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A review by kblincoln
Fever Crumb by Philip Reeve
4.0
Starting this book, I was stunned by the intricately layered history and world-development of this post-apocalyptic, London-esque steampunk world and city. Later on, I realized this was a prequel, which explains the richness of the characters and the tantalizingly brief glimpses into unexplored corridors of this world that the author gives us but never explores.
Do you or your youngster like Scott Westerfeld's Leviathan? Love China Mieville but think his stories a bit too adult for the YA crowd? This is your book, then.
Westerfeld gets around the whole "younger heroine written by man" issue by making his protagonist impersonate a boy on an airship. Reeve pulls a similar stunt by making it okay for his teenage protagonist, Fever, to be somewhat emotionally stunted and aloof by having her grow up within a society of Engineers who insist emotionals are unreasonable and require her to shave her head bald.
While Fever herself isn't the strongest rack to hang your emotional hat on, the world building is so interesting, both in the "I spot that famous London landmark" and the "what a cool way to use remnants of our society" ways. Fever's journey into her city, after living mostly isolated from politics, is exciting. We get to see secret tunnels, remains of decadents societies, lost tech, mobs of angry townspeople, and awful cyborg warriors (a la cybermen).
Reeve definitely doesn't seem to mind really putting his characters through the wringer, nor doing terrible, irrevocable things to main characters (which kind of makes sense if this is a prequel since presumably we won't care about these "side" characters once we hit the main series)
Definitely worth your time if you're a steampunk fan or just like fantastic world building. Pretty much zilch on the romance side, but a bit of bloodthirsty reference to skinning people alive.
Do you or your youngster like Scott Westerfeld's Leviathan? Love China Mieville but think his stories a bit too adult for the YA crowd? This is your book, then.
Westerfeld gets around the whole "younger heroine written by man" issue by making his protagonist impersonate a boy on an airship. Reeve pulls a similar stunt by making it okay for his teenage protagonist, Fever, to be somewhat emotionally stunted and aloof by having her grow up within a society of Engineers who insist emotionals are unreasonable and require her to shave her head bald.
While Fever herself isn't the strongest rack to hang your emotional hat on, the world building is so interesting, both in the "I spot that famous London landmark" and the "what a cool way to use remnants of our society" ways. Fever's journey into her city, after living mostly isolated from politics, is exciting. We get to see secret tunnels, remains of decadents societies, lost tech, mobs of angry townspeople, and awful cyborg warriors (a la cybermen).
Reeve definitely doesn't seem to mind really putting his characters through the wringer, nor doing terrible, irrevocable things to main characters (which kind of makes sense if this is a prequel since presumably we won't care about these "side" characters once we hit the main series)
Definitely worth your time if you're a steampunk fan or just like fantastic world building. Pretty much zilch on the romance side, but a bit of bloodthirsty reference to skinning people alive.