Fever Crumb

Fever Crumb by Philip Reeve

My rating: 3 of 5 stars


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 has to travel the streets of London, where she is mistaken for a "Scriven", a mutant race of speckled people. The Scriven were virtually destroyed by bands of "Skinners" years before, but the fear of the race still exists among the Londoners. Solent rescues her from this first encounter, but the head of the Skinners has decided that she must be captured and destroyed. Fever has to elude her captors and in the process discovers who she really is. The story is actually the prequel to the "Hungry City Quartet," Reeves masterful steampunk series. I did not know this until after I read the book, proving that the book is truly a stand alone.



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