A Web of Air

A Web of Air
Publication Information
Author	Philip Reeve
Publisher	Scholastic
Release date	5th April, 2010
Chronology
Timeline	479ᴛᴇ
Preceded by	Fever Crumb
Succeeded by	Scrivener's Moon

A Web of Air is the the second book in the Fever Crumb trilogy, which is the prequel to the Mortal Engines quartet. It was published on 5th April, 2010. In chronology and publishing, it proceeds Fever Crumb and is succeeded by Scrivener's Moon.

Setting

Main article: Events

A Web Of Air is set in the year 479ᴛᴇ, 2 years after Fever fled London in Fever Crumb, 528 years before Mortal Engines, during the Nomad Wars, and less than a year before London first moves. It is set in the static harbour city Mayda.

Publisher's summary

The Secrets of flight have been lost for thousands of years.

But in a faraway corner of a ruined world, a mysterious boy is building a flying machine. Birds help him, and so does a beautiful, brilliant engineer called Fever Crumb. Powerful enemies pursue them - either to possess their fantastic invention, or destroy the secrets of flight for ever.

Plot

A great wave sweeps the Thursday Island, leaving Arlo Thursday as the only survivor. Nearly 10 years later, Bargetown arrives in Mayda-At-The-Worlds-End. Fever Crumb, assistant technomancer of the theater barge Persimmon's Ambulatory Lyceum, while avoiding the after show party discovers a functional model glider discarded in the city. Recognising Fever's name and description, Dr. Avery Teal, a new member of the Guild of Engineers studying Maydan funicular houses for London, comes to visit her at the Lyceum and informs her that the glider may have been built by Arlo. However Fever , a staunch atheist, comes into conflict with the Maydan High Priestess, Orca Mo, as the sea goddess Mãe Abaixo forbids engines and electricity. After another showing of the play, "Niall Strong-Arm or The Conquest of the Moon!", the Lyceum troop are invited to dinner with Jago Belkin and his wife Thirza, who disapprovingly tell Fever more about Arlo, who they claim controls a tame demon known as the Aranha. Fever visits Arlo in his funicular house, offering to help with his flying machines, but after the death of his previous collaborator Edgar Saraband he is suspicious and dismissive of her. After she leaves, Arlo has one of his angels, a mutant seagull called Weasel, follow her.

The Lyceum leaves for Meriam, but Fever stays behind in Mayda. Despite being warned off again by Jago, she revisits Arlo. After showing her his prototype Aëroplane, Arlo becomes angry at Fever, thinking she is working for Teal and the London Engineers. Fever visits Teal for advice, who is staying with London's representative in Mayda Jonathan Hazell, however she is abducted and taken to Midas Flynn, another scientist researching flight, and informs her that many others have been murdered. Flynn himself is murdered, and suspecting Fever, his Shadow Men bodyguards chase her across the moving rooftops of the funiculars. Finding Arlo's house abandoned, Fever is confronted by Jago, who has his men, working for the Oktopous Cartel of Matapan, tie her to the rails of the oncoming funicular house. However she is rescued by Arlo and the Aranha.

Arlo and Fever flee Mayda on his boat, the Jenny Haniver, and take shelter in a watchtower on Thursday Island. Unbeknown to Arlo, Weasel is also fed by Thirza. Arlo and Fever begin to reconstruct the Aëroplane, and Fever discovers an old Angel made map of the Atlantic. Becoming concerned, Teal and Hazell set out to find Fever and Arlo. Having the first test flight of the Aëroplane, Arlo names it Goshawk a translation of the name Açora, Fever's grandfather, who had gifted Arlo's grandfather the Aranha. The Goshawk flies briefly, but its engine is too heavy, so they replace it with the Aranha's power source. Weasel tells Thirza about Arlo's flight, and she drowns the angel, getting her husband to take his war galley, the Desolation Row, to capture Arlo and his invention. Teal and Hazell realise its course, and follow it. Jago and his men attack the watchtower, but Jago is killed and the others driven off. Teal and Hazell arrive, but Teal attempts to kill Arlo, as he had Saraband, Flynn and others researching flight, ordered by the Engineer Suppression Office who fear flying machines would be a threat to London. Fever makes the second flight with the Goshawk, hoping to fly back to Mayda and show the world that flight is possible, but she is shot down by the Desolation Row, which is in turn sunk by a newly arrived London battleship, the Supercollider.

Fever's parents, Gideon and Wavey, brought the Supercollider to Mayda when they received reports from Teal that she had been found. Wanting to save Arlo from her mother having him killed, Fever incites a religious dogma against human flight by feigning revelation from Mãe Abaixo. Betrayed, Arlo sales west into the open ocean alone, as Fever is taken home.

Gallery

Alternate cover.

Initial Cover