Mortal Engines Wiki
Mortal Engines Wiki
Mortal Engines Wiki
535
pages
in: Prequel series novels, Books

Scrivener's Moon

Sign in to edit
Spoiler warning!

This article or section contains plot spoilers for the Fever Crumb trilogy. Proceed at your own risk.

Scrivener's Moon is the third and final book in the Fever Crumb trilogy, which is the prequel to the Mortal Engines quartet. It was published on 4th April, 2011. In chronology and publishing, it succeeds A Web of Air and precedes Thunder City.

Setting[]

Main article: Events

Scrivener's Moon is set in the years 479-480ᴛᴇ, The year London becomes the first traction city, 527 years before Mortal Engines, during the Nomad Wars, and less than a year after the events of A Web of Air.[1]

Publisher's summary[]

The Scriven people are brilliant, mad - and dead.

All except one, whose monstrous creation is nearly complete - a giant city on wheels. New London terrifies the world beyond. An army of mammoth-riders gathers to fight it as young Londoner Fever Crumb begins a hunt for Ancient technology in their icy strongholds. She finds a mysterious black pyramid full of secrets. It will change her world for ever.

Scrivener's Moon is the latest dazzling story in one of the most exciting and inventive fantasy adventure series ever written - the brilliant World of Mortal Engines.[2]

Plot[]

Part One[]

Auric Godshawk, Scriven King of London, is found injured by the Arkhangelsk, only he later finds that he is not Godshawk, but his granddaughter Fever Crumb. [3]

10 months earlier Fever had returned to London,[4] her arrival displaced Charley Shallow, who had been working for her parents while she was absent.[5] Most of the city, save for the temples, was torn down to build the incomplete new city, the first Traction City.[6] However far to the north, an Arkhangelsk prophetess, Cluny Morvish, receives nightmarish visions of the new London, and begins building alliances among the Nomad Empires to stop its construction.[7]

A new year begins, and in the spring after a ball celebrating the victory of London's forces in the north, Fever and her parents visit The Amazing Borglum's Carnival of Knives! a mock combat show featuring "misshapes and outlandish folk".[8] Charley, spying on them, discovers that Borglum has secret news for Fever's mother and Chief Engineer, Wavey Godshawk. However, Charley is heard and is chased into the temple of St Kylie by two of the fighters, but is saved by the London Underground,[9] rebels lead by former Chief Engineer Stayling. In the Carnival's Land Barge, the Knuckle Sandwich, Borglum tells Wavey that an ancient northern pyramid Skrevanastuut has been opened by the shifting climate.[10] Believing the site holds valuable Old Tech, Wavey convinces London's Lord Mayor, Nikola Quercus, to allow her to leave the city to excavate the site.[11] However because of Charley, the London Underground believe that Wavey is uncovering their conspiracy.[12]

Fever leaves for Skevanastuut with her mother aboard the Heart of Glass while her father Gideon Crumb stays behind in London.[13] Unknown to them, London's northern commander, Rufus Raven, is secretly allied with the London Underground and the nomad empires.[14] His men capture Wavey and Fever,[15] and bring them to his Traction Fortress, Jotungard.[16] While trying to escape, Shrike (one of Raven's Stalkers) kills Wavey.[17]

Part Two[]

Cluny finds and shelters Fever,[18] but Dr. Crumb is told both Fever and Wavey are dead.[19] Charley, awed by the new city's engine test, betrays the conspiracy to Quercus.[20] Fever fixes a war lamp, angering the Arkhangelsk technomancer Nintendo Tharp.[21] The London Underground are executed, the temples are torn down, and London prepares for war. Dr. Crumb becomes the new Chief Engineer and Charley is also promoted. Aware that the new city can not carry all of London's population, Dr. Crumb suggests a list of essential workers.[22]

Fever, ostensibly a prisoner, persuades Cluny to take her to Skrevanastuut, believing her visions come from a brain implant similar to her own.[23] Along with Cluny's half-brother Marten Morvish, Cluny and Fever travel west on Mammoth back. Near the pyramid, they are attacked by Nightwights and Marten is abducted.[24] Tracking the nightwights to their lair, they rescue Marten.[25] They manage to enter the pyramid through a small, caved-in maintenance tunnel, discovering it contains an abandoned ancient research facility, the Scrivener Institute.[26] In the upper room, a group of ancient Stalkers recite the purpose of the facility, creating a genetically fortified race of people able to survive the fallout of the then upcoming war; Fever deduces that these people became the Scriven and Nightwights.[27] The nightwights attack the pyramid, but Fever temporarily makes peace with them by offering an ancient mug from inside, but Tharp and the Arkhanglsk arrive and slaughter them. Shocking Fever, Cluny orders her men to destroy the stalkers and all of the artifacts.[28]

Part Three[]

As London enter the final phase of preparations,[29] Tharp sells Fever to Borglum, who proceeds to blow up Jotungard using a paper boy.[30] London moves for the first time, only allowing people on Crumb's list to board.[31] The Knuckle Sandwich flees to Three Dry Ships, where soldiers loyal to London lead by Captain Andringa, are holding back the alliance of Nomad Empires.[32] Wanting her to lead the charge against the soldiers in Three Dry Ships, Tharp gives Cluny a Stalker bodyguard, Shrike. Borglum and all of his carnival fighters, other than Lady Midnight, are killed in the battle as the nomads overwhelm Andringa's soldiers.[33]

London arrives, and destroys the Nomad Empires. Fever and Midnight, with help Andringa, manage to board the traction city with the other surviving London soldiers. Cluny, after being blinded and saved by Shrike, is captured.[34] Dr. Crumb and Quercus, thinking again about Municipal Darwinism, have London "eat" the salvage from the battlefield.[35] With the help of Charley, Fever smuggles Cluny back out of London to prevent her from being executed. But Charley betrays them, trying to secure his position in London, and Fever shoots him. As Fever and Cluny escape, a survived Charley returns to London, seeing his wound as "a badge of honour".[36]

Midge, the Nightwight who accepted Fever's gift, makes contact with her again, and the nightwights join her and the surviving Arkhangelsk.[37]

Trivia[]

  • Scrivener's Moon was known as "Fever Crumb 3" until the 18 June 2010, when Philip Reeve announced the name on his blog.[38]

Gallery[]

References[]

  1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 The Illustrated World of Mortal Engines, "Timeline Of The Traction Era"
  2. ↑ Scrivener's Moon, Back Cover
  3. ↑ Scrivener's Moon, Prologue
  4. ↑ Scrivener's Moon, Chapter 1: "The Homecoming of Fever Crumb"
  5. ↑ Scrivener's Moon, Chapter 2, "Engineerium"
  6. ↑ Scrivener's Moon, Chapter 3: "The Future Sights of London"
  7. ↑ Scrivener's Moon, Chapter 4: "Ancestral Voices"
  8. ↑ Scrivener's Moon, Chapter 5: "Victory Ball"
  9. ↑ Scrivener's Moon, Chapter 6: "The Carnival of Knives"
  10. ↑ Scrivener's Moon, Chapter 7: "News From The North"
  11. ↑ Scrivener's Moon, Chapter 8: "Plans"
  12. ↑ Scrivener's Moon, Chapter 9: "Pies, Spies and Little White Lies"
  13. ↑ Scrivener's Moon, Chapter 10: "Northward Ho!"
  14. ↑ Scrivener's Moon, Chapter 11: "The Revolutionists"
  15. ↑ Scrivener's Moon, Chapter 12: "Across the Dry Sea"
  16. ↑ Scrivener's Moon, Chapter 13: "The Raven's Nest"
  17. ↑ Scrivener's Moon, Chapter 14: "A Sword at Sunset"
  18. ↑ Scrivener's Moon, Chapter 15: "Nomads' Land"
  19. ↑ Scrivener's Moon, Chapter 16: "A Rational Man"
  20. ↑ Scrivener's Moon, Chapter 17: "Running True"
  21. ↑ Scrivener's Moon, Chapter 18: "Fever in the Comet's Tail"
  22. ↑ Scrivener's Moon, Chapter 19: "Charley's Game"
  23. ↑ Scrivener's Moon, Chapter 20: "Prisoner of the Morvish"
  24. ↑ Scrivener's Moon, Chapter 21: "The Long Shore and the Lonely Hills"
  25. ↑ Scrivener's Moon, Chapter 22: "The Dark Beneath the Fells"
  26. ↑ Scrivener's Moon, Chapter 23: "The Place of the Dead"
  27. ↑ Scrivener's Moon, Chapter 24: "In The Upper Room"
  28. ↑ Scrivener's Moon, Chapter 25: "Besieged"
  29. ↑ Scrivener's Moon, Chapter 26: "Packing Up"
  30. ↑ Scrivener's Moon, Chapter 27: "Phosphorous Fingers"
  31. ↑ Scrivener's Moon, Chapter 28: "Moving On"
  32. ↑ Scrivener's Moon, Chapter 29: "Toasted Sandwich"
  33. ↑ Scrivener's Moon, Chapter 30: "At Three Dry Ships"
  34. ↑ Scrivener's Moon, Chapter 31: "Battle's End"
  35. ↑ Scrivener's Moon, Chapter 32: "Hungry City"
  36. ↑ Scrivener's Moon, Chapter 33: "The Scrivener's Moon"
  37. ↑ Scrivener's Moon, Epilogue
  38. ↑ Philip Reeve's old blog (lost)
Mortal Engines

Mortal Engines Quartet: Mortal Engines • Predator's Gold • Infernal Devices • A Darkling Plain

Fever Crumb Trilogy: Fever Crumb • A Web of Air • Scrivener's Moon

Thunder City Duology: Thunder City • Bridge of Storms

Mortal Engines Expanded Universe: Night Flights • The Illustrated World of Mortal Engines • Film

Community content is available under CC-BY-SA unless otherwise noted.
More Fandoms