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To live and die by the sword
Jul. 6th, 2021 02:03 pmFor the BSpec book club I figured it was time for me to finally get around to reading Ellen Kushner’s fantasy classic Swordspoint, and fortunately for me, the rest of the book club agreed.
Swordspoint reminded me a lot of Amberlough, and I think could be considered a precursor to it, in that it takes place in a fictional city in a fictional world that, despite being what I would instinctively call a secondary world fantasy, appears to be devoid of supernatural elements; it’s got a lot of political intrigue and colorful slum life stuff going on; and there’s a lot of gay dudes in it (not so many gay women, at least not that we see).
Our hero is the very dashing and hilariously illiterate swordsman Richard St Vier, the best swordsman who ever swordsmanned, and who is famous for not taking written contracts in part so he can’t get in trouble over having anything written down, but also, unbeknownst to his fancy clients, because he can’t fucking read. His current boyfriend is the mysterious Alec, a spoiled pain in the arse with a death wish who used to be a University student and before that was clearly a noble of some kind but refuses to talk about it. St Vier gets offered a couple of high-stakes jobs that he’d Really Rather Not, one of which involves some very high-stakes political double-crossing, and another of which is just from a client who is an enormous douchebag whomst can’t follow any of the rules (like “no written contracts”). Anywhere there is a lot of murder and witty repartee and overly elegant parties where every banal thing anyone says carries several layers of Hidden Insult, and also everybody in this book is enormously slutty (exhaustingly so, in another way that reminds me of Amberlough). That said I do absolutely love murder and court intrigue and witty repartee, so I enjoyed this book very much, especially the asshole University student Alec, the cast’s leading producer of brutal one-liners in a book where most people apparently have nothing to do in life except have affairs and polish their brutal one-liners. It is an enormous amount of fun.
The second book’s apparently got swords ladies in it, so I will certainly have to check that out soon too.
Swordspoint reminded me a lot of Amberlough, and I think could be considered a precursor to it, in that it takes place in a fictional city in a fictional world that, despite being what I would instinctively call a secondary world fantasy, appears to be devoid of supernatural elements; it’s got a lot of political intrigue and colorful slum life stuff going on; and there’s a lot of gay dudes in it (not so many gay women, at least not that we see).
Our hero is the very dashing and hilariously illiterate swordsman Richard St Vier, the best swordsman who ever swordsmanned, and who is famous for not taking written contracts in part so he can’t get in trouble over having anything written down, but also, unbeknownst to his fancy clients, because he can’t fucking read. His current boyfriend is the mysterious Alec, a spoiled pain in the arse with a death wish who used to be a University student and before that was clearly a noble of some kind but refuses to talk about it. St Vier gets offered a couple of high-stakes jobs that he’d Really Rather Not, one of which involves some very high-stakes political double-crossing, and another of which is just from a client who is an enormous douchebag whomst can’t follow any of the rules (like “no written contracts”). Anywhere there is a lot of murder and witty repartee and overly elegant parties where every banal thing anyone says carries several layers of Hidden Insult, and also everybody in this book is enormously slutty (exhaustingly so, in another way that reminds me of Amberlough). That said I do absolutely love murder and court intrigue and witty repartee, so I enjoyed this book very much, especially the asshole University student Alec, the cast’s leading producer of brutal one-liners in a book where most people apparently have nothing to do in life except have affairs and polish their brutal one-liners. It is an enormous amount of fun.
The second book’s apparently got swords ladies in it, so I will certainly have to check that out soon too.