cottrell Boyce, The Guardian, UK "Philip Reeve is a hugely talented and versatile children’s author….[he] evokes his world masterfully. Elegant parties where scents pour from lanterns and burning lamps hover in the dusk; kisses stolen in wintry parks; the dusty, benign chaos of an archaeologist’s house; the flash of a sealskin collar; the arrow-shaped markings on a Scriven’s cheekbone. The emotional journeys of his characters, too, are enthralling, never sentimental and always believable. This is both a thrilling slice of retro science fiction and an involving fable about a young girl coming to terms with herself. Any child over the age of 10 will find this a perfect introduction to Reeve’s other writings, and fans will not be disappointed." Philip Womack, Telegraph, UK "Reeve won last year’s Carnegie Medal for Here Lies Arthur; he is also the author of the Mortal Engines quartet - one of the most ambitious and imaginative children’s novel sequences of the past 10 years - as well as the ingenious Larklight series for younger readers. Yet he is not the household name he deserves to be, despite an ardent following of those in the know. Fever Crumb is a prequel to Mortal Engines, and is set millenniums from now in London. It explains the origins of a crucial character, and follows Fever Crumb, a girl who is trained to be rational but who moves into an irrational world where she is under threat and finds her own identity. Reeve’s future is always inventively old-fashioned and historical rather than hi-tech: mobile phones are ancient artefacts, the engineering quasi-Victorian. He conveys big truths, while being witty and playful - monks in orange robes chant the name of an archaic deity, “Hari, Hari, Hari Potter”; and one London district is called St Kylie. The book is clever and moving, and the vocabulary, from “arquebus” to “ziggurat”, is rich." The Sunday Times UK Author Biography Philip Reeve was born and raised in Brighton, where he worked in a bookshop for a number of years while also co-writing, producing and directing a number of no-budget theatre projects. Philip then began illustrating and has since provided cartoons for around forty children’s books, including the best-selling Horrible Histories, Murderous Maths and Dead Famous series.