The Fever Crumb Series is the title of an ongoing series of novels written by the British

British people

The British are citizens of the United Kingdom, of the Isle of Man, any of the Channel Islands, or of any of the British overseas territories, and their descendants...

 author Philip Reeve

Philip Reeve

Philip Reeve is a British author and illustrator. He presently lives on Dartmoor with his wife Sarah and their son Samuel.-Biography:...

, and is the prequel series to his critically acclaimed Mortal Engines Quartet. The series so far comprises three books - Fever Crumb

Fever Crumb

Fever Crumb is the prequel to the Mortal Engines Quartet by Philip Reeve, released in 2009. A sequel called A Web of Air was released in April 2010.-Plot synopsis:...

(2009), A Web of Air

A Web of Air

A Web of Air is the sequel to Fever Crumb, and the second book in the Mortal Engines Quartet prequel series. It was released in April 2010.-Information:...

(2010) and Scrivener's Moon

Scrivener's Moon

Scrivener's Moon is the sequel to A Web of Air, and the third book in the Mortal Engines Quartet prequel series. It was released in April 2011.-Information:...

(2011), all of which follow the adventures of the teenage girl Fever Crumb in the very-distant future as she watches - and plays a part in - the creation of the first traction city. Reeve has stated that there will be at least one more book in the series.

Setting

The series is set in the distant future, several thousand years after the Earth was ravaged by a nuclear conflict called the Sixty Minute War

Sixty Minute War

The Sixty Minute War is a fictional event in Philip Reeve's Mortal Engines Quartet. It is a cataclysmic conflict which is deliberately left vague, but was evidently fought between the American Empire and Greater China. It is likely that the Middle East was involved, as this region has been reduced...

, which destroyed civilization as we know it and left bare remnants to rebuild and repopulate. Unlike in the original quartet, the effects of this war can still be felt, particularly in the existence of several mutant species that were created due to the fallout, including a quasi-sentient race of seagulls known as Angels and a new race of Woolly Mammoth

Woolly mammoth

The woolly mammoth , also called the tundra mammoth, is a species of mammoth. This animal is known from bones and frozen carcasses from northern North America and northern Eurasia with the best preserved carcasses in Siberia...

, apparently created due to a throwback caused by excessive radiation. There is also the humanoid Scriven race, who are practically extinct by Fever Crumb

Fever Crumb

Fever Crumb is the prequel to the Mortal Engines Quartet by Philip Reeve, released in 2009. A sequel called A Web of Air was released in April 2010.-Plot synopsis:...

and are considered mutants created by the war. However, it is later discovered that they were actually deliberately created with longer lifespans and more resiliant systems in order to preserve the human race in the harsh post Sixty Minute War

Sixty Minute War

The Sixty Minute War is a fictional event in Philip Reeve's Mortal Engines Quartet. It is a cataclysmic conflict which is deliberately left vague, but was evidently fought between the American Empire and Greater China. It is likely that the Middle East was involved, as this region has been reduced...

conditions. As well as these mutations, the world has become, geographically speaking, very unstable, with vast natural disasters tearing the land to pieces.
Another point that is vastly different to the original series is the lack of any moving Traction City

Traction City

In Philip Reeve's Mortal Engines Quartet, Traction Cities are vast metropolises built on tiers that are capable of moving on gigantic wheels and caterpillar tracks. These cities hunt smaller cities which in turn hunt towns which in turn hunt villages and static settlements...

- in fact, the creation of the first traction city - London - is a central plot point to the series. There are, however, large land-barges that feature very prominently and are basically far smaller, less-impressive versions of the vehicles that were to come.
Before and during the series, a great war between the Nomads has been raging, which is partially what prompts nomad
King Nikola Quercus (later Nicholas Quirke) to put the theories of the late Scriven-scientist Auric Godshawk into practice and build a moving city.

Characters

Much like the Mortal Engines Quartet, the Fever Crumb books feature a wide ensemble of characters.

• Fever Crumb - the protagonist of the series, she is highly intelligent teenage girl raised in London as an engineer. She is the child of Wavey Godshawk (the last of the genetically engineered 'Scriven race') and engineer Dr. Gideon Crumb, the latter of whom raised her under the facade of being her adopted father. At the beginning of Fever Crumb
  Fever Crumb
  Fever Crumb is the prequel to the Mortal Engines Quartet by Philip Reeve, released in 2009. A sequel called A Web of Air was released in April 2010.-Plot synopsis:...
  
  , she is a coldhearted shaven-headed character, merely driven by rationality which is the cornerstone of her engineer upbringing. However, after the life-changing events that take place in the book, she leaves London behind (as well as her newly discovered parents) to live on a travelling theatre with some children who she took care of after their father was brutally murdered, where she grows her hair and begins to become less uptight. After travelling on the theatre for some time, she meets Arlo Thursday, an orphan boy and the first person she ever falls in love with. However, she betrays him in order to save his life, and he never forgives her, causing her to return to London with her father and a broken heart. However, she soon becomes embroiled in a quest to find a lost pyramid of Ancient technology in the North, during which her mother is killed and she meets Cluny Morvish, a Nomadic girl who she falls in love with, making her the first confirmed LGBT character in either this series or the original Mortal Engines Quartet (although Sathya is referred to as being in love with Anna Fang
  Anna Fang
  Anna Fang is a character in Philip Reeve's Mortal Engines Quartet. Her name may be derived from the German "anfang" meaning beginning.-Mortal Engines:Anna is introduced as a friendly Asian aviator who helps Tom Natsworthy and Hester Shaw escape slavery...
  
  at one point, it is uncertain what exactly this means). She then leaves London behind for good after seeing what Quercus and her father have turned it into, settling into a more peaceful life with her girlfriend Cluny.

• Wavey Godshawk - Fever Crumb's mother, Gideon Crumb's lover and last of the Scriven. She was the child of the genius and mind behind the original Traction City concept Auric Godshawk, and lived with him in wealth until the anti-Scriven 'Skinner's riots', in which most of her kind were brutally killed. She, however, managed to escape with her newborn half-human baby, who she then left with Gideon Crumb (the father) before fleeing across the country. She was then found by 'Borglum's Travelling Circus of Knives', a travelling circus run by a dwarf named Borglum, who fell immediately in love with her. She lived in peace with them, working on engines and building machines much as her daughter later would on the travelling-theatre 'Lyceum'. She left the Travelling Circus at some point to work with Nicola Quercus and the nomads, who then brought her back to London where she reconciled with Fever and Gideon as the new London was built. Soon after Fever returned from her voyages on the Lyceum, Borglum and his circus returned to London, where they told Wavey and Fever of a great pyramid from the Ancient times that had recently broken open in an earthquake. Wavey, Fever and Borglum then set off to the North to investigate the pyramid properly - however, they are captured by the Northern Nomad Rufus Raven, who keeps them prisoner. Wavey and Fever escape his jail, but Wavey is brutally killed by a stalker (possibly Shrike
  Shrike (Philip Reeve)
  Shrike is a recurring character in Philip Reeve's Mortal Engines Quartet and Fever Crumb Series. He appears in all the books except Predator's Gold and A Web of Air....
  
  ) while making sure that Fever escapes unharmed. Her death has a profound effect on the other characters, triggering Gideon Crumb's transformation into an antagonist, influencing Fever's journey into emotional acceptance of herself and being the motive behind Borglum's terrorist strike against Rufus Raven, which in turn radically influences the outcome of the battle between the Nomads and the first traction city.

• Gideon Crumb - Fever Crumb's father, Wavey Godshawk's lover and engineer of London. Raised as a rational engineer all his life, Gideon also has a more sponteneous, emotional side which he discovered while apprenticed to Auric Godshawk when he fell in love with his daughter, Wavey. However, before they could become an official couple, she and her kind were overthrown in the violent 'Skinner's riots', and he lost contact with her. However, she later left their child (who she was pregnant with when the riots began) with a friend who passed her onto Gideon along with a note saying 'Her name is Fever Crumb'. Believing it to be simpler than the complicated truth, he raised Fever as an adopted child in the engineerium for many years, until the twists and turns of fate forced him to explain the truth to her. Shortly after this, Wavey and the nomads who she has been travelling with arrive in London, and the two reconcile, becoming a couple once more. He soon became an important part of the engineering team behind the first Traction City, and lived happily with his lover and his daughter for a while. However, this all changed when Wavey and Fever disappeared while on an expedition to the North and were both reported dead (Wavey had genuinely died, while Fever had escaped). This news had a devastating impact on him - however, instead of grieving, he receded into the protection of pure rationality while disposing of the potentially very painful emotions that made him human. He then becomes head engineer in Wavey's place, which leads him down a road of cold, emotionless insanity until he has become completely inhuman. He reaches a turning point when he is informed halfway through London's completion that the city must move within weeks to avoid the coming army of nomads. In response, he concocts a 'rational' plan which involves not building most of the housing that had been planned on this new city and only taking the most 'useful' people on board London while the others are left to die. The fact that he not only creates, but orchestrates and goes through with this scheme signifies his point of no return. Even when Fever returns relatively unharmed from the North, he has become so cold that he cannot love her and considers leaving her behind when he sees that she has abandoned rationality in place of love.

• Arlo Thursday - Fever Crumb's first love interest, inventor and only survivor of the Thursday Island where he and his family lived until it was hit by a great wave, destroying it. Arlo remained on the island for several years with only a local flock of mutated birds, known as Angels. Arlo was eventually taken from Thursday Island and to a nearby Harbour City called Mayda, built inside an old crater somewhere off the coat of Portugal. From here he was apprenticed to a shipwright named Blaizey, who was the main rival of Arlo's father, also a shipwright, before the great wave. Whilst Arlo tried to re-adapt to normal life he still remained in close contact with the Angels and even shared his friendship and understanding of them with Blaizey's young daughter, Thirza Blaizey. Arlo found himself falling love with Thirza but was ultimately rejected by her when she went on to marry the rich and powerful Jago Belkin. Fever Crumb and Arlo Thursday finally cross paths in Mayda and, although Arlo is originally untrusting towards Fever (Going as far as pointing a gun at her), they grow close enough for Arlo to unveil his plans to her of the worlds first Aeroplane. Fever ends up fleeing Mayda along with Arlo after her life is threatened by unknown assailants. They retreat to Thursday Island and begin to construct Arlo's invention using papier-mâché, an engine sent to him by another inventor and the power supply from a Stalker-Crab type creature which was built by Auric Godshawk and given to Arlo's family as a gift. As the Aeroplane nears completion, the Thursday Island is besieged by Jago Belkin, who has learned of Arlo's plan from his wife Thirza who enticed the information from Arlo's best friend and Angel, Weasel, before murdering him. Jago is accompanied by a legion of soldiers and the London Engineer Edgar Saraband, who manage to corner Arlo and Fever in a derelict tower where the Aeroplane is being kept. Jago and Sedgar are killed in the final confrontation which leads to Fever successfully flying the worlds first Aeroplane for several minutes before it plummets into the sea. Fever and Arlo are picked up by Wavey Godshawk and Dr. Crumb, Fever's parents, who persuade Fever to forget about the dreams of flight which she shared with Arlo and return to her home City of London, which is in the process of transforming into the first Traction City. Fever ends up saving Arlo's life, but in doing so she is forced to betray him and his research and also promises Wavey that she will accompany her back to London. Breaking Fever's heart, Arlo decides to sail away from Mayda and the Thursday Island, never to return.

• Kit Solent/Shrike
  Shrike
  Shrikes are passerine birds of the family Laniidae. The family is composed of thirty-one species in three genera. The family name, and that of the largest genus, Lanius, is derived from the Latin word for "butcher", and some shrikes were also known as "butcher birds" because of their feeding habits...