Author: Ellen Kushner
Publisher: Bantam Spectra
Binding: Paperback
Publication Date: 2003
Graceful swordplay replaces magic, dense Regency-era social customs replace feudal hierarchy, and political intrigue replaces the usual battle between good and evil. With the refreshing lack of apocalyptically dire stakes, Kushner’s complex characters take center stage.
The fantasy setting is a nameless pre-technological city, with districts of elegant estates and gritty slums. Yet Kushner’s approach makes this setting unique. She never halts the story or disrupts the atmosphere to explain the workings of the society. Government titles and institutions are noted only when appropriate to the characters’ motivations. The sole external threat is a textile workers’ riot. This isolation from the infrastructure of the society leaves the characters’ perceived world — the areas of the society that they inhabit — as the dominant face of the setting.
Kushner wrings intense conflict from her constrained setting by cutting to the heart of her characters’ motivations. Her portrayal of a Regency-style social scene feels perfect, in both the delicate high society and the gritty low. After a quick first chapter that’s really a prologue, the novel crawls through slow social scenes with secondary characters whose importance hasn’t yet been shown. As such, their lengthy gossip doesn’t have any context or meaning at this early stage. The slow pace continues for several chapters, especially as the novel pushes aside the main characters from Chapter One, Richard and Alec, and focuses instead on Michael Godwin.
Once Richard begins receiving contract offers for duels, the plot picks up speed. The web of intrigue gradually ensnares all the previously introduced characters and rushes toward the conclusion. The ending features a clever twist, and all the characters’ lives are irrevocably changed.
Swordspoint is a delightfully compact novel, especially by modern fantasy standards. The plot resolution in a single volume is a refreshing change from the recent trend of fantasy duologies, many of which are actually a large manuscript split into two books for publication, and consequently have no resolution at the end of the first book. However, one major character is still ignored as the climax sweeps up all the others.
Kushner’s prose has a few awkward tics that distract from her subtle dialog and lush descriptions. Her dialog tags often carry unnecessary adverbs. She also uses ‘Richard’ and ‘St Vier’ interchangeably to refer to the main character, sometimes in the same sentence. However, in dialog she more appropriately picks whichever one of these names represents his relationship to the person speaking — Alec always calls him Richard, the jailer always calls him St Vier. In addition, the point of view often floats from character to character in the same scene, leaving the reader at a distance, struggling to follow the complex social agenda of each character.
Swordspoint stands as a classic of character-driven fantasy, particularly compared to the bland rehashes of epic fantasy that were also being written in the late 80s. Kushner’s novel reads like a forerunner of the recent social intrigue fantasy from authors like Jacqueline Carey, and she deserves credit for this landmark work that pioneered that subgenre.
