Swordspoint

Book cover of "Swordspoint" by Ellen Kushner featuring a woman dressed in historic clothing, holding a sword.

First U.S. Edition hardcover illustration and design by Thomas Canty

The Swordspoint Series #1

Swordspoint

Winner—Gaylactic Network Spectrum Award, 2000 Hall of Fame
Nominated for Prix Imaginales (roman étranger), France, 2009

Hailed by critics as “a bravura performance” (Locus) and “witty, sharp-eyed, [and] full of interesting people” (Newsday), this acclaimed novel, filled with remarkable plot twists and unexpected humor, takes fantasy to an unprecedented level of elegant writing and scintillating wit. Award-winning author Ellen Kushner has created a world of unforgettable characters whose political ambitions, passionate love affairs, and age-old rivalries collide with deadly results.
 
On the treacherous streets of Riverside, a man lives and dies by the sword. Even the nobles on the Hill turn to duels to settle their disputes. Within this elite, dangerous world, Richard St. Vier is the undisputed master, as skilled as he is ruthless—until a death by the sword is met with outrage instead of awe, and the city discovers that the line between hero and villain can be altered in the blink of an eye.

  • London: Allen & Unwin, 1987. New York: Arbor House, 1987. New York: Tor, 1989, November 1991. New York: Bantam/Spectra, 2003 (including “Red Cloak,” “The Swordsman Whose Name Was Not Death” and “The Death of the Duke” and a new Afterword by EK). New York: Science Fiction Book Club, 2006 (in Swords of Riverside). London: Gollancz, 2016

    Translations:
    Tokyo: Hayakawa Publishing, Inc., 1993, 2008 (Japanese).
    Madrid: Bibliópolis, 2005 (A Punta de Espada also including “El espadchím cuyo nombre no era Muerte” and “La muerte del duque,” Spanish).
    France:
    Actusf Editions, 2019 (À la point de épée: Édition augmentée inédite, French), including: “Un jeune homme de mauvaise vie,” “Au temps où j’étais brigand,” “Le bretteur qui n’était pas la mort,” “Le Duc des Bords-d’Eaux,” “Cape-Rouge,” and “Les lettres d’Octavia Saint-Vière”
    Calmann-Lévy, 2008 (À la point de épée: un Mélodrame d’honneur, French)
    Folio SF, 2010 (À la point de épée: un Mélodrame d’honneur, French)
    Moscow: AST, 2009 (Na ostrie klinka, Russian).
    Israel: Graff Publishing, 2017 (Al Khod Ha’Saif, Hebrew).

Reviews

  • 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, and unforgettable opening… and the book just gets better from there.

    George R.R. Martin

  • Expands the literary boundaries of stylistic and imaginative achievement in fantasy and contemporary literature.

    The New York Times Book Review

  • You probably keep a copy of Swordspoint on your bedside table, ready in case you catch the flu or have a particularly difficult day at work. If you don’t, then beg, borrow, or buy a copy… so you can wander around the City, drinking beer and quarrelling with pickpockets at a bar in Riverside, taking chocolate and gossip with the aristocrats on the Hill.

    Theodora Goss, Strange Horizons

     

  • 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

  • Kushner let[s] her rapier-like writing, vivid characterizations, and cleverly plotted story speak for themselves. The result [is] an urbanely sophisticated romantic adventure that staked . . new ground for literary fantasy.

    Paul Witcover, Realms of Fantasy

     

  • 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

  • Ellen Kushner’s Swordspoint has the distinction of being among the most intelligent and stylish fantasy novels I’ve ever read.

    Robert M. Tilendis, Green Man Review

  • Ellen Kushner’s Swordspoint: A Melodrama of Manners took the fantasy world by storm when it was published in the 1980s, and Ellen was hailed as the fantasy field’s answer to Dorothy Dunnett.

    Terri Windling, Endicott Studio

  • An elegant, talented, and vastly enjoyable novel.

    Samuel R. Delany

  • Swordspoint is not so much fantasy as it is alternate history. No dwarves or elves or magic elixirs. Instead, it’s anti-heroes, courtly intrigue, and plenty of swordplay. ….Kushner excels at weaving a complex but not overly complicated web of deceit, double-crosses, and hidden agendas…. secret games made all that more interesting by its colorful assembly of players… .characters who straddle that fine line between black and white… .a testament to Kushner’s ability to craft a tale both deeply textured and vividly imagined.

    Joseph Mallozzi

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

    Peter S. Beagle, The Last Unicorn

  • 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

  • [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, The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction (1988)

  • A bravura performance, a delight from start to finish.

    Locus

  • A tale as witty, beguiling and ingenious as a collaboration between Jane Austen and M. John Harrison… a well-nigh faultless first novel.

    Interzone

  • Brilliantly written, exciting and a delight to read. [An] absorbing genre-bender… 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 SF

  • A scintillating gem… witty, wicked, fascinating, beautifully written—and unique.

    Joan D. Vinge, author of The Snow Queen

  • 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, The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction

  • Colourful, exciting, and packed with action.

    The Sydney (Australia) Morning Herald

  • [Takes] 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 … 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

  • [A]n encounter with a subtly different sensibility and worldview… [with] memorable characters in a rich world… couched in elegant prose and some very witty dialogue exchanges.

    Eve’s Alexandria

  • Some of the action scenes in this novel are unforgettable, but it really is the world that stays with you. The combination of Kushner’s flawless ability with dialog and the story of living by the sword just to get by in an urban landscape is what quickly picks you up and places you firmly in your place, right alongside Richard and Alec as they make their way through every day life.

    Jeff Pelletier, Fantasy Book News

Audiobook

Narrated by Ellen Kushner

Book cover for 'Swordspoint' by Ellen Kushner, featuring an illustration of a woman with curly hair, wearing a flowing dress, against a light background.

  • Narrator: Ellen Kushner

    Featuring: Dion Graham (Richard St. Vier), Robert Fass (Alec), Katherine Kellgren (Diane Duchess Tremontaine, Lady Olivia Rossillion), Nick Sullivan (Lord Ferris), Wilson Bridges (Michael Godwin), Sam Guncler (Basil Lord Halliday)… and the inimitable Simon Jones (Lord Horn, The Tragic Swordsman, Devin, Eoni, Chartil Poison-seller, Lord Arlen)

    Supporting Cast: Nick Azzaretti (New Market Swordsman, Lord Thomas Berowne), Anne Bobby (Lady Godwin, Ginnie Vandall, theater boy), Stewart Hamilton Frank (Mary Lady Halliday, Lady Helena Nevilleson), Doug Shapiro (Lord Bertram Rossillion) Butch D’Ambrosio (Nimble Willie), Sue Anne Dennehy & Tom Curley (Riversiders) . . . and Sue Zizza as the Parrot.

  • Executive Producer and Director – Sue Zizza
    Co-Producer – Ellen Kushner
    Supervising Producer – Mike Charzuk
    Master Recording, Editing, Mixing – David Shinn
    Original Score Composed – Nathanael Tronerud
    with additional original incidental music by – Tom Curley and Louis Zizza
    Production Assistant – Butch D’Ambrosio
    Project Assistant – Matthew Mendillo

“An audio gem!” – Fred Greenhalgh, Radio Drama Revival

AUDIE AWARD 2012, Best Audio Drama
EARPHONES AWARD, AudioFile Magazine
2013 Communicator Award: Gold Award of Excellence (Audio)
Included in AudioFile’s Best Sci-Fi, Fantasy and Audio Theater Audiobooks, 2012

“Author Ellen Kushner delivers her utterly unique blend of modern fantasy and nineteenth-century novel of manners in an audio theatre production with original music, lively soundscapes, and distinguished cast.” – AudioFile Magazine, Best Audiobooks of 2012

“Throughout the entire book’s soundscapes you will hear the cadences of the marketplace, the music of the drawing rooms, and of course the ring of steel drawn from the scabbard.” – Neil Gaiman

“[C]harismatic sporting swordfighters, ladies who manouvere over tea cups, and, as with all great thrillers, big politics leading to individual clashes that illustrate that world in miniature. . . . . Ellen’s own narration is supported by dialogue provided by a cast (including Simon Jones), sound effects and in scene music. That’s quite a tightrope to walk, and in lesser hands the effect could be terrible, an awkward halfway house between drama and reading.  But here it works wonderfully, the effect being akin to Ellen having an impossible vocal range, as the voices of the characters still seem to spring from her narration.  I’m thoroughly enjoying it, at half an hour a day, and I think it would make a splendid first audiobook experience for any lover of fantasy.”  – Paul Cornell, The Twelve Blogs of Christmas

“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 DeLint

French Press

  • Ellen Kushner à la Librarie Scylla, Paris (photos)

    READ

  • Interview d’Ellen Kushner, parue dans Les Chroniques de L’Imaginaire

    READ

  • Interview 2017: Ellen Kushner aux Utopiales 2017

    WATCH

  • Les Imaginales 2018: Interview d’Ellen Kushner

    WATCH

  • Masterclass de l’Imaginaire 2019 avec avec Karine Gobled, Jacques Martel, Alex Nikolavitch, Ellen Kushner et Mathieu Rivero

    LISTEN

  • Utopiales 2019 – L’autrice et son ombre : Ellen Kushner, Patrick Marcel

    LISTEN

  • Ellen Kushner à la pointe de l’ironie (Le Soire)

    READ

  • Ellen Kushner : “Ce n’est pas l’homosexualité qui a scandalisé mais l’absence de magie” (Libération)

    READ

  • Telerama: Ellen Kushner, à la pointe de “l’historic fantasy”

    READ

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

Joan D. Vinge

International Covers

  • Swordspoint first U.S. Edition hardcover illustration and design by Thomas Canty

    First U.S. Edition hardcover illustration and design by Thomas Canty

  • Swordspoint First World Edition (UK) hardcover illustration by Martin Springett

    First World Edition (UK) hardcover illustration by Martin Springett

  • Swordspoint second edition mass market paperback illustration by Thomas Canty

    Second edition mass market paperback illustration by Thomas Canty

  • Swordspoint French cover by Alain Brion

    French cover by Alain Brion

  • Swordspoint original Japanese edition cover

    Original Japanese edition cover

  • Swordspoint second Japanese edition cover

    Second Japanese edition cover

  • Swordspoint Spanish edition, Bibliópolis Fantastica (Illustration by Alejandro Terán)

    Spanish edition, Bibliópolis Fantastica (Illustration by Alejandro Terán)

  • Swordspoint Gollancz UK reissue, 2016

    Gollancz UK reissue, 2016

  • Swordspoint Israel edition, 2017

    Israel edition, 2017

  • Swordspoint French cover (Editions ActuSF), 2019

    French cover (Editions ActuSF), 2019

  • Swordspoint French Cover (Helios Collection), 2021

    French Cover (Helios Collection), 2021

“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

Man with curly hair and a full beard, wearing a graphic t-shirt, standing indoors

Litographs offers the complete text of Ellen’s classic Swordspoint as a t-shirt, tote bag, poster, a scarf — even pillows and blankets! Comes in multiple vibrant colors and styles. Order yours here.

Swordspoint on Litographs