Customer Reviews

Web of Air 6 (Mortal Engines)

5 star:		(1)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

In a far future after an atomic war the people are rebuilding.
In a traveling show and merchant train of large platform trucks
a young engineer girl who is half mutant travels to far land's end.
There she finds a reclusive scientist working on a secret project.
There are unknown villains lucking in the shadows.
When at last the tables turn, the new young love is frustrated.
The end leaves us open for a sequel.
So the plot is well done/ thought out with change ups and character twists
that keep us interested.
I liked the novel
and would buy other books by the author.

I'm a huge fan of Philip Reeve's HUNGRY CITY CHRONICLES, a series that has always seemed under-hyped and underappreciated to me. The first four books, beginning with Mortal Engines and ending with A Darkling Plain, are simply fantastic, set in a far future after the world has been destroyed by war and where Traction Cities roam the planet consuming all they come across (including smaller cities). More recently, Reeve has plumbed the depths of the world just on the cusp of entering the mobile city era. Fever Crumb, the first of the prequels, was a good start, with rich characters and an interesting multi-stranded plot (I gave it 3 ½ stars), but it was not quite as strong as the original series. With the second of the prequels, A Web of Air, Reeve has fully found his touch again.

A Web of Air picks up a short amount of time after Fever Crumb. Fever has left London (which is preparing to make itself mobile) with the two children who became orphans due to the events of that first novel and is working with a traveling theater group as their technician, something she feels is not really fulfilling her years of training as an Engineer. When the Lyceum stays for a few nights in the city of Mayda, however, Fever's life takes a sudden turn as she soon gets embroiled in the attempts by Arlo, an eccentric young man whose family and home were destroyed by a tsunami in the book's eye-popping opening, to construct a flying machine.

While this is the major storyline, Reeve tosses in a handful of issues to spice up the story: semi-intelligent sea birds, an attractive Engineer from London who has let his Guild back home know he's found Fever Crumb (Fever's parents have been wondering about her), an assassin who seems to be picking off anybody involved in research into human flight, the Mayda crime syndicate, the possibility that Arlo's family and Fever's family have some connections in the past, rumors of a mysterious and lethal spider-like creature associated with Arlo's family, "funicular houses" that move up and down the steep sides of Mayda (built inside a large impact crater), and the conflict between religion and reason. Along with this are the character conflicts: Fever's growing conflict between her obsession with reason and rational behavior and her ever-more powerful emotions, and Arlo's conflict between his sense of isolation and his need for Fever's help. Fever is a great character -- independent, smart, resourceful, loyal -- and one made better by her flaws. As readers, we can chuckle fondly at her own lack of insight and enjoy the ride as she slowly opens up to herself and others.

The plotting is tight, suspenseful, fast-paced most of the time but slower when necessary, and has its share of twists and turns, including an especially complex and painful one at the very end. As always with Reeve, the characters are vivid, rich, and complex, from the main characters all the way to those who barely appear on the page. And as is often the case with Reeve, there is a lot of grey in the "bad" characters. Did I mention it was tight? I love the concision of this book; Reeve chisels it down to the essentials without sacrificing richness or complexity with regard to character or atmosphere. The city of Mayda, for instance, is a simply wonderful creation, one you stop reading for so you can enjoy some moments just visualizing how the city must look.

As mentioned, the ending is quite painful. Reeve has never shied away from the bittersweet (or just the bitter), and the same holds true here. For those who think YA means "easy emotions," Reeve's work is the perfect counterpoint.

There are a few some flaws here and there, but really nothing to distract from the sheer pleasure of the read. As I said in my review of Fever Crumb, I still think it best to read the HUNGRY CITY CHRONICLES first and then tackle the prequels. First, because I think the first four sweep you off your feet more quickly and more thoroughly (though A Web of Air matches their quality) and are more "epic" in scale. Another reason is that having them in your background will allow you a little frisson of delight when Reeve throws in little tidbits that you can recognize as elements of or direct precursors to events or objects or people in that series. Strongly recommended.

A Web of Air is an interesting second novel in this series. It does not work well as a stand-alone YA novel-- readers really need to be introduced to the protagonist and her world by reading "Fever Crumb" first.

I really enjoyed many aspects of the novel-- particularly the interesting "angel" birds and their relationship with Thursday, a young man who is building a flying machine. Unfortunately I found the religious aspect of the novel very heavy-handed. Fever Crumb is also a difficult character to care about, given her emotional disconnection from others. Her sudden emotional awakening and feelings for Thursday seem are difficult to understand. Raised in an emotionless world, Fever disapproves of many aspects of humanity. I wished that her emotional world had been drawn more richly-- either allowing us to see into an almost autistic intelligence, or helping us to understand her as a person growing but confused when she is introduced to a culture very different from that of the Engineers who raised her.

Overall an interesting YA book-- very YA, and told in a way that made the characters feel very two-dimentional (more like fairy-tale characters than real people)

I actually read A Web of Air prior to Fever Crumb, the 1st volume of the series. If this is also your situation, no worries. Philip did a fine job diving into the plot of this book while providing enough back story nuggets for the characters and elements to make sense. Enough but not too much.

That being said, this series is a prequel, leading up to the era of the mobile, insatiable cities. If you're trying to decide which series to read first, Fever Crumb's or Mortal Engines, my opinion is it doesn't matter. Both can be enjoyed on their own merits.

*No Spoilers*

MY LIKES: The wry humor, unique personalization, and indomitable spirit Philip injected into the Mortal Engines series is back. I chuckle at how he twists contemporary items into the lore of this dystopian future. Neil Armstrong becomes Niall Strong-Arm here. Delightful. People, places and plot are rich with detail that entertains in an irresistible, almost gossip mongering fashion. Never enough juicy gossip, is there?

MY DISLIKES: A very minor quibble and this is a personal preference. I'm not fond of shifting from one character's head to another without some significant scene transition involved. It doesn't happen often and Philip handles it well, infinitely better than I could ever hope to do. I also felt the book's end was a tad rushed, like a hurried attempt at the 300 page mark to set up book 3.

THE TONE: Though this is a return to the Hungry Cities experience, A Web of Air seemed a little more relaxed to me. Less intense and frenetic than its predecessors (Book 1: Fever Crumb aside, since I haven't read it yet). Fewer revelations about the history that ultimately led up to this dark future. Scaled back overall intrigue. Fewer fascinating locations. Not to worry though; the heart is still true and very much pulsing away at the center of the story.

A FAV LINE: You could tell he was dead because of the expressionless way his eyes watched the ceiling and because of the two big holes in the front of his tunic.

The second of the prequel trilogy to Philip Reeve's wonderful Hungry Cities series continues Reeve's imaginative, exhilarating, unpredictable story of life in a post-apocalyptic world where seagulls have rudimentary communication skills, people live in houses that can be hoisted up and down hillsides, and an ominous event known as the Downsizing that has left technology beyond the understanding of the human population.

In this brave new world lives Fever Crumb, an engineer who has left the city of London in order to join the travelling theatre known as the Lyceum, escaping her newfound parents and caring for two children orphaned during the course of Fever Crumb. Though she enjoys her independence, she feels that her talents are wasted in lighting the stages of a theatre troupe. Her upbringing among the engineers of London means that she's been raised to reject the fanciful and to embrace everything rational. As such, she feels she has never quite belonged among the colorful performers, though she has no desire to return home to London where it's said that the new ruler is rebuilding it as a gigantic, tracked vehicle.

Taking a dim view of romance and religion, Fever is even more uncomfortable in the beautiful city of Mayda, where ships sail in and out of the harbor, mansions rise and fall thanks to funicular rails on the cliff-tops, and religious fanatics demand worship of the sea. But things are about to change. A chance meeting with an engineer and the discovery of a glider during an evening walk leads Fever to the reclusive Arlo Thursday, a man who is rumored to be building a flying machine.

Flying machines have long since been dismissed as a legend and flight deemed impossible, but Fever is intrigued despite herself - especially when she meets Arlo, a young man who can talk to the sea-birds, lived a month in solitude on Thursday Island after his entire family was swept away by a freak tidal wave, and who may well have a connection to Fever's own strange family. Fever is just the engineer he needs to complete work on his flying machine, but unbeknownst to both of them, there are plenty of enemies out to steal their creation, or to destroy the secrets that they've uncovered.

Once again Philip Reeve delivers a near-perfect story of suspense, invention and excitement, one that opens up questions about the human condition and the future of mankind. Sometimes it's hard to believe that this is technically a children's book. Just as "Fever Crumb" dealt with identity and growing up, "Web of Air" takes a shrewd look at the power of religion and bases its denouncement on sacrifice, betrayal and a great lie. Although Fever herself is an atheist who describes religious belief as "controlling knowledge and standing in the way of progress," the concept of religion is not totally condemned, for at the conclusion of the novel Fever understands the very real need that people have for something larger and more meaningful than themselves.

As always, Reeve's world-building is incredible. The setting of this story is the city of Mayda, built in a bowl-shaped island crater, (beautifully rendered on the cover by David Wyatt in the British publication) vividly described and populated by a melting pot of cultures with a dark underbelly, where the theater troupe perform the tale of Niall Strong-arm and the Conquest of the Moon and a travelling market is known as the Rolling Stone. The novel is positively littered with little in-jokes like this, demanding a second read just to pick them all up.

As a protagonist Fever Crumb is endearingly oblivious to her own vulnerability, whilst still displaying intelligence, resourcefulness, bravery, and a dry wit that is cultivated over time. Gentleness isn't something that comes naturally to her, but over the course of the story we see her heart open to new possibilities and new people, and it makes for rather heartbreaking reading when she's finally called upon to weigh up her integrity against her heart. Reeve has always been a master of creating morally ambiguous characters and placing them in a story where the good guys can be ruthless, brutal and oblivious to the pain they cause; and bad guys can be gentle and amiable and genuinely loving to their families. It's rich, deep, thought-provoking stuff and it is best never to trust your first impressions of a character.

As a prequel we get a few more puzzle-pieces clicked into place, including the first look at the Jenny Haniver (I got a tingle down my spine) and news of the engineering feats in London that will eventually end in the world's first Traction City. Story-wise there are a few glitches: Fever is perhaps saved one too many times by a deus ex machina, and the poignancy of her decision at the end of the book is somewhat undermined by the fact that we *know* humankind has regained the ability to fly in the original series, but the bittersweet note of the final chapter is both promising for the third and final book, and memorable on its own terms. I can't wait for Scrivener's Moon.

Reeve is a brilliant writer and it continues to baffle me that there are so few reviews for his work. He manages the perfect balance between likeable characters, unpredictable plot and fascinating setting, with a female protagonist that easily stands alongside Garth Nix's Sabriel and Philip Pullman's Lyrain terms of sheer resourcefulness and competence.

Seeing as Philip Reeve is my favourite author by far, it is doubly difficult to then give the following review, as there are problems with this book.

A Web of Air is the follow up / on to Fever Crumb. Fever is the young and rather prim engineer living in a post apocalyptic but recovering world, where whatever cities there are are somewhat fortified although there are many other towns and ports thriving once again. Away from these, many families and small somewhat peripatetic, even nomadic communities travel the earth on land barges or sail the sea on vessels we would recognise still today.

With Fever at the centre as usual, the story continues to let us in on sinister developments concerning Traction cities, and sinister machines, some with an organic base, all acting as a prelude to the very very superior original Mortal Engines quartet (and of course, the first Fever Crumb offering). But - this is a poor offering.

I suppose the plot taken in isolation is fine - young Fever choosing to take leave of her guardians of sorts and latent employers, while they take their land barge to other towns to offer up their thespianic efforts to a new audience, while Fever decides to stay and enquire of a hermitical and mildly feared young aero-inventor. But the story is brought to the reader in a way which suggests, and I find this hard to dwell on, that the author did not put his heart and soul into the manuscript. There is far too much narrative when looking at it from the old show not tell stakes, there is an overall lack of the usual sharpness and wit, and at times the characters suddenly go into a sort of Enid Blyton with comic menace routine; it would not have surprised me in the least if they had turned out to be Fedorad and moustachioed gold smugglers from the Argentine, with only a snot kid called Jeffery and four others and a dog barring their way to wealth and world domination.

Finally, Mr Reeve's classic 'All is not well that doesn't end well' signature, which usually leaves the reader ironically satisfied, on this occasion irks due to its uncharacteristic thinnness. Due to these problems, all I think A Web of Air merits is 2 stars rather than the full monty all others in the main and sub series all thoroughly deserve.

Come on Philly Babes, you are loads better than this; let's hope book 3 of Fever is a million times better.