Subscribe to Read | $0.00
Join today and start reading your favorite books for Free!
Quick and Easy Sign Up!
It takes less then 1 minute to sign up, then you can enjoy Unlimited eBooks.
Join today and start reading your favorite books for Free!
Quick and Easy Sign Up!
It takes less then 1 minute to sign up, then you can enjoy Unlimited eBooks.
Read Anywhere and on Any Device!
Rate this book!
Write a review?
#30 short story.It would help if I knew a little of the background for one of the characters in this story; I think it would have helped explain some things. That said, beautifully written short about two people coming together. Beautiful illustrations, too.
I've wanted the "end" of Swordspoint for so long. Now I wish I didn't have it. This was beautiful. It was also loss and pain and loneliness.
With illustration from tor.com here: http://www.tor.com/stories/2010/12/th...
A love story pared down to essentials, raw and distant at the same time; lyrical. You can read it as an after-thread to other "Swordspoint" stories (one of the people involved is named Campion), but to take the shorter wordcount as a slighter story would be to miss the point.
As wonderful a read as ever, but far, far too short... and as unfair as it is, I have yet to conquer the sensation that this is not 'my' Alec - or come to that 'my' Sophia, from whose character there seems to be some piece missing that would explain the transition from the woman Alec meets on his island to the Sophia of Fall of the Kings. Partly, I must admit, the problem is that what I wanted was more Alec & Richard, and while I respect Ellen Kushner's right to write for herself or even (gasp!)...
WHY DID I DO THIS TO MYSELF.(Brilliant, of course. Read after Swordspoint and also after bracing your entire soul.)
WHY DID I DO THIS TO MYSELF.I fell in love with Ellen Kushner's Swordspoint about 10 years ago, then eventually got around to reading the other books set in Riverside. Didn't know that this existed until now and I read it immediatedly (while murmuring I'm gonna regret this to myself over and over) because I had to know what happened to Richard and Alec. Even after 10 years, I HAD TO KNOW. All I had was hints from the other books in the series and short stories. I knew it wasn't going to be happy...
Set in the Swordspoint universe, heartbreaking and beautiful. Not only is every word perfect, but Tom Canty's spot illustrations in black and white and lyrical line and form, are simply gorgeous.
Finally, I have hunted down the sad but satisfying answer to the one question I had lingering after finishing the Riverside trilogy.
Having read "Swordspoint" and "Privilege of the Sword," this absolutely broke me. I've never cried at a story before and yet this one continuously comes back up and stabs me right in the ribs. Repeatedly. I get so emotional over this that people bring it up out of the blue just for fun! And make jokes! I'm too invested.
I finished this short book (a pamphlet, really - it maybe took fifteen minutes to read), and just said "holy sh*t" as an expression of wonder, of the way this story is a small little jewel you did not expect to find.That said, if you haven't read Kusher's previous novel "Swordspoint" it will have much less of an effect; probably a three-star rating in that case.The illustrations by Thomas Canty are, as with all his work, haunting and beautiful.
Such a simple story, and it ends well, but it broke my heart in the best of ways.
mmmno i refuse to believe richard is dead!Rep: bi mc
Kushner can definitely write. This story is very well told and the use of language is excellent. However, it never really clicked for me. It seemed somehow uninteresting in the end.
I was first introduced to Ellen Kushner’s work through her novel Swordspoint which became a quick and lasting favorite of mine. Kushner has a way of writing that carries both descriptive and emotional power without tipping into the realm of wordy or sappy. Her characters are neither too strong nor too weak, but that wonderful middle ground at which a fictional figure becomes a believable human.Read my full review here.
Sad and gorgeous, and sweet-bitter and lingering as the ghost of poisoned honey. I was so glad to lay eyes upon this last piece of the missing years between The Privilege of the Sword and The Fall of the Kings, and revisit one of my most beloved characters. I'm a sucker for a good, tragic tale, and Kushner's works always have that quality for me, that echo of underlying sadness, though witty and saucy and finely crafted they may be. And the illustrations are lovely. Brilliant. Swordspoint has ev...
Beautifully written short story in a handsome little package.
Ellen Kushner's much-loved 1998 story, "The Death of the Duke", tells how Sophia, a lonely village physician, well past the age for being wed, met and married a stranger, "half-crazed with grief over the loss of his lover." Her new story, "The Man with the Knives" (available as a chapbook from Temporary Culture) fills in the details of that courtship. The story is told in a lyrical, almost poetical style, rather than a straightforward narrative, with Sophia's and Alec's alternating points of vie...
Beautiful, moving story. I am a huge fan of this world and these characters, and despite the fact that I cried over this, it was very satisfying. The way Kushner uses language in this story is just exquisite. Also, I'm a sucker for eternal love.
That was very sad, sweet and joyful. I'm not sure how it fits with the Riverside stories but I liked it
