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Title: Swordspoint by Ellen Kushner ISBN: 0-553-58549-5 Publisher: Bantam Pub. Date: 04 February, 2003 Format: Mass Market Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $6.99 |
Average Customer Rating: 4.18 (45 reviews)
Rating: 5
Summary: Decadence, intrigue, and swashbuckling...do you need more?
Comment: Set in an unnamed city and its criminal suburb, Riverside, "Swordspoint" is a masterpiece, period. The intrigue is dizzying, the characters finely drawn, and the world itself seductive. (A reader's desperate call: A sequel would be appreciated!) There is humor, witty and occasionally mordant, and even romance. More than one reading is required to master all the complexities of the story. When Richard St. Vier, the foremost swordsman in Riverside, takes an assignment from an anonymous noble, it looks as though the job might be fairly simple. Before long, he finds himself caught up in a power play unfolding between the nobles of the City Council: not he, not his lover, and not his past will remain untouched. And that has hardly scratched the surface.
As mentioned earlier, the characters of "Swordspoint" are superbly drawn. Richard and his lover Alec are more like anti-heroes than anything else--one is in effect a hired killer, although not without his own sense of honor, ; the other is acid-tongued and emotionally troubled, at the same time needy and vicious--and yet the author manages to create a startling sympathy for them. Even Alec's morbid obsessions are, in a strange sense, preferable to the refined intrigues of the upper class, the chess players living on "the Hill" who move Richard and the other Riversiders about as though they are mere possessions. Michael Godwin, the young nobleman who takes up swordwork as a bored hobby and finds himself learning in earnest, is a fine counterpoint to Richard's world-weary attitude: for Michael, seeing his teacher before his eyes is traumatic; for Richard, it's only part of a swordsman's life. Similarly, the Duchess Diane Tremontaine, with her veiled meanings and hidden games, is a mastery of subtlety.
The world of Riverside and the Hill is a dark and decadent one--in many ways, the story is as cynical as Alec on his worst days--but it is one worth visiting...and revisiting...you get the idea.
It's that good.
Rating: 5
Summary: Wicked, witty, gorgeously penned, and not to be missed:
Comment: "Swordpoint: A Melodrama of Manners" may have been published as fantasy, but this is a book for everyone who delights in fine prose, delicious dialogue, dazzlingly complex characters, and riveting story-telling. It's one of the best books I've ever read, and it's no surprise Kushner has a devoted following in the fantasy genre and among mainstream readers alike. If you love Dorothy Dunnett, then you owe it to yourself to pick up "Swordpoint"--as well as the sexy new novella set among swordmen in that same city called "The Fall of Kings" by Kushner and Delia Sherman (in the book "Bending the Landscape," edited by Nicola Griffith and Stephen Pagel.) I envy anyone reading this delightfully wicked novel for the first time.
Rating: 3
Summary: Well written, but not my cup of tea
Comment: I first heard about Swordspoint through Amazon.com. I'm quite a regular at Amazon, not just buying things but just looking up stuff and finding more stuff to read. One of my favorite features is My Recommendations, which given how many things I've rated or reviewed, are actually pretty accurate.
So one day when Amazon realized I had a penchant for reading fantasy books with queer characters (gee, how would it guess?!), out popped a message on a page saying "Hey, you might like to read Swordspoint!" (Or something similar, think it was worded differently.) So I checked out the description, read the reviews and thought, "Huh, that does sound interesting!" and you know, ordered it. (Boy, Amazon makes it too easy!)
Swordspoint turned out not to be exactly what I had expected. Having just come off of reading Lynn Flewelling's delightful, outstanding Nightrunner series, I was I guess expecting something a little racier or filled with heart-pounding action or some magic or something really scary. Instead I found the book to be just what it says on the back cover, a "melodrama of manners."
There's a well-drawn relationship between a professional swordsman and a mysterious noble scholar who's abandoned his privilege for a death wish, and that was fun, but then there was another half to the story with nobles plotting and scheming, politics and politenesses and callings cards -- which to me was not so fun. I loved the bits with dashing Richard St Vier and drunken bitter Alec, but every time I'd really start to get into them, the chapter would end and I'd have to slog through a scene of some noblelady or nobleman's blathering or covering up some secret or plotting to knock off a rival. To me, patient and literate as I am, those bits just were boring and dry.
It reminded me of some lost 18th or 19th century novel, only twist being that the two main heroes are gay lovers and everybody's okay with that. It's true that in the Nightrunner series, there's a similar situation (a regular spies, swords and sorcery book, only with gay lovers), but for me Swordspoint didn't have the overall story I enjoy so I wasn't nearly as satisfied. I will say, however, that if you like a book with a lot of intrigue and intricate plot and old-fashioned literary language, Swordspoint is probably a book you'd enjoy.
If there was one thing that made my disappointment a little less with this book, it came at the end, where in the edition I have, Kushner has included three additional stories set in the Swordspoint world. I actually enjoyed these stories more than the actual novel! I think it was the fact that in the stories, all the frilly "melodrama of manners" stuff was cut out and only the good bits were there. The stories also had a higher proportion of sexual spice to them. And in "The Death of the Duke," Kushner creates a magical tale depicting the final weeks of Alec, as an old man returned to the nameless city, setting of Swordspoint, and dying amid his memories of Richard St Vier -- what a wonderful tribute!
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Title: The Fall of The Kings by Delia Sherman, Ellen Kushner ISBN: 0553381849 Publisher: Bantam Pub. Date: 29 October, 2002 List Price(USD): $13.95 |
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Title: Luck in the Shadows (Nightrunner, Vol. 1) by Lynn Flewelling ISBN: 0553575422 Publisher: Bantam Pub. Date: 01 August, 1996 List Price(USD): $6.99 |
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Title: Stalking Darkness (Nightrunner, Vol. 2) by Lynn Flewelling ISBN: 0553575430 Publisher: Bantam Pub. Date: 03 February, 1997 List Price(USD): $6.99 |
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Title: Traitor's Moon (Nightrunner, Vol. 3) by Lynn Flewelling ISBN: 0553577255 Publisher: Bantam Pub. Date: 06 July, 1999 List Price(USD): $6.99 |
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Title: Hidden Warrior (Tamir Trilogy, Book 2) by Lynn Flewelling ISBN: 0553583425 Publisher: Bantam Pub. Date: 01 July, 2003 List Price(USD): $6.99 |
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