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crack_van2008-11-09 03:56 pm
tryfanstone.livejournal.com) wrote in crack_van2008-11-09 03:56 pm
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Swordspoint Fandom: an Overview
Coming late, but with recs.
“Let the fairy tale begin on a winter’s morning, then, with one drop of blood new-fallen on the ivory snow: a drop as bright as a clear-cut ruby, red as the single spot of claret on the lace cuff.”
Swordspoint.
Ellen Kushner’s mad, bad boys; Alec in his black scholar’s robes with the Tremontine ruby marking his fingers blood-red; Richard with his swordsman’s grace, dancing death on a stage that encompasses all of Riverside and beyond; whore, Duchess, merchant, lord, beggar – myriad, distinct characters sprung to life in vivid strokes of the pen.
The Swordspoint series to date comprises three complete novels and several short stories. The original novel, Swordspoint, appeared in 1987, but the very first story of Alec and Richard was Red-Cloak, published in 1982 – the first story Ellen Kushner ever sold. Swordspoint was followed by the short story The Swordsman Whose Name Was Not Death, and then the novella The Fall of Kings (1997), co-written with Delia Sherman and later expanded (2002) into the novel of the same name. Published in 1998, the short story The Death of the Duke formed the missing link between Swordspoint and The Fall of Kings. For years, this remained the Swordspoint corpus, but in 2006 Kushner published the novel she had started in 1992, The Privilege of the Sword, which stands in canon time line between Swordspoint and The Death of the Duke.
Although the series does, with some awkward points of chronology, create a whole narrative history each book can be read alone.
The two central characters of the early novels are Alec and Richard, charming, wicked, sharp-edged with wit and steel, but the strength of Kushner’s text lies in far more than these two lovers. Her Riverside, a motley and beautiful city of literary shreds and patches, is a Dickensian character of its own: her accompanying villains, heroines, puppeteers and puppets are equally polished and appealing. Her plots are Byzantium, her imagery, drawing on folk tales and myth (as you would expect) both exact and resonant. Thus The Fall of Kings, set sixty years after Swordspoint and with a entirely different plot structure, holds to canon as much through style as through the family relationships and setting drawn from the original novel.
It’s difficult to discuss plot without revealing the whole of the story, and for the sake of those coming new to the series there are major plot points I really don’t want to mention. Suffice it to say that that Kushner describes Swordspoint as a melodrama of manners, but this is a description which includes tangled family relationships, honour and the lack of it; politics most bloody and murder most foul; romance sweet, harsh and ritual and a wry look at gender. Do not expect her to be always kind, although do expect her to be always incise: Swordspoint is written both on and to the tip of a very sharp sword.
Fan-fiction? Ellen Kushner is kind enough not to comment adversely. (I was warned, on writing Swordspoint, that she reads her fanfiction: which frankly was almost enough to scare any story coming and possibly explains the paucity of material for a fandom that lends itself so well to the beautiful and fated beloved of authors)
I’ll pre-empt the month and state that every known piece of Swordspoint fanfiction has been most kindly listed by![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
wordsofastory here. The LJ ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-community.gif)
_riverside provides the fandom with community, and Swordspoint is also one of those fandoms served well by yuletide . Ellen Kushner’s own website can be found at www.ellenkushner.com/.
In making recs this month, I’ll try cover the time frame of all the novels, but as always, the stories rec’d are a purely personal choice.
“Let the fairy tale begin on a winter’s morning, then, with one drop of blood new-fallen on the ivory snow: a drop as bright as a clear-cut ruby, red as the single spot of claret on the lace cuff.”
Swordspoint.
Ellen Kushner’s mad, bad boys; Alec in his black scholar’s robes with the Tremontine ruby marking his fingers blood-red; Richard with his swordsman’s grace, dancing death on a stage that encompasses all of Riverside and beyond; whore, Duchess, merchant, lord, beggar – myriad, distinct characters sprung to life in vivid strokes of the pen.
The Swordspoint series to date comprises three complete novels and several short stories. The original novel, Swordspoint, appeared in 1987, but the very first story of Alec and Richard was Red-Cloak, published in 1982 – the first story Ellen Kushner ever sold. Swordspoint was followed by the short story The Swordsman Whose Name Was Not Death, and then the novella The Fall of Kings (1997), co-written with Delia Sherman and later expanded (2002) into the novel of the same name. Published in 1998, the short story The Death of the Duke formed the missing link between Swordspoint and The Fall of Kings. For years, this remained the Swordspoint corpus, but in 2006 Kushner published the novel she had started in 1992, The Privilege of the Sword, which stands in canon time line between Swordspoint and The Death of the Duke.
Although the series does, with some awkward points of chronology, create a whole narrative history each book can be read alone.
The two central characters of the early novels are Alec and Richard, charming, wicked, sharp-edged with wit and steel, but the strength of Kushner’s text lies in far more than these two lovers. Her Riverside, a motley and beautiful city of literary shreds and patches, is a Dickensian character of its own: her accompanying villains, heroines, puppeteers and puppets are equally polished and appealing. Her plots are Byzantium, her imagery, drawing on folk tales and myth (as you would expect) both exact and resonant. Thus The Fall of Kings, set sixty years after Swordspoint and with a entirely different plot structure, holds to canon as much through style as through the family relationships and setting drawn from the original novel.
It’s difficult to discuss plot without revealing the whole of the story, and for the sake of those coming new to the series there are major plot points I really don’t want to mention. Suffice it to say that that Kushner describes Swordspoint as a melodrama of manners, but this is a description which includes tangled family relationships, honour and the lack of it; politics most bloody and murder most foul; romance sweet, harsh and ritual and a wry look at gender. Do not expect her to be always kind, although do expect her to be always incise: Swordspoint is written both on and to the tip of a very sharp sword.
Fan-fiction? Ellen Kushner is kind enough not to comment adversely. (I was warned, on writing Swordspoint, that she reads her fanfiction: which frankly was almost enough to scare any story coming and possibly explains the paucity of material for a fandom that lends itself so well to the beautiful and fated beloved of authors)
I’ll pre-empt the month and state that every known piece of Swordspoint fanfiction has been most kindly listed by
wordsofastory here. The LJ _riverside provides the fandom with community, and Swordspoint is also one of those fandoms served well by yuletide . Ellen Kushner’s own website can be found at www.ellenkushner.com/.In making recs this month, I’ll try cover the time frame of all the novels, but as always, the stories rec’d are a purely personal choice.
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&heart; &heart; &heart;
(Okay, wait, now I have to run and update my list, because someone posted a new story to the riverside community a few weeks ago and I had been lazy about adding it.)
I LOVE YOU SOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO MUCH. Also, this is a great description and introduction. Thank you.
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