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Web of Air, A (The Fever Crumb Trilogy, Book 2)
Web of Air, A (The Fever Crumb Trilogy, Book 2)
Web of Air, A (The Fever Crumb Trilogy, Book 2)
Audiobook7 hours

Web of Air, A (The Fever Crumb Trilogy, Book 2)

Written by Philip Reeve

Narrated by Jenny Agutter

Rating: 4 out of 5 stars

4/5

()

About this audiobook

Two years ago, Fever Crumb escaped the war-torn city of London. Now she arrives in the extraordinary city of Mayda, where buildings ascend the cliffs on rails, and a mysterious recluse is building a machine that can fly.

Fever is the engineer he needs—but ruthless enemies will kill to possess their secrets.

LanguageEnglish
Release dateOct 1, 2011
ISBN9780545426480
Web of Air, A (The Fever Crumb Trilogy, Book 2)
Author

Philip Reeve

Philip Reeve wrote his first story when he was just five years old, about a spaceman named Spike and his dog, Spook. Philip has continued writing and dreaming up adventures and is now the acclaimed author of the Mortal Engines series, the Fever Crumb series, Here Lies Author (2008 Carnegie Medal Winner), and many other exciting tales. Born and raised in Brighton, England, Philip first worked as a cartoonist and illustrator before pursuing a career as an author. He lives in Dartmoor with his wife, Sarah, and their son, Sam.

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Reviews for Web of Air, A (The Fever Crumb Trilogy, Book 2)

Rating: 4.2325000175000005 out of 5 stars
4/5

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  • Rating: 2 out of 5 stars
    2/5
    My thoughts on the series in general are attached to my review for Book 1. Missed opportunity here to develop the Solent kids into characters, the singular focus on Fever is a bit tedious. Don't understand the brutal revisiting and revisiting of the concept that planes are a threat to the realism of a book about predatory cities to the extent that an entire book needs to be written about how the invention of them was suppressed. I mean, plenty of real civilizations struggled with the concept of the wheel for a really long time.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    Fantastic! As always, Reeve creates an amazing world. We are lucky to be able to read them.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    A worthy sequel to Fever Crumb. Sometimes second books in a series are slower-paced and not as engaging, but A Web of Air is just the opposite. Reeve adds complex and interesting new characters and revs up the tension with plot twists and political machinations. Arlo Thursday, the inventor, is a great contrast to Fever. Where Fever is a logical and scientific engineer, Arlo is a whimsical and spontaneous artist. They are opposites that attract. My favorite new characters are the angels, genetically-engineered gulls with some intelligence and hand-like appendages that allow them to do more than their bird cousins. They are Arlo's friends, sometime spies, and inspiration for the creation of his flying machine. Unfortunately, many groups, including the establishment and religious factions, prefer the status quo and do not want newfangled contraptions like flying machines. They harken back to the "bad, old days" of technology that caused a major world disaster. Fever and Arlo are swept up in a whirlpool of intrigue and danger. I look forward to the final installment, Scrivener's Moon.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    This book is set 2 years following Fever Crumb, the first in the series. Fever is now 16, and is still with Persimmon’s Travelling Electric Theater, using her knowledge of technology to take care of the lighting and effects. Arriving in a new town, she meets a young man engaged in investigation of flight, and finds herself involved in intrigue and danger regarding that scientific line of inquiry.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Two years have passed since the events of Fever Crumb, and Fever is still travelling aboard the actor's land-barge on which she fled London, raising the children of the deceased Kit Solent. The actor's troupe has arrived in the Portuguese city of Mayda, built around a flooded nuclear crater, and Fever's scientific interests are piqued by the rumours of a young man attempting to build a flying machine.Like Fever Crumb, A Web of Air dispenses with the high-flying, globetrotting, swashbuckling adventures of the Mortal Engines series in favour of a slower-paced story confined to a single location. This is something of a shame, since swashbuckling adventure was part of what I enjoyed most about the Mortal Engines series. Combined with the fact that I'm now an older reader, plus the fact that nostalgia is doubtless a significant factor in my love of the first series, and I continue to find the Fever Crumb series far less compelling. (Although judging from other reviews I'm not the only one, so perhaps nostalgia isn't a very big factor after all.)Nonetheless, A Web of Air is a somewhat better novel than Fever Crumb. It just seems slightly more interesting, a bit tighter, and has more creativity and visual description and less stupid jokes (although they're still there - what the hell was with the barbershop quartet mafia?) Although it doesn't have anything that quite compares with the final moment Kit Solent sees his children in Fever Crumb, that was a) the only great moment in Fever Crumb and b) piggybacking on readers' established love of a character from the Mortal Engines series. The emotional, character-driven moments in A Web of Air stand on their own, and there's more than one, even if they are merely good rather than great.Overall, the Fever Crumb series continues to lag a significant distance behind the Mortal Engines series, and I'm reading it more out of obligation than genuine desire. But I'll see it through, and hopefully it will pick up. It's still better than most of the young adult steampunk dreck that lines the shelves these days.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    PLUS - * Another book in the Mortal Engines sequence, which has to be a good thing. It's a follow on from Fever Crumb, which in turn is a prequel to the original quartet of novels. * As imaginative, clever and quirky as you would expect. I love the whole premise of these books - that although they are set in the distant future, environmental disaster and political upheaval has meant that what we think of as everyday technology has been lost. MINUS - * This story didn't seem quite as complex as some of the others in the sequence, which is a pity. * The original quartet are just brilliantly plotted on a vast scale. Fever Crumb neatly started to explain how the Mortal Engines world came to be, with some real 'lightbulb' moments (the creation of the Stalker being one of them for me), as Fever's present and the future gradually connect in the reader's imagination. This book didn't seem to have that to the same extent. OVERALL - * A slight let-down, but only because the rest of the sequence is so, so good. I gather there are more books featuring Fever still in the pipe-line, so I'm hoping for a real return to form for the next one. Well worth a read but I would suggest starting with Mortal Engines if you're new to this author.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    I've enjoyed this series since the first mortal enjines installment, and so I was thrilled when this one was delivered last week. It's 2 years since the events of the last book, and Fever is working the lights for a travelling theatre when she meets a boy who is trying something new; something that threatens the guild of engineers in London- the secret of flight. As their enemies press all around them, Fever and Arlo work to create the first heavier than air flying device since the ancient times. A good book, and the blossoming of their relationship is a pleasure to read, yet this book is little more than filler between fever Crumb and the next in the series. Still, will please fans like myself and well written and enough to deserve 4 stars.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    Surprisingly, as good as the first. Read by a woman this time, but again, perfectly. Looking forward to listening to the next one.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    This second book in the Fever Crumb series has its moments of excitement and intrigue and a bit of budding romance. Arlo Thursday wants to fly and Fever wants to help him, but flight is considered a dangerous threat to the status quo. Can they overcome the technical problems and the political ones?
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    a truly wonderful follow up to fever crumb

    it is such an engaging universe and all the more rewarding for all the little references which tie into the Mortal Engines books as well as little nods to contemporary culture
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Very violent, much more so than the first book about Fever Crumb. A good story but I feel that the author added the violence to make up for the work he wished that he could have put into refining it.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    Wonderfully written and performed. This is one of my favorite new series.
  • Rating: 2 out of 5 stars
    2/5
    Didn't enjoy as much as I did the first one, which was very odd considering how much I do enjoy an angsty ending. While I did enjoy the characters evolution, and the story was written well, the story just didn't appeal to me. Or it didn't make me as excited as the previous did.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    This is the second book that delves into Philip Reeve’s post-apocalyptic world of London, Franglish and the rest of Europa and the ongoing life of our protagonist, Fever Crumb. The novel/audiobook resumes two years following the ending of the first book. The author builds on existing character development and we watch as Fever continues her struggle to find her place in society. She has yet to reconcile that she can have emotions and yet still exhibit rational thought when required. Love, she thinks is irrational and out of the question, or is it? We also are offered sneak peeks into the theatre lives of orphans, Rowan & Fern. At times this novel seems to have a slower pace, but with a storyline that explores life in the theatre, real live angels, a killer out to murder inventors, religions that ban technology, cartels , and to top this off some YA angst thrown in, you almost need Ritalin to keep the facts straight! ? . This isn’t my favourite of the author ‘s novels but the writing is solid and I’m sure that Philip Reeve is providing us with information that will soon be essential in understanding what Fever Crumb will be involved with next. I enjoy the author when he narrates his own novels however I could understand the need for a female narrator for this audiobook. The narrator,Jenny Agutter, does a great job with voice characterization. This is a great YA series for young & old alike. I noticed that some reviewers complained about the level of violence in this novel. Personally, as a parent & grandparent, I find the level of gratuitous violence less than most YA action/Fantasy books, as such I would have no problem letting a 12 yr + read this novel. Parents with very religious beliefs may wish to read the novels first so they can discuss the false God concepts with their children.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    thoroughly enjoyed, brings depth to the mortal engines world. good character development
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    An engaging story but each chapter was carelessly "abridged", sometimes cutting off mid sentence and leaving me to wonder what I missed.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    I found this book delightful. I'm not sure it's actually 5-star amazing, but I thoroughly enjoyed it. The protagonist, Fever Crumb, is intelligent and admirable. After escaping the chaos of London, which was in the midst of exchanging one oppressive regime for another, she and the two orphans in her care become valued members of a traveling theater. Fever, being a skilled engineer, uses bits of old tech to provide it with electric lighting effects, much to the astonishment of all who are not familiar with such marvels. Some are delighted by them, but others react with self-righteous indignation. Many people in the coastal city where the theater has stopped view the old technologies as sinful. Fever discounts their opinions as being unreasonable, and even (perhaps unwisely) publicly confronts the city's religious leader at one point. This, however, is only one of the challenges she must meet. There is a mystery, here. Someone appears to be trying to build a flying machine, and someone else is apparently killing anyone who succeeds. And then there is her internal turmoil. Can her cherished rationality withstand the biological urges of becoming a woman?

    Although the prose still sounds unpolished to me, this is a great story.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Not as good as its predecessor. Still clever and amusing, but the elements of the tale are not as interesting. The take on organized religion should limit its success in the US a bit if anybody notices.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    I enjoyed most of the book, but I didn't like the involvement of Fever's mother or how it ended. I hope the two of them meet again in book three.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    Fever Crumb continues her perilous journeys and adventures in this second book of the trilogy by Philip Reeve. I admit I mostly read it to find out what happened to Fern and Ruan so I was vastly disappointed that she left them in the care of the Lyceum so that we didn't hear anything of them until the very last few pages. Throughout the story I kept waiting for them to be mentioned or heard from and kept hoping they were okay. The children were the only reason I read the story through to the end. I was bored by Fever's attitude as well as her inability to express or even acknowledge her feelings. I will probably speed read through the third when it comes out just to see if Fern and Ruan end up well but anything else has lost interest for me.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    I loooved Fever Crumb, so I was both excited and anxious about this book. I like the new world that Reeve builds, and the development of Fever’s character. I wasn’t quite as enamored of this one as I was of the first book, though, partly because the emotional heart of the first book was the London setting. Still, looking forward to the next one very much! [Jan 2011]
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    As other reviewers have mentioned A Web of Air is a much stronger book than the first book in the series, Fever Crumb. In this book Fever is traveling with the acting troupe to the South American city, Mayda. I loved the world building in this book. The elevator houses and the angel birds were all quite intriguing. We see a lot of character growth for Fever in this installment. Fever learns to be a little less cerebral and more emotional when dealing with people. The ending of this book left me absolutely heartbroken. There are quite a few loose ends that I'm not sure will be resolved in the next installment. Great book, highly recommended!
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    This book is set 2 years following Fever Crumb, the first in the series. Fever is now 16, and is still with Persimmon’s Travelling Electric Theater, using her knowledge of technology to take care of the lighting and effects. Arriving in a new town, she meets a young man engaged in investigation of flight, and finds herself involved in intrigue and danger regarding that scientific line of inquiry.