Tuesday, July 14, 2015

Swordspoint- Ellen Kushner

This was a very strange book, made even more so by the fact that half of the audiobook is totally narrated by the author while the other half has a cast reading the dialogue, very confusing.

I did not get into this story until about 80% in. I just did not like the world Kushner built Perhaps I am a bit of a prude, but the fact that all but one of the men were bisexual and that the whole society is built on killing everyone you simply don't like just bothered me.

I also wasn't a huge fan of Alec or Richard. Richard, the main protagonist, has no definitive personality traits. While Kushner put so much effort in making Alec a mysterious enigma that his character just did not make sense. He went around psychotically alternating between haughty and arrogant to suicidal to cowardly and scared, so strange.

Furthermore, some of the supporting cast all blended into one person for me. (exp. Ginny and Katherine) I did not realize that they were 2 separate characters at the start. They had the same background, attitude, tone... etc.

It wasn't until the end when things where clarified that I thought, oh, this is interesting, this was a well thought of plot. I appreciated the little twist and how everything fell into place.

In a nutshell, wasn't a big fan at the start but really enjoyed it at the end. It will only get a 3/5 stars though because I felt like I was wasting my time for a big chunk of the book.

Would I recommend it?

Hmmm... not particularly. While it does have a tight and interesting plot, there are way too many better books out there.

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