My thoughts on the series in general are attached to my review for Book 1. The moving cities are built with balsa wood/paper framing above the engineering systems? Really? Not exactly the impression given in the Mortal Engines series. Why try to make them more believable? Who was annoyed about the realism of giant predatory cities roaming the world eating each other?

Honestly, that's my true take-away from this series closer. Couldn't find much motivation to care about the essential struggle portrayed. The edges of the story seemed more interesting (a vampire race that worships ancient pyramids full of tech? That's a book right there!) ( )

I didn't enjoy this one quite as much at the previous book, but it's still pretty good YA fiction...good story, good characters, an interesting plot, and an imaginative setting. ( )

Grim and exciting, and a lot more like the first book than the second. Loses half a star for preferring mayhem to believable plot at some crucial points. Charlie Shallow is all too real, and he's on his way up. The epilogue is too facile. Its very presence makes me fear that Reeve has finished with Fever Crumb for good. He may be all written out, but I can't say I'm all read out.

Philip Reeve is probably a bit critical about the current version of London. Fever Crumb's London is grim, in a Dickensian way, but it also has a Dickensian appeal. She lives in the aftermath of a great war, which set technology back and depopulated the world, but it is possible that a depopulated, technologically poor world has some aesthetic advantages over the populated, technologically crass and self-destructive one that we live in today.

Reread in 2020, and noticed the wierd echos of "The Dragonrider's of Pern"; the rediscovery of old tech. But here, it just goes up in flames, after very little speech. ( )

Really thought this was the third book in a trilogy. That's what I get for not doing my homework. Loved it, and *don't* want to wait who knows how long for the finale.

Side note... it's cool to be able to put this on my lgbtq shelf, too. ( )

not standalone. recommend to readers of _Fever Crumb_. ( )