Swordspoint / Ellen Kushner

Another slow read for me. It’s the first fantasy novel I’ve read that doesn’t have any fantastical elements in it. No magic. No alchemy. Nothing of the sort. It’s just a city called Riverside, old Riverside proper where the commoners live and nobles rarely tread, and the Hill where the aristocracy resides. The nobles rarely settle their duels themselves any more. They hire swordsmen to stand in for them. Richard St. Vier, the main character, is one of those swordsmen.

That’s really it. It’s a medieval-esque tale of intrigue. Some nobles want to kill other nobles, and they hire St. Vier (the most accomplished swordsman) to make the challenge on their behalf. And others of the gentry want to hire him to kill others. Some of them working at cross-purposes. Sadly, I could not follow the intrigues. Too many characters that felt too alike for me to understand who was against who. I didn’t understand the political structure, and who was vying for what positions. Sometimes I didn’t understand which person was which at all. Was it Godwin or Ferris? And why were they trying to sleep with who they were trying to sleep with?

I tend to think it’s my fault and not the book’s. When I start to get into this kind of complexity, I throw up my hands and give up. Sometimes on the whole book, but not in this case. I just stopped caring about the intrigue and just waited for explanations and the action scenes. The action, when it comes, it actually pretty swift and brutal. In Swordspoint it’s up close and personal, not clashes of armies. Joe Abercrombie has nothing on Ellen Kushner in terms of bloodletting.

Another one of those books that I can’t really recommend, but only because I couldn’t wrap my head around it.

Title: Swordspoint: A Melodrama of Manners
Author: Ellen Kushner
Cover creator: Thomas Canty
Series: Riverside; 1
Imprint / publisher: Bantam Spectra / Random House
Format: Mass market paperback
Length: 291 p. (does not include 3 extra stories)
Publication date: February 2003
ISBN-13: 978-0-553-58549-0
LC classification: PS3561.U777 S95 1987