Customer Reviews

The Fall of the Kings

5 star:		(13)
4 star:		(6)
3 star:		(6)
2 star:		(4)
1 star:		(5)

 

 

What a lovely book, rich and layered, set in an alternate universe witout the usual cliches, it feels familiar and strange at the same time. I loved Swordspoint and Thomas the Rhymer, and this is a great successor. The people, heroes and anti-heroes alike, are treated sympathetically through the course of the book, and even the minor characters are intriguing and surprising. I'm not usually a fan of atmospheric novels, but this one worked beautifully. It also has enough plot and witty dialog and character development to keep me reading until *way* past my bedtime.

Wow. I waited several weeks for an unfilled order for this book at [a store] and finally gave up, going to Amazon.com in desperation. My copy arrived yesterday and I was awake until 3:00 AM reading this delicious, sexy, thrilling, magical tale that I literally could not put down for hours! The son of the memorable Alec, late of "Swordspoint", is the focus of this story, a handsome, dissolute young lordling, (clever and witty, but not so caustic as his father) who attends the famous University and falls for a young professor. The professor has been researching the ancient tales of the kings and their wizards, their relationships, and their power struggles. The magical legends, believed to be full of fanciful notions of mysticism, appear to be coming back to life in the world with young Theron Campion, the noble, and his professor reliving the ancient roles of the kings and wizards before them. This book is beautifully written, darker and sexier than "Swordspoint", and just as thrilling and new. I LOVED this book. Seek out the comic book series (yes, comic book) "A Distant Soil", issue #29, for a short story by Delia Sherman entitled "The Tragedy of King Alexander the Stag" for an original, nowhere else published story of the Kings and Wizards of the "Swordspoint" world. I can't recommend this book enough.

Ellen Kushner and Delia Sherman's The Fall of the Kings is a worthy sequel to Kushner's earlier Swordspoint. The excitement is there, the political intrigue, the food (pickled cherries!), and most of all, what people do to one another.

Get the hot chocolate out and enjoy this bawdy, intellectually stimulating novel of love and betrayal.

'Swordspoint', a little gem of a novel, is a book I enjoy re-reading and have never grown tired of. Though short, it is an elegantly witty work of high fantasy with characters I came to love.

Now, Ellen Kushner and her partner, Delia Sherman, have once again delighted my literary palate with 'The Fall of the Kings'. This novel is as rich as a Pre-Raphaelite painting, full of lush hues and romantic themes.

'The Fall of the Kings' is full of so many multifacted characters to love, to dislike and to ardently sigh over--Theron, the wonderfully charming, decadent, shamelessly self-indulgent, warm and idealistic son of Alec, from 'Swordspoint'; Basil St. Cloud, the handsome and charismatic young scholar with his longing for truth and passion for the past--and for Theron; The Lady Sophia could easily give her ancestress, Diane of Tramontaine a good fight. Where Diane's motivations were more mysterious, Sophia is quite open when it comes to wielding power. And of course, who could forget Theron's sister, Lady Jessica, the beautiful and ruthless pirate queen.

Even the ghost of Richard St. Vier makes a small spectral appearance.

Add to this heady mix raucous university students, dueling professors, hidebound scholars, men in elegant frocks, women in shimmering gowns, a heartless paintrix, ancient lore and buried secrets, and 'The Fall of the Kings' becomes the kind of novel that envelopes you in its many layers.

Like 'Swordspoint', the eroticism is subtle, allowing the reader to savor the intimate moments between Theron and Basil. Kushner and Sherman do not go into details, and as excellent storytellers, they do not need to.

'The Fall of the Kings' is another masterwork of high fantasy--a world that once visited is very hard to forget.

I've been waiting for years for a sequel to Swordspoint and was thrilled to finally read Fall of the Kings. It is as lush, gorgeous, thrilling, and witty as its predecessor, while exploring darker and richer territory. Sherman and Kushner manage to find the perfect word, the just-right phrase to catch the reader off-guard again and again. Like a fine chocolate, it is impossible to convey the sensual enjoyment, the delicious combination of bitter and sweet, the sheer delight that is Fall of the Kings. I can't recommend this book highly enough.

Over five centuries ago the Northern King, his army, and the wizards traveled to the Kingdom of the South for a marriage that would bind the two lands into one union. Over time the king and the wizards fell out of favor with their nobles and were killed. The Council of Lords became rulers of the land and any talk of wizards or magic is considered treason. For two hundred years the nobles ruled without any serious threat to their authority but now rumors come to their attention of the restoration of the monarchy.

The council sends spies to the University to see if anyone has done anything that could be considered heresy. Two names keep cropping up in the investigation. History Professor Basis St. Cloud who thinks that magic once actually existed and Theron Campion, heir to the Duchy of Tremontaine. These two men are fated to play a prominent role in events that will usher in a new age of thought.

Ellen Kushner and Della Sherman combine their talents to create a work that is sublimely rich in characterizations and a perspective similar to medieval Europe. The political infighting at the university adds a sense of the ridiculous to this very serious epic drama. 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 KINGS is an experience not to be missed.

Harriet Klausner

First off, I loved this book...right up until the end. It has possibly THE most disappointing conclusion I have ever read. Not, as one might suspect, because of the actual climatic events, but because of how it was handled by the writers. The entire emotional thrust of the book comes from either Basil or Theron and yet, when the most emotional aspect of the book happens, the writers deprive the reader of any response, narrative or reaction from the emotional characters. I needed that closure, to know what Theron thought, what he felt. To have the book finish from the point of view of a minor, late-introduced character is a cheat, as far as I'm concerned.

However, I still gave it 4 stars because, up until that point, I was enthralled by this book. The relationship between Theron and Basil was powerful, passionate and satisfying. I can see myself picking the book back up to read scenes in isolation, but I don't think I could ever read it cover to cover again thanks to the intense frustration the ending gave.

This book was lent to me by a friend after she had read it, and I heard bits and pieces of it, nothing bad at all. I have to agree. This book really captured and held me from start to finish.

While I have the attention span of a goldfish, some parts I wanted to, and did skim, I'll admit. It was very detailed, and my attention span couldn't handle it all the time. However, if you enjoy descriptions and books being greatly indepth, here you are. The characters were VERY well developed, and right away I became attached to a few, namely the two main characters, Theron (an aristocratic, snooty boy) and Basil (a logical, deepthinking college professor).

The plot itself was very creative and unique, and something I hadn't seen done in any Fantasy books yet. The relationship between the two lead characters captivated me. They were probably my favorite part about the book. And, while the plot, very well developed and indepth, was intriguing, I didn't like the ending. At all. This could be my attachment to certain characters, but it could be otherwise. It seemed rather abrupt, I have to say. However, it DID spark the emotional side of me, and I did cry while reading it. That is how well-written it is.

So, while this book immediately became one of my favorites, I do rather enjoy remembering about the beginning three-fourths of it, rather than the last fourth.

A strange book. I don't often read fantasy, but a friend gave me Swordspoint, the book that precedes this one, and I've read it several times for its concise wit and great characters. I read this book hoping for a similar elegant comedy of manners, but The Fall of the Kings is a different and much more ambitious book. It aims for mythic tragedy, and like many mythic stories it seems that the characters are there to serve the drama they play out, not vice versa. This is a powerful concept, but maybe not the best one for a 400+ page novel. The mythology here is essentially the classic horned god-king story of sacrifice and rebirth (with all feminine aspects strangely missing), somewhat oddly grafted onto a tale of political intrigue. I wanted to like the characters -- they start out so imperfect that you can only hope they'll do learn and do better, but instead they're devoured by myth and lose whatever intriguing humanity they had to begin with. Maybe that's the point, since they're archetypes after all, but it kept the end from having the emotional impact it should have had.

Being a fan of the world of Swordspoint, I couldn't wait for this book to arrive. I stayed up to read it. I'm done now, and the only thing that really comes to mind in response is;

"Oh, re-ally?"

It's the sort of book that when you read it, you want it to be better. I kept waiting for the big payoff, or a at least a touching scene between Theron and Basil. Neither happened. While waiting for that, I kept a laundry list of things that were bothering me the whole time I was reading the book:

1. Radical Retconning: There had been, in the first two books, some suggestions of some vaguely anglican religion. Katherine had spoken of the fetival that happened on Last Night in the Priveledge of the Sword, and Richard and Octavia actually described a whole night of festivities. None of these festivities included stags, kings, deers, wizards, or anything else that this book claims is tradition. On the same topic, Katherine's behavoir seems really weird for her. As does Gregory's. Marcus..... would the real Marcus please stand up?

2. Random Sex. Why on earth do Basil and Theron like each other enough to bang? I don't get it. Basil seems more annoyed by Theron most of the time. I had a relationship like this once..... it didn't end up in me dying for the fellow. It ended in me RUNNING AWAY.

3. Wandering Plot: There are all sorts of stings hanging loose and confusing at the end. I, frankly, don't get the end at all. It makes NO SENSE. If we presume that indeed, this is some sort of wiccan-type magic at the end, then Theron oughta be dead. The end resolution could use some smoke and mirrors or at least a handwave or two.

4. Exposition, after exposition, after exposition..... oh god. And lots of Captain Obvious.

5. Transparent Plot: As much as it wandered, the basic plot line was so thin and transparent none of the exclaimations and surprise of the characters when they finally discovered the Truth (captital T and all) seemed genuine.

I'm a fan of this world, but this was just plain painful to read.

Oh, and the Richard's Ghost thing.... it does seem out of character, he's not the sort of person that would come back to Riverside, I think he'd prefer to live out his ghostly hours where he had been happy. But, if he had returned to the riverside house and practiced sword like he had when he was younger -- why couldn't have Alec been there by the fire, keeping him company? Is there no peace for the dead?