Goodreads Mobile | see what your friends are reading

May 09, 2011

Phoebe rated it:

It's an odd world we live in, is it not? Otherwise how can Philip Reeve write about using 'Cheesers Chrice' as a curse and 'blogger' as an insult? Or about people who think a persisting skin mutation is a sign of racial superiority and then those who hunt them out of jealousy but says its in the name of peace? And what about those technomancers who play with dials and screws while chanting to the machines like they're gods? So many things that Reeve present to us are written in such a way that t More...

0 comments like (6 people liked it)

Jan 26, 2012

Lissa rated it:

Philip Reeve packs so much into what seems like too few pages to hold all of the characters and events that unfold in the first volume of his new series. Set in the same world as his Mortal Engines quartet, in a distant future London.

Fever Crumb is a foundling girl raised by the super-rational Order of Engineers. She ventures into the wider world in the employment of archaeologist Kit Solent. As she is confronted with the irrational world outside of the Order, her confusion is compoun More...

0 comments like

Jan 18, 2012

Spark740 rated it:

Well, this is a steampunk book if you've ever read one. It takes place in a vauguely post-apocalyptic London. Fever Crumb is the only female in the Order of Engineers, and when London is attacked, she starts to find out startling facts about her past, who she is, and exactly whose brain is in her head. Philip Reeve has a comfortable writing style and many sly allusions to things that exist now that make the reader chuckle. I certainly did anywyas. While a few of his characters could have use More...

0 comments like

Dec 04, 2011

Shang-chi rated it:

The book name ‘Fever Crumb’ is based on the girl in the book. She lives with Dr. Crumb who trains her as an engineer. After a while she uncovers a mysterious secret about her true parents… I think that this book was quite strange and different from other books as it created completely new things and a new world. When I read the first chapter I was quite fascinated about the book. Even though I could not understand what was going on, I suddenly knew that it was different and I wanted to know mor More...

0 comments like

Jun 17, 2011

Belann rated it:

Fever Crumb was the adopted daughter of Dr. Crumb. He has often told her the story of how he found her in a basket and knowing he could not take her to the orphanage destroyed by the Skinner riots, he took her to his home. Fever grows up in a man's world of engineers. Her head is shaved and she is taught not to give into sentimentality. She must think and behave like an engineer, suppressing emotions. When she is sent on her first job to help Kit Solent on a secret archeology project, she h More...

0 comments like

May 02, 2011

Sarah added it

Another in a line of books positing what our future will be like. In this book, Fever Crumb is orphaned and raised by the Order of Engineers. The engineers strive for a logical existence, shunning all displays of emotion, in their search for how things work. Fever is the only female living in Godshawk's Head, the home of the engineers...it really is a head!...and she shaves her head since having hair is illogical.

Fever searches for the meaning of her existence as she More...

0 comments like

Mar 05, 2011

Kermit's BFF rated it:

This book gets two stars because the beginning interested me and because the writing was kinda good.
Kinda.
Otherwise...it just didn't do it for me. At all. While the plot elements reminded me of a combination of
The Lab and Skulduggery Pleasant I found it rather lacking.
Fever (what kind of a name is Fever anyway?) Crumb has been raised by a bunch of old guys who shave their heads bald and work at being rational. No emotions. And they live in a giant head where the door is More...

0 comments like

Mar 03, 2011

Maureen rated it:

by Philip Reeve

Opening line: "That morning they were making paper boys."

This book! Is so good! I loved it! I am exclamatory!

After Londoners overthrew their Scriven overlords, Dr. Gideon Crumb, a member of the often-reviled Order of Engineers, found "a baby in a basket with an old blanket laid over her and a label tied around her wrist, upon which someone had written just four words: Her name is Fever." So he took the child back to London, to Gods More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Jan 13, 2011

Jan rated it:

"Her name is Fever." These four words are the only clue to Fever Crumb's identity. When she was a baby, she was found abandoned in a basket by Dr. Crumb, a highly respected member of the Order of Engineers, an organization that prides itself on reason and logic. Despite the fact that the Order does not believe that the female mind can be logical, as Fever grows up, she becomes, at the age of 14, one of the Order's brightest and most rational students. Soon, though, she must say goodbye More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Dec 29, 2010

nicole rated it:

I am in love with this book.

It was so hard to put down to do anything -- bathe, compile a Halloween costume, have normal face-to-face conversations with friends I haven't seen in far too long. No matter where I was physically, my mind was still in the complex steam-punk world that Reeve built. Fever reminds me a little of Lyra in The Golden Compass, with her education and origin story, but she also felt like a new creature. After watching the first 20 minutes of Coraline with 15 clas More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Nov 08, 2010

BookKids rated it:

Set a few hundred years after the fall of our own civilizations, London is still recovering from the revolution which freed the commoners of the oppressive rule of the Scriveners, a slightly mutated form of human. In this world, Fever Crumb is the first female to ever live in the prestigious Order of Engineers, known for their aesthetic lifestyle and adherence to logic. She has never much left the Order’s home until a former Engineer, Kit, requires her help at an archeological dig. For some re More...

0 comments like (2 people liked it)

Sep 11, 2010

Becky rated it:

Fever Crumb came highly recommended by one of my best friends, and although I didn't love it, I did enjoy it and I can definitely see why she liked it. The characters are fun and likable (or, in the villains' cases, distinctly unlikable), the story-world is very well-developed, the story is intriguing, and it's funny. One thing I particularly liked: in this new post-apocalyptic world, they use a lot of our words to mean different things, and "blog" is a swearword! Also, someone has dis More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Sep 10, 2010

Aaron rated it:

The master of steampunk for teens returns to his disturbing futuristic Hungry City Chronicles with an interesting prequel that introduces how the world found itself with traveling city and a culture that seems to have fallen backward in time when it comes to technology.

His newest heroine is Fever Crumb, a 14-year-old orphan being raised by an Engineer. While girls are not normally allowed into the Order of the Engineers, she has been educated in order to be one of them. Her adoptive More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Aug 21, 2010

Lesley rated it:

Man, I love Philip Reeve. He has such a way with words--language is as significant a part of his books as the story, characters, setting, themes, etc., and those are pretty great, too. Do be prepared to have your heart wrenched around a good bit--his are not happy-go-lucky tales. Like his other SF, Fever Crumb does what all good SF should do: show us how people are changed by changes in technology, both on a broad society level and on a very intimate personal level. He also manages to weave a fa More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Aug 19, 2010

Nicola rated it:

Reason for Reading: The plot was intriguing and this is my type of book.

A foundling baby girl found by the Order of Engineers, a male society, is taken into the fold and raised to be one of them. The baby came with a note stating her name is Fever and since Dr. Crumb found her it was reasonable that he was the one who took the main caregiver role. 14 year-old Fever is now being sent off to assist an archaeologist, Kit Solent, in his home but when she arrives there she starts having mem More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Jul 11, 2010

Rebecca rated it:

Philip Reeve is a brilliant writer, and this book deserves all the starred reviews it received. I only gave it four stars because of the bleakness of its post-apocalyptic world--not my genre! Fans of the Hungry Cities Chronicles will devour this book because it explains the origin of the traction cities, as well as other things that appear in the series. What I really liked was how Reeve managed to create a world that incorporated elements from all ages of the world, not just the 21st century, w More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Jul 05, 2010

Eva rated it:

This exciting steampunk novel stands alone; no knowledge of the Hungry Cities series is required, though it may well lead readers to those wonderful books. As with all Reeve's books, there is plenty of action in the form of riots, romances, strange and terrible technology, battles, and more. There is also a Dickensian element, with a young mistreated orphan boy, Charley Swallow, being taken on as a helper by the obsessed, glint-eyed Skinner named Bagman. And this London, though much transformed More...

0 comments like

Jun 25, 2010

Lady rated it:

I love all of Philip Reeve's work and the Mortal Engines Quartet is a particular favorite of mine. When I heard that Reeve was making a couple of prequel books I was ecstatic! Unfortunately, "Fever Crumb" just doesn't quite live up to the glory of its predecessors. In the general stream of Science Fiction, this was an excellent book and really well done, but it paled in comparison to Reeve's other work so it balances out at four stars. That said though, I can't wait for the next one... More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Jun 15, 2010

Abby rated it:

I was thrilled to learn that Philip Reeve had written a prequel to the Hungry City Chronicles, one of my all-time favorite SF series, and I was glad to find this book just as riveting and cleverly imagined as the other four books in the series. Taking place about 1000 years before the events described in Mortal Engines and the rest of the Chronicles, London is not yet a mobile city but exists in a state of early modernity, centuries after the highly advanced civilizations of our era destroyed th More...

0 comments like

May 27, 2010

Laila Jamila rated it:

A few years before the start of the story strange human-like creatures called Scriven attacked and took over London, but people started to dislike their race and killed most of them off. When the story starts, a girl who thinks she is an orphan works as an engineer. One day she is taken to go and live for a while with an archaeologist to help him unlock a secret underground door leading to a room that is filled with one of the most powerful Scriven's belongings.

Why when she goes the More...

0 comments like

May 23, 2010

M. rated it:

This book is set in a future London in which all understanding of technical matters has been lost, but the residents of this future London use bits and pieces of ancient technical artifacts to meet their current needs. Fever Crumb, a 14-year old girl orphan, has been raised by the Society of Engineers to study and use whatever artifacts are found, but above all else, she has been raised to avoid any emotion and to concentrate only on what is rational and logical.

Fever's London use More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

May 11, 2010

Madeline rated it:

If you have ever read Philip Reeves’ Mortal Engines series, you know that he has crafted an amazing post-apocalyptic world where giant moving cities gobble up one another in a kind of Municipal Darwinism.

In Fever Crumb, Reeves’ new prequel to the series geared towards a slightly younger reader, Reeve shows you how that fascinating world came to be.

Set a few hundred years after the fall of our own civilizations, London is still recovering from the revolution which freed th More...

0 comments like

May 01, 2010

Lisa added it

Fever Crumb is a girl who is adopted and raised by the Order of Engineers in London, the sole female member of a group that does not consider women to be capable of rational thought. Fever has spent her entire life among the strictly rational engineers, never seeing the outside world until she is sent to assist the archaeologist Kit Solent. Fever is to aid Solent in exploring the palatial ruins of the last ruler of London, who was violently deposed by the common people when Fever was just a baby More...

0 comments like

Apr 11, 2010

Sara rated it:

Set in a futurist London, Fever Crumb follows a 14 year old girl who was orphaned at birth and raised by Dr. Crumb, a member of the all male society of engineers. The book follows the girl as she learns more about her past and parentage.
I found this book to be entertaining and very well written. (For some reason I am really drawn to post apocalyptic books and appreciate when authors make reference to how modern cultural references have survived and morphed through time - ie the religious More...

0 comments like

Apr 06, 2010

Erin (Bookish in a Box) rated it:

Fever Crumb follows fourteen year old Fever Crumb as she's sent away from the only home she's ever known to work for a former Engineer. While away from her haven, she learns about her past and that she's more than she ever could have imagined.

After I received Fever Crumb for review, I discovered that it is intended as a prequel to the Hungry City Chronicles, which I have never read. I was concerned that I would be completely lost during Fever Crumb, but I needn't have worried. It sta More...

0 comments like (2 people liked it)

Mar 29, 2010

khcpl teen rated it:

Fever Crumb is the only girl in the Order of Engineers. In fact, she was raised by a member of the order, Dr. Crumb who found her as an infant, and deemed that it was only rational that he raise her. So fever has learned to be rational, to think like an engineer, and assist Dr. Crumb. When an archeologist by the name of Kit Solent request that Fever help him on his current dig, things for Fever change dramatically. Meanwhile to the north of the city a movement of nomads threatens London. In More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Oct 20, 2009

TDF Pamela rated it:

As the description says, this book is a prequel to the Mortal Engines series, which I have not read. Luckily, it is written so well that prior knowledge of the events of Mortal Engines isn’t needed to enjoy the heck out of this book.

Fever Crumb was raised by Dr. Crumb in the Order of Engineers and is a very rational girl. However, her commitment to the Engineers’ rationality is strongly tested when the secrets of her past begin to resurface and she finds herself in the middle of a dang More...

0 comments like (4 people liked it)

Oct 04, 2009

Krys rated it:

Let me preface this by admitting one thing. I adore Philip Reeve. Wholeheartedly and unabashedly adore. That said, I felt myself drifting through this book... reading it because I felt I had to. This may have been timing, I had an ARC copy for review and had to read it when I acquired it. What I would have much rather done with it was wait for the winter months and cozied up on a chair with a hot tea and a blanket and just enjoyed it. Or I needed to, perhaps, have read more than just the first b More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Aug 03, 2011

Andrea rated it:

It is the future. 21st century architecture is buried by years of sedimentation and decay. The means to operate and maintain 21st century technology has disappeared. War is rampant in England and a new ice age has descended on the country. So much for hope for the future! Young Fever Crumb is adopted and raised by the Order of the Engineers who have taught her to think scientifically and analytically. They send her off to help Kit Solent decode the remains of technology from a previous con More...

0 comments like

Aug 31, 2011

Kate rated it:

In a distant future, Fever Crumb was raised by Engineers to be completely rational. The Engineers try to figure out the old tech that no one understands anymore. She is only 14 when she is sent off to assist an archeologist named Kit Solent, who has discovered a great underground place belonging to the former leader, Godshawk. Godshawk was a Scriven, a race of people with splotchy markings who claimed to be superior, until they were overthrown by the London commoners. Some people in the crowd More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)