Swordspoint by Ellen Kushner

Richard St. Vier is a swordsman-for-hire in Riverside, an unsavory district in an unnamed capital city, where he lives with and indulges his lover, Alec, a scholar. On the surface Richard is an unassuming man, but also a deadly one who takes contracts from noblemen to fight duels to the death.

The book is mannerpunk, a fantasy subgenre where our heroes don’t face magic or foreign invaders, but society and peers. By necessity, this also means that Riverside itself is almost a character, and I always approve of City as Character*. We also have swashbuckling, abductions, revenge quests, wit, plot twists, and politics. Many of my favorite things.

I liked the book a good bit, but suspect I would have liked it more if I hadn’t read so much fantasy that’s obviously influenced by it, which is always a danger when you read or watch something influential years after the fact. I also had a problem liking…well, pretty much anyone but Richard. Except for Michael (who I found both dull and irritating, not to mention my annoyance with how much of the book’s conflict seemed to stem from his rejecting a suitor he was encouraging until he learned they were unattractive) pretty much all the characters were interesting, which is good enough for me, but I didn’t like them much. I didn’t even like Richard as much as I thought I should, but eventually I realized that part of the mad love I usually have for characters like him was the lengths they go to for the people they care about. While Richard certainly didn’t let me down in that regard, I didn’t like Alec nearly as much as I usually do the person the “hero” is going to great lengths for, which tends to be a contributing factor. I don’t dislike Alec, and I realize he isn’t really quite right in the head, but I don’t think I ever quite got over the bit early on where we learned that Alec likes to annoy people so they’ll challenge him and then he can watch Richard kill them.

As usual, I think iIm coming across as more critical than I actually feel about it., but I did like it, and the world.  I understand Kushner has other stories set in this world. Opinions of them?

*Yes, it’s a district, not the city. But if I think about that, then I’ll start tearing my hair out about how the city doesn’t have a name, which took me about 200 pages to get over.

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Is LJ holding anyone else's comment notifications via e-mail hostage for several hours, or is it just me?

Angel Sanctuary Vol 16

In one of the sidebars, Kaori Yuki recommends rereading the entire series at once. I’m not sure she realized what she was saying.

( spoilers involve interesting leather ensembles )

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Remember the Iowa collector who was arrested for buying obscene manga from Japan?  Apparently it was yaoi manga.

Legally, I'm not sure there's a leg to stand on unless there was shouta in the collection, but I wonder if this means they're going to start looking at other licensed manga, especially since the androgynous figures were apparently part of it.

ETA:  I'm also very curious about what made the postmaster suspicious about this guy in the first place.  Was it random, typecasting,  or something about him in particular, whether behavir or problems/accusations/convictions in the past?

manga: Jyu-Oh-Sei Vol 1

Thor and Rai are the twin sons of a government official on the planet of Juno, the main planet of a solar system of colonies 430 years in the future. The twins are “purebreds,” of exclusively caucasian descent, something becoming rarer and rarer in the colonies. One day, they go home to find their parents murdered, and are abducted from the scene. When Thor wakes up hours later, he learns that their parents were murdered by Odin, who was supposedly their father’s best friend, and that the twins are being sent to Kimaera, a planet that does not officially exist, but is actually the dumping ground for death row prisoners. The person transporting them, however, is secretly an ally of their father’s and tells Thor that if he can survive and become the Beast King-the ruler of the planet-then he’ll be able to leave Kimaera and go to Hecate, the official prison planet, and from there return to Juno and learn the truth of why his father died.

On Kimaera, they initially live with the Yado, children who were born on the planet, but leave out of fear that the Yado will get rid of Rai, who is weak, so that he won’t be a drain on their resources. It’s not long, however, before they run across Ochre Gang, one of the gangs that run the country. The brothers are separated, and Thor is rescued by Tiz, a young woman from another gang, who claims him as her husband. Between that and catching the attention of Third, the third highest ranked member of Ochre Gang (he claims to have forgotten his real name) Thor ends up being accepted by Ochre Gang, and sets out to learn the truth of Kimaera with the two, even as he attempts to maneuver Kimaera’s politics. He also learns that Rai apparently fell to his death while fleeing Ochre Gang, but in the true spirit of “weak/strong brothers separateed as children” I expect that he faked it so that Thor won’t have to take care of him anymore, and will later return in some badass form, likely either to save Thor, or challenge him in becoming the Beast King. When he does return, I hope he has a scar, different hairstyle, or different wardrobe to make it easier telling him and Thor apart.

Despite being set on Kimaera with no look at anything else once the twins are there, the politics of the colonies manage to remain prominent. Thor and Rai were obviously sent there (instead of being rescued) so that they could learn The Truth, and we later learn that it’s a dumping ground for political prisoners. In addition, Thor learns that resources rare in the colonies are commonplace on Kimaera, and that the planet would seem to be better used as a mining colony than a death row dumping ground. Third seems to be guiding Thor down a specific path, and to know more about what’s going on than anyone else, but he isn’t talking.

The mangaka seems to be saying something about race and gender roles, but I’m not sure what. The twins’ mother places a lot of important on their “purebred” status, which is apparently a rarity in the colonies. (Also pertinent to the plot is the fact that life expectancy has decreased, and people don’t live past 30 without artificial aid.) On Kimaera, the gangs are separated by both race and gender, interacting primarily to mate. Despite this, however, there seems to be no stigma against women choosing men of another race to father their children. Tiz, Thor’s apparent love interest, is Asian, and Chen, her leader, is in love with Third, who is black. I’m assuming that male children, once old enough to be separated from their mothers, are sent to the father’s gang, unless they’re abandoned. (The Yado are abandoned children.)

In addition, women hold a special place in Kimaera’s society. Making up less than 20% of the population, being chosen as a woman’s mate is essentially the greatest protection a male can receive, and both refusing and forcing them is considered taboo. In many ways, it’s almost like setting the Amazons up as the high social order. And let me just pause for a moment to appreciate that for once, in a society where the world is incredibly harsh and the women vastly outnumbered, the creator didn’t decide to make them the underdog and virtual (or literal) slaves to the men and their wants, but went “hey, these women are going to be tough from surviving the same experiences, and instead of living at the whim of men, the men should realize that they need to keep them happy and willing to have sex with them if their society is going to survive.” Women also have the right to dump their current mate if they find someone they want more, but the reverse isn’t true. This does result in an almost annoying focus on procreation and mates, but an understandable one.

It’s pretty interesting. Thor and Rai both can be fairly annoying at times, but are still likable. The rest of the cast, however, makes up for their annoying moments. I’m not sure if the series will just cover the struggle to become Beast King, or if it will also cover going back to Juno and getting revenge. Tokyopop is releasing the series in a format that combines two regular manga volumes into one. I know the series is five volumes, but I’m not sure if it’s five normal-sized volumes, or five volumes in this format. The format also means a higher price (though still lower than a regular manga) which makes me fear cancellation.