swords / DKS

[jazzfish]

That one line in this year's tor.com First Lines Game wasn't actually from Pamela Dean's Tam Lin, but by the time I realised that I was ten pages into the book, so I just kind of went with it. And then I wanted something else with a Tom Canty cover (shut up), and aamcnamara had put in Privilege of the Sword so that was already on my mind, so I picked up Ellen Kushner's Swordspoint.

Swordspoint has a sequel, The Fall of the Kings, by Kushner and Delia Sherman, set sixty years later and peripherally involving some of the same people. It's also got another sequel, The Privilege of the Sword, by Kushner alone, that takes place between the two. Normally I'm a strict publicationist when reading series (ask me about Narnia sometime if you want me to rant. Or better, don't) but for some reason I feel like I ought to read Privilege next and then Fall. I think it's because Fall feels so unlike the other two: it's got overt magic, and much less swordplay. Anyway, thoughts? [ETA: first reread for all three, so it's not like plot points will be spoiled for me or anything.]

(Tam Lin is about the small liberal arts college you wish you'd gone to and the college experience you wish you'd had, and it made me terribly homesick for things that never happened. The Riverside books... will probably get their own Medialog post.)

---

Relatedly, Darrell K. Sweet has died. If you read the Wheel of Time books, or any fantasy at all from the 70s through 90s, you knew his covers: medieval / Ren-Faire-ish, very busy, with bright colors and slightly muddy shading. At one time my bookshelf had more DKS cover art than not. I very much liked his Lord Foul's Bane, and his Lord of the Rings covers on my battered paperbacks are still what I think of when I think of "Lord of the Rings." He was... iconic, in a way that not many other cover artists have been. Canty, of course; Michael Whelan; Frank Frazetta, Rowena Morrill, Boris Vallejo. Midori Snyder Kinuko Craft, now, although she may be more of a niche thing as she mostly makes me think "Patricia McKillip."

(The other thing about DKS is that whatever the merits of his artwork, he read the books he was illustrating and his covers always depicted a scene from the book. This is rarer than you'd think it might be.)

My taste long ago drifted away from the things implied by a DKS cover on a book, but still... it's something from my past that's definitely gone now, with no going back.

Comments

[shanaqui]

I would definitely recommend reading Privilege of the Sword straight after Swordspoint. I enjoyed The Fall of the Kings a lot less, and Privilege carries on very smoothly from Swordspoint.

[jazzfish]

*blink* Oh, I didn't mention; will update. I've read them all once already and am rereading, just... not sure how I want to reread. I also remember being less happy with Fall; not sure if that's a reason to sandwich it between them or stick it at the end. (Also not sure if that's because it's so different, or because I was actually less happy with it.)

[mneme]

FWIW, Lisa liked Fall a lot better on second read.

[jazzfish]

That's encouraging, thanks! I'll read it anyway, but it's good to know that it grew on someone.

[notyourwendy]

By Midori Snyder, you actually mean Kinuko Y. Craft. Midori Snyder is an author.

[jazzfish]

Boy, is my face red. Fixt, and thanks!

[thanate]

I tried Fall of Kings out of the library a while back, and completely failed to get into it. Too much politics and not enough distinction between characters in the first few chapters. People keep saying the others are good, but after that, and vaguely disliking her Thomas the Rhymer when I was probably too young for it, I haven't been able to muster the interest. With luck, your media post may inspire me.

[jazzfish]

From what I recall Fall is very different from the other two. (And Privilege is better than Swordspoint.) There /is/ a good bit of politicking going on in Swordspoint but it definitely takes a backseat to the character interactions.

[aamcnamara]

Since I read Tam Lin before applying to college, all my admissions visits had me frowning and going "No, not enough like Blackstock". I'm not sure if that's doing it backwards or not.

[jazzfish]

I'm impressed that you went to any college at all!

(I read Tam Lin before going to college, but I chose my college based solely on it being like high school but without my parents around.)

[aamcnamara]

MHC is not in fact very much like Blackstock, but it's more like Blackstock than Carleton seemed when I visited.

(You must have had a much nicer time in high school than I did.)

[jazzfish]

I... had a wretched time in junior high. Then we moved and I got in to a sci/tech magnet high school that was full of other geeks, which very likely saved my life while setting me up for a number of other long-term problems. At the time, though, all I wanted was "more like this, please." In retrospect this may have been a less than ideal way to pick a university but at least I didn't have to stress over admissions.

[aamcnamara]

Aha. Yes, that (for values of "that" which are "people like me!") was sort of what I didn't get in high school and thus wanted out of college. MHC, being full of geeky queer women, seemed ideal. (And has been, so far.)

[mneme]

The writing order on Fall of the Kings is kinda wonky anyway, enough to derail "order of publication". Ellen was doing public readings from TPots long before she started work on Kings with Delia -- and TPoTS clearly informed the writing of Kings -- even though TPoTS (pronounced "Teapots," of course) was completed significantly later.

[jazzfish]

Huh. I did not know that. And I'm kind of surprised, because one of the things I remember from FotK is having trouble accepting that Katherine from FotK was the same person as Katherine from TPotS.

("Teapots." Heh.)

ETA: to clarify, I'm rereading, not reading-for-first-time, just not sure now to go about the reread.

[mneme]

I didn't have a problem -- but then I was familiar with Katherine from the early scenes (particularly the introduction with Alec) in TPoTS long before I read Kings -- so for me it was more "oh, that's how Katherine grows up!".

But yeah -- Ellen started work on a sequel; then she had no time nor cope because (largely) of the full time job with her radio show. Kings worked as well as it did because a lot of Ellen's work could be blocking out plot with Delia (who would then leave lacuna for stuff that Ellen should write, but still), making it easier to work on the book while still holding down a full time creative job. (oh, incidentally, check out the acknowledgements on TPoTS!)

[jazzfish]

Nice!