Fever Crumb is the embodiment of what it
means to become an adult. Fever figures
out it is no longer important to be what everyone else wants her to be and
decides to follow her heart, after being taught all of her life to never listen
to it.
The Scriven were claimed unhuman by
Skinners, or regular people. But Scriven were really just a genetic mutation
set apart by speckled skin and peculiar behavior. Their markings set them apart
when they arrived in London and like the Sneetches in Doctor Seuss, deemed
themselves superior over the Skinners for a time. The last overlord, Auric
Godshawk was the most brilliant Scriven and left behind a legacy.
Fever
starts as an orphan, being raised by Dr. Crumb in the Order of Engineers . This
order is looked down upon by London because it served the Scriven and was outcast to live in an
unfinished sculpture of Godshawk head. The colossal head is fitting for the
“brains” of the city and these scientists insist emotions and anything to do
with them are totally and completely unnecessary. Growing up like this, makes going
out into the real world incredibly hard for Fever when she is called to
apprentice for Kit Solent. In his house she begins having flashbacks; which she
struggles to suppress, torn between her strict code of rationality and giving
into the curiosity surrounding these memories, of which seem to belong to
someone else.
While out in London, Fever’s
different colored eyes and shaved head scare the Londoners and she is suspected
to be Scriven. She attracts the Skinner who led the rebellion to victory,
Bagman Creech. He begins hunting her with an apprentice Charley. But Kit Solent
values Fever’s memories and kills old Creech. Along with Creech’s death and the
nervousness sparked by the proximity of the Movement, a new riot arrises. The Movement
is a group of nomadic people living on a land barge. Ted Swiney, a dishonorable
pub owner ascends the leadership role and leads London into more trouble. When
the Movement arrives, they peacefully take London over under General Quercus
and the long-lost Wavey Godshawk.
Before
Godshawk died, he was preparing to live forever and hired Gideon Crumb to
assist him. Wavey Godshawk, Auric’s daughter, had picked Gideon after he saved
her life on the streets of London. This opportunity made Gideon’s feelings for
Wavey grow stronger, but was fired by Auric once he was aware of what was going
on between them; Scriven and Skinners were forbidden to be together. However, Wavey
was already pregnant. Auric was not heartless though, he saves his
granddaughter when she is born too early to survive. He had been trying to
instill his wisdom, ideas and memories into brains so he could live forever.
None of the bodies would sustain the transplant and perhaps in a last attempt
to save Fever, he had placed his memories into Fever. The rioting had become
too dangerous for Wavey and Auric was murdered so Wavey joined the Movement,
and left Fever to Gideon in the Engineerum. Years later, Fever finally meets
her mother after escaping to the Movement from the hazardous drama revolving
around Creech’s death.
Wavey reveals Fever’s past and
together they unlock Auric’s secret office, where his plans to make London the
Moving City lay. However, a string of events separate Wavey and Fever. Wavey is
injured and forced to wait in the secret office, until the Engineers and Dr.
Crumb find her, uniting Wavey and Dr. Crumb after so many years. Fever saves
two orphans and instead of going back to the secret office where she hears the
Engineers and her father, she runs away to keep the children from becoming
heartless Engineers like she had been raised.
Choosing to neglect her family and
responsibilities, Fever decides to stop trying to be the perfect engineer, the
brain behind the Moving City and the perfect daughter. Her and the children
board a “traveling circus” barge. Dr. Crumb explains to those wishing to search
for her, “she just needs to clear her head.” Fever’s seemingly selfish act of
defiance was truly the best move for her and symbolizes the point in all of our
lives when we move away from the safety net of our parents and learn we have only
ourselves to depend on.
