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Our story opens during winter in a nameless 18th century-type city: snow falls over Riverside, the ghetto where the decadent criminals live. A sword-fight has occurred on the Hill where the nobles arrange such things for their own amusement. One fighter lies dead, another writhes in agony, and the winner leaps over the wall and rushes away. He is Richard St. Vier, the best swordsman society has ever seen. In this world, professionals duel to the death as proxies for nobles seeking to settle obscure points of honor. St. Vier has survived longer than one might expect. Only the wealthiest can afford him. He's an unusual character: calm, blank, and practical with no tendency for either introspection or remorse. Highly intelligent, he's never learned to read. Extremely dangerous, he holds no grudges against the fools who underestimate him, fixate on his good looks, and proposition him. You could call him a sociopath. Or perhaps he is just Zen-like in his ability to submerge his personality into the perfection of his work. St. Vier slips away from the party on the Hill where he killed for money; he dislikes answering questions about his technique. Now he returns to his home in Riverside. The colorful demimonde has already heard of his duel. They crowd into his landlady's bedroom, pushing aside her paying customer (she's also a prostitute) in their demands for details. Amusingly, St. Vier himself sidles in, and remains unnoticed by most. He goes to his apartment where he lives with his "young gentleman" Alec, a university student who refuses to say anything about his past though he obviously has the accent and bearing of the upper classes. Alec showed up in Riverside a few months ago and moved in with St. Vier after the two sorted out their mutual attraction-revulsion. Now St. Vier chides Alec for going out alone in Riverside because not all of its criminal residents know that the foppish-looking scholar is under St. Vier's protection. Alec is not above exploiting that protection. In one scene, he picks a fight with a street thug, and then demands of St. Vier, "Kill him!" He's a sociopath, too. But where St. Vier is calm, Alec is feverish. Some betrayal at the hands of his nameless aristocratic family has turned him into an emotional wreck. Small remarks provoke him to rage. Constantly he lashes out with sarcasm at St. Vier who gingerly tries to manage him. At other times, his wit proves highly amusing. They are uneasy lovers (with St. Vier being more of an indiscriminate bisexual), but do they truly share any love? They are about to find out when the nobles, in their lust for power, involve St. Vier as a pawn in a complicated plot. Caught up in forces beyond his control, St. Vier may forfeit his life unless Alec can reclaim his noble rank to save him. Swordspoint, first published in 1987, was the very first homoerotic fiction that many of us fans like me here at ObsidianBookshelf.com were privileged to find back then. It lingered in our imagination for decades. It remains witty, fast-paced, and timeless. No one should underestimate this novel's influence on both the fantasy genre and the homoerotic fiction genre. It even started a fantasy subgenre known as "mannerpunk." That said, I need to point out the eccentricities of Swordspoint for readers who might be expecting certain things. It's considered a fantasy, but there's no magic. Though it paved the way for homoerotic fiction, it downplays the love story in favor of the comedy of manners. Much of the book centers on the viewpoints of various nobles and their political intrigue. Alec and St. Vier bicker and banter, but their sex scenes are few and fleeting. (Example from p.199 of the hardback: "Alec lowered him to the floor. At first he was rough, and then he was gentle.") I recommend Swordspoint highly: an exhilarating read, and a ground-breaking publication in our genre. Plus the cover illustration by the immensely talented Thomas Canty is absolutely gorgeous. |
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