2005 non-historical fiction. Mosca lives in a tiny rural village, but
her exiled father taught her to read and to love words. She takes her
first opportunity to escape, and finds herself (and Saracen the goose)
mixed up in matters that will determine the fate of a great city.
"This is not a historical novel. It is a yarn. Although the Realm
is based roughly on England at the start of the eighteenth century, I
have taken appalling liberties with historical authenticity and, when
I felt like it, the laws of physics."
Normally as I read a book I mark various passages on my ereader, for
possible quotation in the review. I had to restrain myself for this
book: there are so many lovely phrases that I could easily have
marked up the whole thing.
Once, in a day that some still remember, there was a king who spent
a lot of time devising beautiful gardens and thinking clever thoughts
about the stars. He meant very well, and ruled very badly, and in the
end they cut off his head, and melted down his crown to make coins.
The Shattered Realm is something like England after the Civil War, but
with many potential new kings; Parliament is deciding who shall rule,
and has been for so many years that while people still support their
preferred candidates with a gesture nobody really expects the kings to
return. Meanwhile, the guilds have quietly taken over: nothing can be
legally printed without the Stationers' stamp, and the Locksmiths are
running both police and crime.
Chough could be found by straying as far as possible from anywhere
comfortable or significant, and following the smell of damp.
But none of that means anything to Mosca (named for the day of her
birth, which is sacred to Goodman Palpitattle, He Who Keeps Flies out
of Jams and Butter Churns), at least at first. She's living in the
tiny village where her now-dead father fled, and she escapes by
releasing the itinerant con-artist Eponymous Clent from the stocks and
forcing herself into his company.
On the upside, Mosca was now one of the few people in Mandelion who knew
where the infamous illegal printing press was. On the downside, she
rather suspected that she was in it.
She will meet highwaymen, great nobles, anarchists, mad nobles,
celebrants of no-questions-asked marriages, religious fanatics, and
secret agents who don and doff loyalties as easily as their cloaks.
And her own principles will be tested: there's all too often a choice
between an easy way that'll get her further mired in lies, and a hard
way that'll cause more trouble and not really help anyone…
You shouldn't just go believin' things for no reason, pertickly if
you got a sword in your hand!
This is a lovely book, and I enjoyed every moment of it.
I don't want a happy ending, I want more story.
And I'm going to get more story, too: this is followed by Twilight
Robbery (vt Fly Trap).
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