So, I've been seeing a lot of recommendations for Hardinge recently; thought I'd give her a go. Fly by Night is her first book, so I decided to start there (I prefer to read works in order).

I enjoyed it a lot. There's some beautiful imagery in there (that of the birdcages embedded in the church roofs is going to stay with me for a long time) and I love the main character. Mosca's a difficult little madam, but she's not perfect and Hardinge doesn't shy away from the repercussions of her poor decisions. There's a large cast of supporting characters, but of their relationships the two I liked most were a) Mosca with her violently psychotic goose, Saracen, and b) Mosca with the Cakes. Their pseudo-sisterly relationship was great. And the plot was fast-paced and interesting, even if I did pick Lady T.'s position as ultimate villain from that first carriage ride.

That being said, it wasn't perfect. There were three things that needed improvement, I thought.

1) Quillam needed to be thought about a bit more. He seems remarkably inconsistent. We're introduced to him giving Mosca a terrible name because of accuracy - the text makes a point of how much Quillam values accuracy - except we know, later in the book, that he doesn't believe in Good-people at all, so the accuracy point is moot (an accurate lie is still inaccurate). I get why it's done, but misdirection is one thing and misdirection at the expense of character cohesion is another. And for a man so wedded to freethought, Quillam retains a remarkable amount of sexism - it's a shame that he's got a daughter, he thinks, when he could have had a son to raise to scholarship. Granted, I'm an atheist myself and there are plenty of misogynists in this community, but still. My final problem is how much he keeps from Mosca. Granted she's just a child, but I rather suspect his late justification of, essentially, "I taught you to read so what else do you need?" is bollocks. It's not the great moment the text wants it to be, I think, because of course Quillam doesn't believe it himself. It's not enough to be able to read; one has to be able to think as well - and he knows this, because he spends his time writing subversive tracts for distribution in Mandelion. Reading does not always lead to thought, and a man familiar with the Stationers should know this in the marrow of his bones.

2) Captain Blythe. Great character - but is he caught in a different time stream? Maybe I missed something, but I was under the impression that Mosca's adventures in Mandelion covered a period of several weeks at most. And in this time, Clent writes the ballad, gets it published and sung, it spreads through the countryside, Blythe finds out and lives up to it, through village after village and finally he comes to Mandelion and is made de facto leader of the resistance. I'm sorry; I couldn't take it seriously.

3) The ending - that last long conversation between Mosca and Clent. And yeah, I know this is YA but still. It's about as subtle as a sledgehammer (do you see THE MESSAGE here?). I admit, when Lady T. found the fly in her face powder I groaned and began to gird myself for a too on-the-nose ending, and in it trotted. Slightly disappointing, considering the skill displayed in the rest of the text.

This review's getting too long now. I don't want to give the impression that the flaws were all I took away from this - they're small things, really, and even with them this book's better than most: highly imaginative, well-written, and with a truly wonderful heroine. For all my complaining, I'll definitely be reading everything else Hardinge has written.