Tuesday, April 24, 2018

SciFi/Fantasy Book Review: Swordspoint by Ellen Kushner





Swordspoint is a pretty good short novel that was definitely ahead of its time when it was published back in 1986.  It's a low fantasy novel - there's no magic at all and the only fantasy elements are that this is a world in a fictional city with an archaic setting - I was going to say 1600s-1700s setting, but the setting is seemingly a mix of time periods: there are no guns (but fireworks are known) and swords are common, and there is nobility but there is also some amount of voting for political office, etc.  More importantly, it's a story where all of the stakes are small and personal - this is not a story about saving the world, it's about a swordsman who finds he and his lover caught up in a game of nobles, with both their lives and their honor at stake....and nothing else.  It's arguably a romance novel to an extent (the author describes it as a "fantasy of manners"), and as mentioned above, it was definitely ahead of its time in that the romance in question was Male-Male despite the book being published back in 1986.

And well, Swordspoint does this incredibly well.  Our main protagonist, the best swordsman in the world Richard St. Vier, isn't ever seriously challenged in terms of his skills (that title is in no way false), which isn't a problem because this isn't a story about some fateful duel with big stakes.  This is his story about a man who simply wishes to live for the challenge of a good sword fight and to live with his lover whose suicidal tendencies he finds so intriguing.  It's not an action book - despite what the name might imply - it's a book about manners and honor and love.  I'm describing this poorly, I know, but hopefully the long review will explain better why I enjoyed this book so.


----------------------------------------------Plot Summary-------------------------------------------------------
At a party at the Estate of Lord Horn, a duel between swordsmen breaks out - which is only compounded when Lord Horn's house Swordsman also intervenes.  No one knows the cause of the duel or who hired the Swordsmen to conduct the challenge, but at the end two men are dead and the victor is clear: Richard St. Vier, the City's best swordsman.

St. Vier is a man of Riverside, that dangerous part of the City where anything goes, and has a strict code for his work - "No weddings, no women, no demonstration fights..." only real challenges are acceptable, and St. Vier still refuses and passes off many of those who wish to hire him.  And so he lives in Riverside with his lover, the mysterious Alec, a man with a hint of nobility about him and a hint of university but an unknown past, who seems insistent upon getting into a fight with someone who will kill him.  St. Vier refuses to let Alec's silliness get Alec killed and for now has kept him alive and healthy.  But when a noble bearing the mark of the house of Tremontaine, arguably the most powerful Noble House in the City, seeks to hire him to possibly kill the head of the Council of Lords, it seems his quest for a simple life may have stumbled into a power play for the City itself.

Meanwhile, Michael Godwin is a noble with an interest in the Council of Lords, who becomes infatuated with the Dutchess of Tremontaine.  In that infatuation, he becomes interested in St. Vier and the actions of Swordsmen in general, and tries to learn how to become one - how do they do what they do and why?  But in his haste, he has given insult to Lord Horn by accepting his advances once and then refusing to continue onwards, and the impulsive Horn does not abide such insults....and nor will Horn accept "no" from St. Vier when asked to kill the young Godwin.

This tangle of noble agendas, a swordsman's ethics, and his need to protect his love will soon have the city balanced on a Swordspoint....and not everyone will make it out alive and happy.
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Swordspoint follows essentially two storylines, although one is clearly the main storyline and the other is secondary.  The first is that of Richard St. Vier and Alec, as they attempt to go about their relationship while keeping to their own lives - Richard to his code of fighting only interesting challenges to befit his role as a swordsman, while Alec tries to constantly get in trouble in Riverside to get harmed while keeping his own past secret - which becomes harder as Richard receives two very dangerous requests.  The second is that of Michael's path after he falls for the Duchess of Tremontaine and finds himself learning about the part of a Swordsman.

That main storyline, Richard and Alec's, is fantastic because the two are such great characters and make an excellent couple.  They each feel like real people, even though we really don't learn too much about each of their pasts directly - the book hints repeatedly as to Richard's past relationships and Alec's past history that he has run away from, but never fully reveals these things (apart from the general gist revealed about Alec in The Reveal).  And despite never being directly given a history of either man, or even in how they met, their relationship and actions ring totally true and as special.

It also helps that the area of Riverside is itself a spectacular character in this book, which is where the two hang out.  Contrasting to the other parts of the City, which is never named, Riverside is a more lawless area that even the nobles' agents don't dare go too far into, filled with not just swordsmen, but thieves of every type  (for example: a recurring gag is of this one house-burgler who is asked by several individuals to find Richard and give him a message, and the burgler takes his time doing it because he knows the pay for finding Richard will increase the longer it takes to do so as the client gets more desperate).  Whereas the Nobles in the City itself live life as if it's a game, using proxies such as swordsmen to fight their battles for each other, the people of Riverside live a more brutal life where order and justice is taken into one's own hands, and it's the conflict between this way of life (for Richard) and the Noble's that causes much of the final conflict.  This is part of why I have requested from the library the sequels to this series, to see more of Riverside in the future.*

*Blog readers might remember I started and did not finish the Riverside prequel series, "Tremontaine," last year, and after this book I might give it another shot since I did purchase that book (the first season).  Still, it was much slower and unfocused than Swordspoint, so I suspect I"ll have the same opinion.

 The secondary plot involving Michael Godwin is less successful.  In a way, it works to serve as a nice contrast and explainer for the main plot, as it shows truly what the role of a Swordsman is and how the noble world differs from that of Riverside.  Furthermore, the incidents created by Godwin lead to the conflict that wracks the main plot, so it does serve a purpose in this book.  Still Michael's plot feels like it was leading up to something more and then just sort of ends, so the book can focus more on Richard and Alec.  It still works, but kind of feels unsatisfying despite that.

Anyhow, Swordspoint is a really interesting book that I'd recommend if you like fantasy books that have romance elements, and are interested in books resolved not necessarily by action, but by relationships.  Happy to have given this world a second try.
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