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Summary
Summary
Twelve-year-old Mosca Mye hasn't got much. Her parents are dead, her cruel uncle keeps her locked away, and her only friend is her pet goose. But she does have one small, rare thing: the ability to read. In a world where books are dangerous things, this gift will change her life--but it may also be the death of her.
Author Notes
Frances Hardinge was born in 1973 in the United Kingdom. Her first novel, Fly By Night, won the Bradford Boase Award in 2006. Her other books include Verdigris Deep / Well Witched, Twilight Robbery, and A Face Like Glass. Cuckoo Song won the Robert Holdstock Award for Best Novel at the British Fantasy Awards in 2015 and The Lie Tree won the 2015 Costa Book of the Year award.
(Bowker Author Biography)
Reviews (4)
Publisher's Weekly Review
In a broken-down medieval kingdom where reading is forbidden, 12-year-old Mosca Mye is drawn to a traveling con artist who "brought phrases as vivid and strange as spices, and he smiled as he spoke, as if tasting them." Hardinge's stylish way with prose gives her sprawling debut fantasy a literate yet often silly tone that calls to mind Monty Python. Plucky Mosca rescues the con man-called Eponymous Clent-from the town stocks, accidentally burning down her uncle's mill in the process. Their journey unfolds against a wickedly complex political backdrop, a fragmented civilization largely run by guilds of locksmiths, boatmen and printers (the only ones allowed to decide which books will survive). Mosca and Clent find themselves embroiled in intrigue between the guilds, an entry point to a sly bit of allegory involving a secret printing press and "dangerous" pamphleteers ("Truth is dangerous. It topples palaces and kills kings.... And yet there is one thing that is more dangerous than Truth. Those who would silence Truth's voice are more destructive by far," a teacher reads aloud). Along with an infusion of high-camp fantasy, Hardinge firmly plants in the novel the heroine's serious love of reading, which informs nearly everything Mosca does ("I'd been hoarding words for years," she says in an introspective moment, "buying them from peddlers and carving them secretly into bits of bark so I wouldn't forget them"). And the setting is detailed and complex enough to inspire many sequels. Ages 10-up. (May) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Booklist Review
Gr. 6-9. Taught to read by her scholar father, orphaned book lover Mosca Mye is an anomaly in a culture where literature is highly suspect and tightly controlled. When silver-tongued poet-spy Eponymous Clent passes through her village, the word-starved 12-year-old stubbornly installs herself as his traveling companion, serving as his uneasy accomplice in a mission that exposes the cutthroat intrigues roiling the surface of her troubled fantasy realm. Plot elements featuring intellectual and religious oppression carry a cumbersome philosophical load, tempered by a richly constructed backdrop incorporating Mosca's belligerent pet goose, eccentric floating coffeehouses, and a folk religion honoring household deities such as He Who Keeps Flies Out of Jams and Butterchurns. The relish for words, words, wonderful words sometimes seems more Hardinge's idiosyncracy than her protagonist's, especially as dense political upheavals begin to supersede Mosca's personal goals. Even so, the character's ferocity and authentic inner turmoil, both reminiscent of Philip Pullman's Lyra Belacqua, may buoy patient readers through this overlong but charismatic first novel. --Jennifer Mattson Copyright 2006 Booklist
School Library Journal Review
Gr 5-9--Spirited, well-read, 12-year-old Mosca Mye burns down her uncle's mill to escape his cruel guardianship. Equipped with nothing but her goose-friend, Saracen, and her father's gift of literacy, she meets the silver-tongued Eponymous Clent. She liberates him from his captors and finds her fate entwined with his when he employs her as his secretary. They venture into the Fractured Realm where guilds like the Locksmiths and the Stationers have become powerful governing bodies in the absence of kings and queens. All books have been banned in the Realm, and reading is considered a dangerous skill. In the city of Mandelion, the pair and the pet goose rendezvous with highwaymen, crazy high-society people, and scheming underground figures. Mosca's life takes on the excitement of story books as she becomes a fly-on-the-wall for Clent and the Stationers during the day but a spy for Lady Tamarind by night. But could she be working for the wrong side? Guided by the spirit of her father, the mystery unfolds in a plot-twist involving a mad Duke, his power-hungry sister, a printing press, and murder. Francis Hardinge's novel (HarperCollins, 2005) is a brilliant fantasy. Although at times verbose, the inventive play on words, alliteration, and rhyme cleverly demonstrates word mastery at its finest. Jill Tarner's narration is dramatic, but her cadences and pitch slow down the pace of the very lengthy novel. Listeners may find it hard to stick with the audio version.--Ann Crewdson, King County Library System, WA (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted. All rights reserved.
Guardian Review
Orphaned daughter of an exiled intellectual, Mosca Mye runs away from home, pausing only to collect her sidekick, a pugnacious gander, and to burn her uncle's mill to the ground in vengeful remembrance of things past. An overheard conversation sends her to rescue a travelling con-artist from the stocks, in the belief that he might prove useful to her, and together they leave the waterlogged village of Chough, where the petrifying springs bleach everything chalk-white, and head for a life of opportunity in the riverside towns and cities of the Fractured Kingdom. Said kingdom has been fractured since the heir died childless and the committee appointed to decide upon a successor failed to do so. The bulk of the population pays lip service to loyalty and little care who rules, but those who do care are fanatics. Mosca and her companion walk into a maelstrom of plot and counter-plot, murder and espionage, involving deranged aristocrats, felons, religious maniacs, megalomanic craft guilds and floating coffee houses (these last are hotbeds of intrigue that can operate only on the river). Somewhere in the city, insurgents are said to operate an illicit printing press, disseminating seditious literature. The Stationers' Company will stop at nothing to discover it, since unauthorised print will foment unrest, while the Company of Locksmiths builds its own power base. Mosca, whose loyalties lie principally with herself, hitches her wagon to the star of the icily beautiful Lady Tamarind. None of the characters is what they seem, and fresh conspiracies are revealed at every turn. The scene seems set for a breakneck adventure in a demented version of 18th-century England, out of the same mould as Joan Aiken's Willoughby Chase novels. Mosca is one of those feisty hoydens - Pullman's Lyra and Aiken's own Dido Twite come to mind - whose conversation cloaks a fierce intelligence by the deployment of demotic tics which after a while become as irritating as Tony Blair's wandering glottal stop. However, the proceedings are anything but breakneck. Hardinge is a hugely talented writer of tireless invention and vivid prose. Her scenarios are wonderfully realised, as is the cod history which is not always as hilarious as it first appears, but it is this undisciplined talent which gets in the way of the action. Every incident and description is so embellished with similes and dependent clauses that the narrative is left hanging about like a disconsolate bloke in Miss Selfridge, abandoned outside the fitting rooms while the style lingers to admire itself in the mirror. At best Hardinge's writing puts her up there with Aiken and Leon Garfield in the recreation of an England that never was, but these writers peaked at a time when it was believed that children were not equal to the demands of long books. Now it has been established beyond doubt that they are, it need not be forgotten that they can still appreciate short ones. Jan Mark's most recent book is Turbulence (Hodder). To order Fly By Night for pounds 11.99 with free UK p&p call Guardian book service on 0870 836 0875. Caption: article-flyby.1 Said kingdom has been fractured since the heir died childless and the committee appointed to decide upon a successor failed to do so. The bulk of the population pays lip service to loyalty and little care who rules, but those who do care are fanatics. Mosca and her companion walk into a maelstrom of plot and counter-plot, murder and espionage, involving deranged aristocrats, felons, religious maniacs, megalomanic craft guilds and floating coffee houses (these last are hotbeds of intrigue that can operate only on the river). Somewhere in the city, insurgents are said to operate an illicit printing press, disseminating seditious literature. The Stationers' Company will stop at nothing to discover it, since unauthorised print will foment unrest, while the Company of Locksmiths builds its own power base. Mosca, whose loyalties lie principally with herself, hitches her wagon to the star of the icily beautiful Lady Tamarind. None of the characters is what they seem, and fresh conspiracies are revealed at every turn. - Jan Mark.
Excerpts
Excerpts
Fly by Night Chapter One A Is for Arson It was often said that only divine flame could persuade anything to burn in Chough. Many joked that the villagers cooked their dinners over marsh lights. Chough could be found by straying as far as possible from anywhere comfortable or significant, and following the smell of damp. The village had long since surrendered to a seeping, creeping rot. The buildings rotted from the bottom upward. The trees rotted from the inside out. The carrots and turnips rotted from the outside in, and were pale and pulpy when they were dug out. Around and through the village, water seethed down the breakneck hillside in a thousand winding streamlets. They hissed and gleamed through dark miles of pine forest above the village, chafing the white rocks and learning a strange milkiness. Chough itself was more a tumble than a town, the houses scattered down the incline as if stranded there after a violent flood. By day the villagers fought a losing battle against the damp. By night they slept and dreamed sodden, unimaginative dreams. On this particular night their dreams were a little ruffled by the unusual excitement of the day, but already the water that seeped into every soul was smoothing their minds back to placidity, like a duck's bill glossing its plumage. One mind, however, was wakeful and nursing the black flame of rebellion. At midnight the owner of that mind could be found hiding in the local magistrate's dovecote. This dovecote was large, and from the outside its conical roof bore a remarkable resemblance to a castle turret. At the moment, the dovecote was remarkably free of doves and remarkably full of twelve-year-old girl and oversized goose. Mosca wore the wide-eyed look of one who is listening very carefully, and she chewed gently at the stem of her unlit pipe as she did so, feeling the splinters working their way up between her teeth. Her attention was painfully divided between the sound of approaching voices and the pear-shaped silhouette of a single dove against one of the little arched doorways above her. Trying to balance her weight on the slender perch poles with an agitated goose under one arm, Mosca was already regretting her choice of hiding place. Each time a bird appeared at one of the openings, Saracen hissed. If the doves seemed to be hissing, this might make someone curious enough to investigate and discover Mosca hiding there at midnight with someone else's goose. Mosca had excellent reasons for not wanting to be dragged back home to face her Uncle Westerly and Aunt Briony. She had plans of her own, and none of them involved the sorts of punishments that would be waiting for her if she was caught on this night of all nights. "We're much beholden to you, sir. If you had not chanced by and warned us, the fellow might have been fleecing our gullible housewives a month hence." It was the magistrate's voice. Mosca froze. "It was not entirely a matter of chance." A young man was speaking, his voice gentle and reassuring, like warm milk. "When I changed horses at Swathe someone mentioned that a man named Eponymous Clent had been staying here for the last week. I knew him well by reputation as a villain and swindler, and your village was only a little out of my way." "Well, you must delay your journey a little longer, I fear. You shall stay the night and let me thank you in broth, beef and brandy." The snap of a snuffbox opening. "Do you indulge?" "When it is offered so hospitably, yes." The dove stared. It could see something crouching among the tangle of perches. Something big, something dark, something breathing. Something that gave a long, low hiss like skates across ice. Mosca kicked out, and the toe of her boot caught the dove just beneath the snow-white plum of its chest, causing it to tumble backward into flight. "Is something amiss?" "No, I just thought for a moment . . ." Mosca held her breath. ". . . I thought I could smell smoke." "Ah, the snuff does have a touch of brimstone in it." "So . . ." The younger man sniffed once, twice, to clear his nose, and then spoke again in a less nasal tone. "So you will no doubt keep Mr. Clent in the stocks for a day or two, and then have him taken to Pincaster for further punishment?" "I believe we must. Chough has a magistrate but lacks a gibbet . . ." The voices faded, and a door clicked to. After a time, the faint orange ache of candlelight in the nearest window dulled and died. The roof of the dovecote stealthily rose, and two sets of eyes peered out through the gap. One pair of eyes were coal beads, set between a bulging bully brow and a beak the color of pumpkin peel. The other pair were human, and as hot and black as pepper. Mosca's eyes had earned her countless beatings, and years of suspicion. For one thing, they had a way of looking venomous even when she held her pointed tongue. For another thing, her eyes wielded a power that was beyond everyone else in Chough except the magistrate. She could read. Everybody knew that books were dangerous. Read the wrong book, it was said, and the words crawled around your brain on black legs and drove you mad, wicked mad. It did not help that she was daughter of Quillam Mye, who had come to Chough from Mandelion amid rumors of banishment, bringing city thoughts crackling with cleverness and dozens of dark-bound, dangerous books. Mosca might as well have been the local witch in miniature. After her father's death, Mosca's eyes had at least earned her a roof over her head. Her uncle, the older brother of her dead mother, was glad to have someone to take care of his accounts and letters. His niece was useful but not trusted, and every night he locked her in the mill with the account book to keep her out of trouble. This evening he had turned the key upon her as usual, without knowing that he was doing so for the very last time. He was now snoring like an accordion amid sweet dreams of grist and fine grain, with no inkling that his niece was loose yet again and embarked upon a desperate mission. Mosca wrinkled her pointed nose in a sniff. There was a faint hint of smoke on the night air. Her time was running out. A week before, a man named Eponymous Clent had arrived in Chough and talked his way into every heart and hearth. He had bewitched the entire village with an urbane twinkle. That afternoon, however, Chough had fallen out of love with him just as quickly and completely. Word had spread that a visitor to the magistrate's house had exposed Clent as a notorious trickster and cheat. Dusk had seen him shackled in the stocks and almost friendless. Almost, but not quite. Since the burning of her father's books, Mosca had been starved of words. She had subsisted on workaday terms, snub and flavorless as potatoes. Clent had brought phrases as vivid and strange as spices, and he smiled as he spoke, as if tasting them. His way with words had won him an unlikely rescuer. The magistrate's house had originally been built on a raised lump of land with two deep cracks cut around it on either side, providing a channel for the water. This had been all very well, until the water had enjoyed one of its wild nights, in which it pulled the hillside into new shapes and threw boulders like dice. In the morning, the magistrate had found a hill of white silt and rubble piled up against the back of his house, and the sweet spring sunlight gleaming upon the streamlets as they poured across his roof and dripped in diamonds from his thatch. In an attempt to snatch the magistrate's vegetable garden from the domain of the. . . Fly by Night . Copyright © by Frances Hardinge. Reprinted by permission of HarperCollins Publishers, Inc. All rights reserved. Available now wherever books are sold. Excerpted from Fly by Night by Frances Hardinge All rights reserved by the original copyright owners. Excerpts are provided for display purposes only and may not be reproduced, reprinted or distributed without the written permission of the publisher.
