Swordspoint by Ellen Kushner
Swordspoint is one of the classic cases where I build my expectations up only to have them knocked down. I wanted to like it; I wanted to love it, since I read it's sequel, The Fall of the Kings, and thought it was amazing. But this...ordinarily I would give a plot summary first, but that's next to impossible because this book's "plot", for about the first hundred pages, is the two main characters wandering around, getting into fights, and angsting.
The whole lack of a plot would be forgivable if I had been able to like the characters. But no. Richard St Vier is an expert swordsman-for-hire, and his lover is Alec, who is mysterious and scholarly . Alec is most likely a member of the nobility, due to the fact that he's educated and has refined speech and manners, but he never says, and Richard never asks. Frankly one of the huge disappointments about the book is the relationship between Richard and Alec. I found myself wondering, time and again, just what is Richard's attraction to Alec? He's annoying, petulant, self serving, manipulative, self destructive...really, he had no redeeming qualities that I could see. All he does is deliberately make enemies so he can get Richard to kill them. But for some reason Richard decides he needs to protect him.
And Richard, if anything, was even more disappointing than Alec. What is his motivation? Why does he risk his life for the sake of some idiot nobles who pick quarrells with each other and set swordsmen at each other's throats, instead of doing their own dirty work? The only explanation ever given for his lifestyle is, "swordsmen are all crazy". There is no character growth and developement in either of them, no interesting flashbacks where we learn more about their histories and how they ended up where they are. There was however, one character that I ended up liking. But he wasn't a huge part of the action, and I really didn't see why he was in the book as much as he was, other than to serve as a convenient plot device. But it was highly frustrating, to see Kushner take a character who comes off as badly as he does in the beginning, and turn him into someone halfway likable, and then end the story before we find out what ever happens to him!
And the sex scene. Gawd. It reads more like the characters are tripping on LSD than having sex. I mean it is just plain weird and so...the opposite of what sex scenes should be like.
I will admit that sometimes it's nice to read a book where the kingdom isn't in dire peril and needs rescuing. I like gritty, political fantasies that are full of intrigue, as well as epics. Once I was well through the first half of Swordspoint and could see where it was going (finally), I enjoyed it a bit more...but I still thought the rest of it was terrible (especially Alec's rich kid angst. Gag me.)