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A review by reallynotconor
Fever Crumb by Philip Reeve
3.0
So this takes place hundreds of years before mortal engines, and the world remains unique with taxi-like services that are just guys on steroids who carry you around in a box or the introduction of Scrivens, but with all of these being introduced into the world of mortal engines, what happened to these things later on? That's the thing about prequals. You can't introduce new things like this without someone raising that question, and I actually really enjoy the world-building aspects. This feels more like a fantasy book than a sci-fi book, which is neat, but there is a downside to this. With the introduction of so many things and the small implications of what is to come, it feels disconnected from the world of Mortal Engines. This gets fixed in the sequels, but this feels like a standalone fantasy book and not a puzzle piece in an overarching story.
The characters are honestly the worst part of the book. The protagonist, Fever Crumb, is bland and unlikeable, showing no real interest in anything that isn't productive; she will critique anything that holds any kind of emotion whilst placing herself and her guild on a pedestal for having none; she is kind of unbearable for the majority of this book. The Skinner duo of Bagman Creech and Charlie Shallow kind of annoyed me. Bagman Creech is supposed to be an intimidating Scrivener hunter who would skin them alive, but his knife has "It isn't genocide, it's just rock and roll" carved into it, which is just so horrible, and Charlie just felt like a little puppy following him around. Dr. Crumb is a lot like Fever seeing as he raised her, but they do deeply care for each other, and he is more often than not the one to show it. Wavey Godshawk is just not it, guys; she is just really hard to read whenever she pops up, and yet everyone she works with apparently loves her; it's unbelievable to me that she has so many friends and admirers.
The plot of the book felt really short as I read it, thinking that it was just a little over 100 pages in a day. Little did I know it was actually 336 pages. It felt so much shorter, and the plot felt smaller on scale, taking place over only a couple of days. Don't get me wrong, it had some great moments, but the pacing of the book made it feel so short. I genuinely thought these were short stories similar to Night Flights (review coming soon) except not an anthology series
All in all, this book has a lot of issues, but if you are a fan of the Mortal Engines series, then I would recommend reading it just for another look into the world.
World 8/10
Characters 4/10
Plot 6/10
overall enjoyment 6.5/10
The characters are honestly the worst part of the book. The protagonist, Fever Crumb, is bland and unlikeable, showing no real interest in anything that isn't productive; she will critique anything that holds any kind of emotion whilst placing herself and her guild on a pedestal for having none; she is kind of unbearable for the majority of this book. The Skinner duo of Bagman Creech and Charlie Shallow kind of annoyed me. Bagman Creech is supposed to be an intimidating Scrivener hunter who would skin them alive, but his knife has "It isn't genocide, it's just rock and roll" carved into it, which is just so horrible, and Charlie just felt like a little puppy following him around. Dr. Crumb is a lot like Fever seeing as he raised her, but they do deeply care for each other, and he is more often than not the one to show it. Wavey Godshawk is just not it, guys; she is just really hard to read whenever she pops up, and yet everyone she works with apparently loves her; it's unbelievable to me that she has so many friends and admirers.
The plot of the book felt really short as I read it, thinking that it was just a little over 100 pages in a day. Little did I know it was actually 336 pages. It felt so much shorter, and the plot felt smaller on scale, taking place over only a couple of days. Don't get me wrong, it had some great moments, but the pacing of the book made it feel so short. I genuinely thought these were short stories similar to Night Flights (review coming soon) except not an anthology series
All in all, this book has a lot of issues, but if you are a fan of the Mortal Engines series, then I would recommend reading it just for another look into the world.
World 8/10
Characters 4/10
Plot 6/10
overall enjoyment 6.5/10