‘HER NAME IS FEVER’

Fever Crumb is a fantasy prequel of Mortal Engines, written by Philip Reeve. The novel is written in the third person and although Fever is the main character, the novel being written in third person helps us understand other characters in the novel we wouldn’t have necessarily understood had it been written in the first person.

‘ “ You look hungry, boy,” said Bagman Creech. “Ted Swiney given you any breakfast today?”     Ted Swiney hadn’t, but Charley wasn’t going to admit it.’   

Had this novel been written from Fever’s point of view it would have been extremely difficult to portray Charley’s thoughts.

Fever is a fourteen year-old girl raised by Dr Crumb, an engineer and part of the Order of Engineers. He found Fever abandoned with only her name and decided to raise her,

‘ There, among the bramble bushes, he 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.’

I liked the way this extract was written, as it uses the OULIPO moral (to choose words carefully). Reeve could have written, 'and on the baby's wrist is where her name was written', but he chose his words very carefully and this made me take his novel more seriously as it didn’t drag on.

At the beginning of the novel I didn’t like Fever very much: she perceives other human emotions as ‘irrational’ or ‘unnecessary’ and after a while her thoughts became very tedious. But as the novel continued and Fever began to get to know Kit Solent, an archaeologist she is assisting, and his family, her perceptions of emotions greatly change as Kit is a great contrast to Fever's views and is making her questions her ideas. I think Kit plays a key role in the change in Fever though out the novel.

‘ “ I knew a man once called Craving-For-Pickled-Onions McNee,” agreed Kit Solent. Ruan giggled, and Fever looked disapprovingly at his father. Was he joking? She didn’t see the purpose of joke?’

As the novel is the prequel to the Mortal Engines series, it main purpose was to help readers understand the Mortal Engines series but the novel has had such great feedback it is becoming a series in its own right.

I don’t really enjoy fantasy novels but as this novel was portrayed by Reeve very realistically I didn’t really notice it and it gripped me throughout. I especially enjoyed how the sub-stories in the chapters of the novel linked at the end, as this made the ending much more understandable. I think the front cover of the novel was a real put-off and made me think it was a really unrealistic fantasy; I think it would put off many other readers, so I suggest you don’t judge the novel by its cover as I think this novel would attract a number of diverse readers.

For this reason I give it 7/10.