Philip Reeve's Mortal Engines quartet is one of my favorite series of all time. It's about a post-apocalyptic world where cities are mobile and travel across the world eating each other. A Web of Air is the second book of the prequel series. The first book, Fever Crumb, told the story of how London became the first city to become mobile. At the end of the book, the main character, Fever Crumb, runs away with two orphaned children. When the second book opens Fever and children have joined a travelling theatre and Fever is their lighting technician. They reach a city which seems to be in our Portugal. It's been built in an ancient bomb crater and the buildings are on rails and slide up and down the walls. Along with people the city is home to a race of super-intelligent seagulls called angels who have learned to speak human language. Fever meets a reclusive boy called Arlo who is experimenting with flying machines. Fever decides to help him. The two make great progress. but enemies don't want the project to succeed. Arlo and Fever move to a more remote island to work and incorporate some ancient technology into their machine. They succeed (and fall in love) but their enemies ultimately catch up with them and their flying machine is destroyed. Arlo feels betrayed by Fever and disappears. At this point Fever's parents catch up with her and take her back to London. So not what you'd call a happy ending.
This book's strength lies not in the story, or in the characters, but in Philip Reeve's imaginary landscapes. Though brilliant, Fever is not a particularly likeable main character. This is because of her engineer's upbringing. She has been taught to be cold and logical. Despite knowing this about her I still find it hard to empathise and warm up to her. However, I loved the idea of the city in the bomb crater, the moving buildings and the talking seagulls. Very original and creative. A good read, but still not as good as Mortal Engines, or Larklight, Philip Reeve's steampunk series.
