After a bit of a reading dry spell, the Easter weekend ended up being dedicated to a bit of unplanned but very enjoyable binge reading as the copy I won of Anne Bishop’s Belladonna arrived, shortly followed by the long-awaited Privilege of the Sword by Ellen Kushner.
Belladonna is part two of Anne Bishop’s Ephemera duology. It picks up more or less where the first one, Sebastian, left off and deals with the lose ends left by that book. The Eater of the World continues to sow discord and breed darkness throughout Ephemera’s landscapes, and the only one who has any hope of standing against him is Belladonna, the most talented Landscaper alive. Ephemera is a world that is very much alive, almost a sentient being, and Landscapers are able to communicate with Ephemera to get their wishes manifested as reality. However, this is an ability that has been forgotten in some parts of the world, and those who manifest such abilities in those areas are shunned as sorceresses. Unaware of their own powers, they often end up unwittingly wishing ill on their persecutors, and causing real damage to their surroundings.
Like Sebastian, Belladonna is romantic fantasy with a touch of horror. The Eater of the World is an interesting ‘villain’ in that it is a force of pure evil created to wreak havoc, but it is not left as simply a nameless menace (even though that is its very nature) but is actually given its own point of view in the books. I do, however, think that the element of suspense was stronger and more effective in Sebastian, and I think that the dark side of Belladonna could have been taken a little further than it actually was to emphasise the duality of her nature. However, that said, I enjoyed the book a lot. It explores similar themes to Bishop’s earlier books, though apart from the romance the strongest focus lies on the duality of both human nature and Ephemera’s nature. Denying all darkness and denying all light proves to be almost equally dangerous.
Privilege of the Sword is another novel from Ellen Kushner set in the same city as Swordspoint and The Fall of the Kings. Sequantially, it falls between the two other novels, taking place some 20 years after Swordspoint and some 40 years prior to The Fall of the Kings. The main character is the young lady Katherine, who is summoned to the city by her uncle, the Mad Duke, to be trained as a swordswoman. A simple enough premise, but it makes for a wonderfully entertaining novel. Katherine soon gets involved in the intrigues that thrive throughout the city, and learns a lot of surprising things about herself as well as about her family. A reluctant student at first, she soon becomes quite enamoured with the career path chosen for her by her eccentric uncle, and unsurprisingly she ends up in several duels before the end of the book.
The book is a delightful read that is written with a superb sense of how to conjure up just the right atmosphere for the city and its denizens. Kushner’s familiarity with the tropes of genres such as the Regency Romance are put to good use, for example as she describes the concerns of the young ladies of nobility, whose circles Katherine at first yearns to be a part of. The attention to realistic details and manners makes the setting and the characters stand out even though the worldbuilding is fairly limited. Like Swordspoint and The Fall of the Kings, Privilege of the Sword is highly character driven and concerns itself greatly with the interactions between various characters and with their behaviours. One scene that stood out as both amusing and quite representative was when Katherine finds herself forced to put on men’s clothing for the first time. In most novels, such a thing would not merit much attention even when it is supposed to be shocking, but here we get a fascinating first-person description of what a well-bred society lady probably would think about such an outrageous idea.