Deryn felt brilliant, rising through the air at the center off everyone's attention, like an acrobat aloft on a swing. She wanted to make a speech: Hey, all you sods, I can fly and you can't! A natural airman, in case you haven't noticed. And in conclusion, I'd like to add that I'm a girl and you can all get stuffed!

She thought of the orchids spreading across the plains below, choking the life out of other plants, out of the soil itself, selfish and unstoppable. Tally Youngblood was a weed. And, unlike the orchids, she wasn't even a pretty one.

That's how things were out here in the wild, she was learning. Dangerous or beautiful. Or both.

Luckily for writers - and unluckily for history - every scientific idea creates human conflict.

Typographical laziness was slowly destroying our culture, according to Lexa and her pals. Inexactitude was death.

What you do, the way you think, makes you beautiful.

The very idea of making shoes by hand boggled her mind.