Monday, May 28, 2018

SciFi/Fantasy Book Review: The Fall of the Kings by Ellen Kushner and Delia Sherman



The Fall of the Kings is the third book (chronologically, it's actually the second book published) in Ellen Kushner's Swordspoint/Riverside series.  Like its predecessor, it is essentially a stand alone novel, although you'll have some extra understanding of the world and the characters if you've read the prior two novels.*  Still it takes place 60 years after Swordspoint and 45 years after The Privilege of the Sword and its main characters are all brand new (though some minor characters are from the prior books).

*Although, as I will say below, you might have some issues if you've read TPoTS before this book.  

 More importantly, The Fall of the Kings is the first book in the series to actually be clearly a part of the fantasy genre, featuring actual magic.  The book is very much still in part like the prior two books in how it is in large part based upon the central romance between its two leading men, but the magical element and greater scope of conflict differentiates it from its predecessors.  And well...I don't think this switch-up really worked that well, making it my least favorite of the three books. To add to that, I didn't quite feel as attached to the new main characters and their relationship as I did in the prior books.

More after the Jump:

--------------------------------------------------Plot Summary---------------------------------------------------
In the distant past, The ancient line of Kings and their supposed "Wizards" were overthrown by the rest of the City's nobles, who took governance of the City and the surrounding lands in the hands of the Council of Lords. In the present day, 60 years after the events of Swordspoint, the most powerful Chancellor of the Council sends an ambitious noble out on a mission: investigate the rumors of a revolutionary faction planning on restoring the Kings and to snuff it out if it exists.

History Professor Basil St. Cloud of the University has no interest in politics.  What he does have is an interest in combing through old letters and texts lost in various collections in order to learn more about history than through the standard method of simply rereading old experts.  And through these texts, he begins to suspect that the ancient Wizards who guided the old Kings were real.

Theron Campion also has no interest in politics.  The Heir to the Duchy of Tremontaine, and son of the old Mad Duke Alec, all he wants is to waste his time on pleasures, hanging around the university, and perhaps finding physical and emotional love in some other person, while not causing trouble to anyone else, particularly his Aunt Katherine, the Duchess of Tremontaine.  Theron is also technically an heir to one of the last Kings in terms of blood, but he could care less about any of that.

But when the two men find each other as lovers, they begin to find their ignorance of politics - of the Present and that of the Magic Past - cannot simply stand, and the ancient histories will begin to bleed into the present in a way that might shape the future of the City....and their own futures as well.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The Fall of the Kings didn't much work for me.  I never really bought our main characters' romance - Basil objects to Theron's vanity at first and....then falls for him anyhow with nothing changing, and Theron objects to Basil caring only about his heritage despite knowing full well about this interest from the start.  And well....Theron is an asshole.  He's like a less intelligent more confused version of his father, the Mad Duke, and it makes him a frustrating main character.  Basil meanwhile is more interesting, but even he is frustrating at times - one of his major motivations is proving the importance of doing more to research history than simply reciting old scholars, and yet he seemingly forgets that at points.

Moreover, as noted above, this book is the first in the series to involve actually fantastical elements - in this case, magic.  It...didn't really work for me.  The book still wants to be like the earlier books - fantasies of manners - but it also wants to deal with grander more epic matters of magic, kings and the past and the book is torn between the two in a way that detracts from the whole.  The central relationship becomes greatly affected by said magic, and it made said relationship feel unnatural.

Unsurprisingly, but still annoying, is the fact that characters from The Privilege And The Sword return here - namely Katherine and Marcus - but feel very much like different characters.  I suspect that this is due to the fact that TPoTS only existed as a very early rough draft when this book was published (it would be revised and published years later), but it's still irritating to see the two of them with no acknowledgement of their romantic relationship and Katherine being a bit more stuck-up than I would imagine from her experiences in the earlier book.

The best character in the book is the Lady Jessica, who is referenced very early in the book and comes into play in the final third.  She's the only character who feels like a true heir to the series - a pirate, wild rebellious girl, willing to indulge in anything (and like every character in this series, willing to sleep with anyone of any sex) and to take grand scandalous actions to meet her agenda.  She's fantastic and makes the book better immediately as soon as she comes into play, which makes her not appearing outside a hint early until the final 150 pages a real bad waste.

I think I will be checking out the last work in this series, the prequel series Tremontaine which I started and gave up a year back, because I've loved the other two books in this series.  But this book just didn't do it for me. 
 
Posted by at

No comments:

Post a Comment

Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom)