“Instead of coming down square and mashing Quercus like a cockroach, one end of the barrel smashed down before the other, missing him by inches. The nomad squirmed swiftly backwards, shouting something furiously and foreign at Ted.”

Fever Crumb is a fantasy by Philip Reeve about a fourteen year-old girl with the very name Fever, adopted by Dr Crumb, a member of the Order of Engineers, who found her abandoned as a baby. Fever grows up as part of this order and establishes herself within the group as the only female, as most females were incapable of rational thought according to Reeve. When her first duty is assigned and she goes to work in the strange city of London, she starts to learn things which make her start to understand and question her past and family.

The novel has many action scenes; this also helps to interest other readers who are not so drawn into the book by the fantasy element of it all. Reeve is not the most descriptive of writers but some of the paragraphs in his novel make it easy to imagine the scene and therefore feel more like you are part of the novel. Here is an example of the way Reeve uses this effect:

“The rain grew suddenly heavier. Gutters gurgled, and the bearers’ boots skidded as the chair turned another corner.”

This, Reeve’s second novel in The Hungry City Chronicles, would probably have made quite a bit more sense if I had read that prequel to it, as some bits of the novel were slightly confusing and hard to make sense of. I still found it an interesting read, although it never really had me gripped so that I couldn’t put it down; but I’m sure others who are more into fantasy would have found this novel a great read. If I allow myself to have perspective of many other readers I can see why this book would be enjoyable to read: for that reason I give this novel 7/10.