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Inaugural 100 things post! Today I want to talk about Swordspoint by Ellen Kushner.
I’m starting with Swordspoint because it’s spiritually slash. This is a book written by a queer woman, about a queer male protagonist, full of interpersonal intrigue and queer affairs.
Seriously, everyone should read this.
Swordspoint is set in a city with no name. It’s an imaginary place, but there’s no magic, nothing fantastical, so it feels more like historical fiction than fantasy. This is not the generic Medieval-esque epic fantasy Europe: it’s a book about a city, and the city is a character. Although it’s not sword and sorcery (no sorcery), the setting is more Leiber than Tolkien.
My favorite thing about this book is the way it deals with queerness. The world isn’t based on a single place or historical period, but it’s clearly a pre-modern setting. Appropriate to that setting, characters don’t think in terms of sexual orientation, so we get a very different kind of non-homophobic world than we’d hope for in our own future. Sure, there’s no same-sex marriage, and same-sex relationships aren’t sanctioned socially by the nobility. But there’s also no moral crusade against non-hetero behavior, so same-sex flirtations and affairs are common. We see at least one such affair in the upper crust. Since the protagonist isn’t upper class, his relationship with another man isn’t scandalous or even very remarkable.
I love the relationship between Richard and Alec, in all its dysfunctional glory. Alec is the former University student of mysterious background but clearly raised rich, slumming it in Riverside, dramatic and bitchy and nihilistic and totally getting off on the violence of Richard’s job (and entire life). And Richard is the stoic swordsman devoted to his craft and rolling his eyes at the people who hire him to kill other hired swordsmen over their own petty social dramas.
So yeah, this is a story about cities, and political/social intrigue, and class relationships. It’s a story I wish there was more of, and I’ve gobbled up every piece of the world I can. There are a number of short stories set at other times in the city, and covering bits and pieces of the characters’ lives. These are listed at Kushner’s website. There are also two other novels, The Privilege of the Sword which takes place later and is much more a coming-of-age story, which I also enjoyed but not as much, and The Fall of the Kings which I haven’t managed to track down in novel form.
Have I sold this successfully yet?
I suck at writing about books. But! To celebrate completing 1/100 things, I’m giving away my spare copy of Swordspoint (yes, I love this book so much I keep a spare copy) to the first person who comments asking for it. I will mail it to you wherever you are in the world.
Links:
Swordspoint at GoodReads
At Amazon.com
Audiobook read by the author and full cast. This is probably great, because she's also a radio performer.
I’m starting with Swordspoint because it’s spiritually slash. This is a book written by a queer woman, about a queer male protagonist, full of interpersonal intrigue and queer affairs.
Seriously, everyone should read this.
Swordspoint is set in a city with no name. It’s an imaginary place, but there’s no magic, nothing fantastical, so it feels more like historical fiction than fantasy. This is not the generic Medieval-esque epic fantasy Europe: it’s a book about a city, and the city is a character. Although it’s not sword and sorcery (no sorcery), the setting is more Leiber than Tolkien.
My favorite thing about this book is the way it deals with queerness. The world isn’t based on a single place or historical period, but it’s clearly a pre-modern setting. Appropriate to that setting, characters don’t think in terms of sexual orientation, so we get a very different kind of non-homophobic world than we’d hope for in our own future. Sure, there’s no same-sex marriage, and same-sex relationships aren’t sanctioned socially by the nobility. But there’s also no moral crusade against non-hetero behavior, so same-sex flirtations and affairs are common. We see at least one such affair in the upper crust. Since the protagonist isn’t upper class, his relationship with another man isn’t scandalous or even very remarkable.
I love the relationship between Richard and Alec, in all its dysfunctional glory. Alec is the former University student of mysterious background but clearly raised rich, slumming it in Riverside, dramatic and bitchy and nihilistic and totally getting off on the violence of Richard’s job (and entire life). And Richard is the stoic swordsman devoted to his craft and rolling his eyes at the people who hire him to kill other hired swordsmen over their own petty social dramas.
So yeah, this is a story about cities, and political/social intrigue, and class relationships. It’s a story I wish there was more of, and I’ve gobbled up every piece of the world I can. There are a number of short stories set at other times in the city, and covering bits and pieces of the characters’ lives. These are listed at Kushner’s website. There are also two other novels, The Privilege of the Sword which takes place later and is much more a coming-of-age story, which I also enjoyed but not as much, and The Fall of the Kings which I haven’t managed to track down in novel form.
Have I sold this successfully yet?
I suck at writing about books. But! To celebrate completing 1/100 things, I’m giving away my spare copy of Swordspoint (yes, I love this book so much I keep a spare copy) to the first person who comments asking for it. I will mail it to you wherever you are in the world.
Links:
Swordspoint at GoodReads
At Amazon.com
Audiobook read by the author and full cast. This is probably great, because she's also a radio performer.
