The Fall of The Kings (Riverside) (2 page)

“
The Fall of the Kings
makes
Swordspoint
and its world
even deeper and richer.
I had astronomically high expectations for this book. It surpassed them all.”

—Caroline Stevermer

“
An exquisite tapestry of intrigue, blood, silk, and magic
green as summer. Rife with suspense and hilarity, Kushner and Sherman’s magnificent pasquinade of kingship and scholarship should enchant anyone who has ever aspired to either.” —Elizabeth E. Wein

“
What a wonderful book, beautifully written with
marvelously magical moments.
Reading it felt like seeing a stained glass window or a tapestry come to life, a self-contained story but clearly part of a larger history.
It makes
me feel very positive about what it’s possible to achieve
within the fantasy genre.
” —Jo Walton

“Ellen Kushner and Delia Sherman are
the true heirs of
Dorothy Dunnett
. Their characters are as likely to wield words as daggers, and
The Fall of the Kings
is
as crammed
with incident, intrigues both amorous and academic,
swordfights and politics and magic, as any reader could
hope for.
” —Kelly Link

“Marries the historical depth and sophistication of Sherman’s vision to the vivid, complex characters of Kushner’s world. . . .
This wonderful story defies predictability at every turn
. . . . Elegantly written, rich with conversations, peopled with confused, misled, and sincere protagonists, this novel provides a rare experience of a richly conceived and incessantly surprising world. . . .
This book is big enough to live in, and its readers will be
glad to take it as their residence.
” —Laurie J. Marks

“Every character becomes important to a plot whose unexpected turns will startle the most careful reader. . . .
This is
what Dickens or Eliot might have written, if they had written fantasy
. . . . Pick it up and enter a world as complicated as our own, and considerably more colorful.”

—Theodora Goss,
Strange Horizons

“This is a book of witty dialogue,
prose as precise as a blow
to the heart . . . magic with a true aura of numinous danger
, thrilling fights, thrilling scholarly debates, old books, swashbuckling aunts, exquisite clothing, ancient rituals, hot chocolate, female pirates, erotic paintings . . . true love, true kings, and a convincing demonstration of the importance of first sources in historical research.” —
Green Man Review

“The characters, fully developed and complex creations, are prisoners of their place in society, which makes them all the more interesting when they step out of their station in life.
The
Fall
of
the
Kings
is an experience not to be missed.
”

—
The Best Reviews

Praise for ELLEN KUSHNER’S

SWORDSPOINT

“
Swordspoint
begins with a single drop of blood on a field of new-fallen snow, an image that burned itself forever into my mind the first time I encountered it. I can close my eyes and see it still. It’s a terrific opening, an unforgettable opening . . . and the book just gets better from there. It is long past time that
Swordspoint
was back in print.”

—George R. R. Martin

“[A] witty fairy tale for grown-ups.”
—The Boston Herald

“A bravura performance, a delight from start to finish.”

—
Locus

“Charming, exciting, and ironically provocative, rather as though Georgette Heyer had turned her hand to fantasy.”

—Peter S. Beagle, author of The Last Unicorn

“A scintillating gem . . . witty, wicked, fascinating, beautifully written—and unique.”

—Joan D. Vinge, author of
The Snow Queen

“An elegant, talented, and vastly enjoyable novel.”

—Samuel R. Delany

“A many-faceted pleasure. It manages to evoke both the witty Regency romances of Georgette Heyer and the fog-shrouded, dangerous streets of Fritz Leiber’s Lankhmar. At the same time there is a cutting edge to the plotting and characterization that marks Ellen Kushner as a writer with a distinctive voice of her own.” —Guy Gavriel Kay

“
[Kushner] draws you through the story with such lucid,
powerful writing that you come to trust her completely—
and she doesn’t let you down
. . . . It’s the kind of trust that only a special kind of writer earns: the writer who has so fully realized the story’s world and characters, who has such perfect command of language and structure that the story never falters. Watch this woman—she’s going to be one of the great ones.” —Orson Scott Card

“A glorious thing, the book we might have had if Noel Coward had written a vehicle for Errol Flynn. It’s wicked and visual and witty, and it pulls you in like the doorman of a Bourbon Street bar.” —Gene Wolfe

“
Ellen Kushner writes like an angel
. . . pellucid, poetically structured prose [and] a gathering sense of tragic reality. I have not in some time read a better writer.”

—Algis Budrys in
The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction

“For all those lovers of Dumas, Baroness Orczy and Dorothy Dunnett . . . [with] Dickensian characters and ready wit . . . If you have even an ounce of interest in the interplay of sharp swords, and sharper tongues, then
Swordspoint
is for you.” —Charles de Lint

“Intelligent, humorous and dramatic, with a fine, malicious feeling for the operation of gossip in a closed society.”

—
Publishers Weekly

“A tale as witty, beguiling and ingenious as a collaboration between Jane Austen and John M. Harrison . . . a well-nigh faultless first novel.” —
Interzone

“Kushner stirs her disparate elements well, persuasively drawing readers into this distinctive fantasy world.” —
Booklist

“Sensuous . . . told with mannered style, this
witty fairy tale for
grown-ups
satisfies all the requirements for a grand escape.”

—
The Boston Herald

“Brilliantly written, exciting and a delight to read. [An] absorbing genre-bender . . . It should certainly appeal to lovers of intelligent fantasy. . . . Her writing is clear, fluid and beautiful, with wonderful dialogue. . . .
Swordspoint
is both moving and witty, a rare combination. . . . I didn’t want it to end.” —
Aboriginal Science Fiction

“Colourful, exciting, and packed with action.”

—
The Sydney
(Australia)
Morning Herald

“What
Swordspoint
does is to take up themes essential to the literature of outsiders: the deceptiveness of appearances, the anguish and bravado of alienation, and, perhaps most important, the challenges that face anyone who crosses borders, geographical, cultural, or economic. . . .
Swordspoint
is a tour de force, as riddled with feints and parries as a duel . . . rich with nuance and subtle shifts. . . . Ellen Kushner ably delivers what her first chapter promises: a world deceptively familiar yet deeply unlike our own. Readers who listen carefully, who resist the temptation to impose their values on these vividly realized characters, will be amply rewarded.”

—
Wavelengths

“An unforgettable book . . . [with] memorable characters, and levels of meaning lurking just beneath a seemingly simple storyline.” —FolkTales

THOMAS THE RHYMER

“Nobody is writing more elegant and gorgeous English these days than Ellen Kushner. Her books ought to be given to writing classes as texts on how the English language can be made so pure and cold and clear that you long to drink it down. . . . Is there anything this writer can’t do well?” —Orson Scott Card in
The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction

“An elegant and beautiful book that manages both to create firmly real, breathing people and to evoke the magic of faerie. Tender, wise, tough and imaginative—it’s a magical tour de force shot through with strange melodies. I loved it.”

—Neil Gaiman

“What a perfectly splendid story, splendidly told, with great style and originality. A bow of deep appreciation to Ms. Kushner, and my gratitude!” —Anne McCaffrey

“A book to introduce those who know nothing of the ballads to their rich and deep content . . . and intrigue those already familiar with them.” —Maddy Prior, lead singer for Steeleye Span

“Lyrically written and humanly moving. Ellen Kushner’s treatment of the True Thomas legend is worthy to rank with those of Kipling and Cabell.”

—Poul Anderson

“Lovingly crafted, beautifully wrought—a jewel of a book.”

—Judith Tarr

“An earthy, witty, even mildly erotic book, as convincing in its depiction of faerie passion and prejudice as in its descriptions of the narrowly focused life of the Middle Ages.” —
St.
Louis Post-Dispatch

“A happy blend of discreet scholarship and literary style . . . Kushner creates a lavish microcosm where riddles and runes and magical transformations govern.”

—
Publishers Weekly

“Studded with adulterous noblemen, promiscuous courtiers and sensuous love scenes, the old fairy tale takes on a ribald contemporary feel under Kushner’s pen, which paradoxically is truer to the story’s original pre-Victorian bawdiness.”

—
The Boston Herald

“Elegant and cozy. Witty and wise. Innocent and sensuous and, at times, downright sexy. Kushner’s
Thomas the
Rhymer
does it all.” —Jane Yolen

“What might seem all quaint, all harps, houppelandes, elf mounds and aristocracy, takes on a very human immediacy in Kushner’s skilled treatment. . . . Richly imagined scenes of Faerie, elegant and incongruous as the films of Cocteau. Kushner’s elves seek out humankind with a near-vampire hunger and a bittersweet desire. But at the end of
Thomas the
Rhymer
we understand the attraction mortals hold for them.” —
Locus

“
Thomas the Rhymer
is the real thing. It belongs on the same shelf with Lord Dunsany, James Branch Cabell, James Stephens, E. R. Eddison, Ursula K. Le Guin, and the rest.”

—
Aboriginal Science Fiction

“Her Thomas takes on the life which the old ballads so often deny him and . . . really touches the heart.” —Andre Norton

“Evocative, stirring, filled with life and color . . . lets us live for a while in those magical countries we’ve never seen but that we always knew must exist somewhere.”

—Lisa Goldstein

“A charming book, full of wit, imagination, the spiky sweetness of young love and the polished grain of old . . . more please!” —Suzy McKee Charnas

“Splendid . . . touching and tender . . . there is great technical skill in the way Kushner recreates the lyrical atmosphere of a folk tale.” —
Interzone

“Relaxed and flowing, poetry counterpointing wit . . .

It has a phantasmagorical quality . . . the enchantment is underpinned with tension and urgency . . . a tour de force . . . will surely endear itself to any who love old ballads, whiffs of faerie, and fine fantasy.”

—
New York Review of Science Fiction

“If you were afraid that Kushner’s first novel,
Swordspoint
, was a flash in the pan, you can stop worrying.
Thomas
the Rhymer
. . . stopped me in my tracks. Few books are this good! If you read fantasy at all, don’t miss this one;
Kushner is setting up to be one of the most important
fantasists alive!
” —
Locus

F
or in art there is no such thing as universal truth. A Truth in art is that whose contradictory is also true.

OSCAR WILDE, The Truth of Masks

What thou lovest well remains,
the rest is dross

What thou lov’st well shall not be reft from thee
What thou lov’st well is thy true heritage

EZRA POUND, Pisan Cantos, LXXXI

PROLOGUE