“When words take flight, heroes are born.”

“Imagine a world in which all books have been BANNED.”

There you have the taglines, the story in a nutshell. Fly By Night is all about words and books and freedom of speech and wild heroics. It’s also full of plot twists, memorable characters, fantastical adventures, spies and secrets. Lots of spies and secrets.

In her first novel, Frances Hardinge drops her readers into The Fractured Realm, home of Mosca Mye and her homicidal goose, Saracen. The fractures are real; Mosca compares her country’s politics to a broken honey pot in which the pieces are held together by a fragile bond of honey that will come spilling out whenever any pressure might come to bear. The politics and religious controversies are a bit complicated, and it takes a dedicated reader to get far enough into the book to get it all straight. I found the story fascinating, and so it wasn’t hard for me to fit all the clues together to get a picture of a fantasy land where several religious/political groups are locked in a stasis of power. Any number of events could upset the delicate balance of political power in the kingdom; even the actions of a girl from a small town on the frontier of the country could influence the course of history.

This book reminded me of the Westmark books of Loyd Alexander; it made Betsy at A Fuse #8 Production think of Leon Garfield’s zany Victorian crooks and characters. If you want more information, read her review from last February. She’s a real fan(atic) about the book.

Once again, this book is one of the many good books nominated for the Cybil Award for Middle Grade Fiction.