#ellen kushner

[queer-book-character-tournament]

Queer Book Character Tournament Round One

Katherine Talbert- The Privilege of the Sword

John Gaius- The Locked Tomb

Selene- Dominion of the Fallen Series

Constanta- A Dowry of Blood

Voting ended onApr 15

Character, book, and author names under the cut

Katherine Talbert- The Privilege of the Sword by Ellen Kushner 

John Gaius- The Locked Tomb by Tamsyn Muir

Selene- Dominion of the Fallen Series by Aliette de Bodard 

Constanta- A Dowry of Blood by S.T. Gibson

[godzilla-reads]

I brought a book with me to work (surprise surprise)- Thomas the Rhymer by Ellen Kushner.

[diana-prince43]

Choose a female fantasy writer PART FOUR

V. E. Schawab

Pamela Dean

Naomi Novik

Nk Jemisin

Holly Black

Kalynn Bayron

Jane Yolen

Leigh Bardugo

Sabaa Tahir

Ellen Kushner

Premee Mohamed

Tui T. Sutherland

Voting ended onApr 26

[spacenoirdetective]

Ted Enik, cover art for "Choose Your Own Adventure #58: Statue of Liberty Adventure" by Ellen Kushner, 1986

One of my favorites from this series.

[queereads-bracket]

Older Queer Works Book Bracket: Round 1C

Choose a book:

Swordspoint (1987) by Ellen Kushner

The Fire's Stone (1990) by Tanya Huff

Voting ended onNov 29, 2025

Book summaries and submitted endorsements below:

Swordspoint (1987) by Ellen Kushner

Endorsement from submitter: "A quiet but competent swordsman and his disaster bi boyfriend, written by a pioneer of queer literature."

A classic melodrama of manners, filled with remarkable plot twists and unexpected humor, takes fantasy to an unprecedented level of elegant writing and scintillating wit. Award-winning author Ellen Kushner has created a world of unforgettable characters whose political ambitions, passionate love affairs, and age-old rivalries collide with deadly results.

On the treacherous streets of Riverside, a man lives and dies by the sword. Even the nobles on the Hill turn to duels to settle their disputes. Within this elite, dangerous world, Richard St. Vier is the undisputed master, as skilled as he is ruthless—until a death by the sword is met with outrage instead of awe, and the city discovers that the line between hero and villain can be altered in the blink of an eye.

Fantasy, fantasy of manners, secondary world, queernorm

The Fire's Stone (1990) by Tanya Huff

THIEF, SWORDSMAN, AND WIZARDESS

AARON. Clan Heir, he has fled his people when his beloved was slain by his own father's command, abandoning his training, duty and beliefs to become a thief. A master of his trade, he now dared the odds in Ischia, city of the volcano, where the price of being caught was death.

DARVISH. Prince of Ischia, third son of a king who had no intention of giving up his throne. The prince was a drunkard, a lover, and a wastrel, yet was gifted with sword skills and with the ability to charm all around him. But not even his charm could free him from the political marriage now being planned.

CHANDRA. Born a princess, she had chosen to become a Wizard of the Nine, that rarest of beings, able to master all the forms that sorcery could take. Now, promised as Darvish's bride, she undertook a desperate journey to Ischia to convince him they must not wed.

Aaron, Darvish, Chandra—three strangers whose fates were about to become interwined. For someone had stolen The Stone, the magical talisman which stood between Ischia and the volcano's wrath. And unless the three could learn to work together on a quest to find the Stone, Ischia would drown in a sea of lava.

Fantasy, adventure, secondary world

[wearethekat]

January Book Reviews: The Privilege of the Sword by Ellen Kushner

I read Kushner's other two books in this setting, and I hadn't realized that she had a third book, with women in it no less (thanks for bringing it to my attention, @booksandchainmail!). In The Privilege of the Sword, young Katherine has lived her whole life as impoverished country gentry—until her rich uncle the Duke promises to free her family from debt if Katherine is sent to the city as his ward. Once she's arrived, Katherine realizes that the Duke is not going to take her to parties and buy her dresses like she hoped, but has a mad plan to make her learn the sword...

I went into this book expecting it to be a lesbian version of Swordspoint: dashing lesbian about town causes problems on purpose, both by swordfighting and by having sex with other people's wives. The Privilege of the Sword is very much not that book. Katherine is fifteen, very silly, and just barely feeling out her identity as a very baby bisexual. She's also deeply unreliable narrator due to most of the subtleties of her uncle's motivations and the whirl of politics going right over her head. Honestly, I think Kushner undersells teenage girls a bit—the last time I read about a character this silly, she turned out to be an actress of at least twenty-three running a scam.

Unlike the other two books in the series, which were almost entirely about men, this is a book about what it is to be a very young woman pressured into making a "good" marriage. Katherine is set in contrast to her equally young and silly city friend Artemisia, who does get to go to all of the parties—at the cost of an engagement to a cruel older man. Meanwhile, the Duke is literally forcemasc-ing poor Katherine with boy's clothes and sword-fighting lessons, which will forever mark her as a pariah in the society she was brought up in. The Duke's eventual purpose is implied to be to give Katherine the agency that other young women lack by teaching her to stab people. But of course, in the real world, sellswords are just pawns of powerful noblemen, and Katherine didn't have any more choice in her transformation than Artemisia does in her marriage. Ah well. At least Katherine gets to melodramatically win a public duel against adult men.

An excellently written fantasy, but more inclined to burnish the Duke (who is, of course, Alec from Swordspoint) than give Katherine the proper focus. I enjoyed the high court drama, the climactic duels, the scurrilous noblemen and brave young women, but I think Kushner could have done a better job with the premise.

[specificpollsaboutbooks]

Quotes that Give You Joy

Round 2 Part 4

Quote 124 VS Quote 60

Quote 124

Quote 60

Show results

Voting ended onJan 26

Quotes under the cut

Quote 124

As I looked out, a young coyote came slowly out of the trees, delicately lifting and shaking each paw before gingerly putting it down again in the snow. Step, flick, pause ... step, flick, pause.... There was an expression on its face of such great disgust that I laughed. Startled, it looked up and saw me on the porch, and then I swear it sneered at me. It turned slowly on the spot and went back into the trees the way it had come, trying to step in its own tracks, still step-flick-pausing as it went.

– The Evolution of Calpurnia Tate, Jacqueline Kelly

It's such a joy to see such personality in animals, especially when authors write of such phenomena.

Quote 60

Maybe someone would write a play just for me, one where a real woman could fight with her sword, and had many fine adventures and changes of costume.

– The Privilege of the Sword, Ellen Kushner

[aguacerotropical]

2025 BOOK WRAPPED

Tis the year I barrel scraped m/m romance novels, historical and out-of-print fantasy! So out of 60 or so books, here's my top 5.

Traitor's Moon* by Lynn Flewelling. I adore all of Nightrunners but let's be honest, the books are pure pulpy hijinks fantasy. Except that the third book Traitor's Moon --- her more mature novel that has a serious Le Guin vibe (and some Invisible Cities by Calvino thrown in for good measure) ----- stands out as a genuinely great book exploring free will, guilt and shame. The Nightrunners world is queernom, has an exclusively matriarchal society thru it's divinely favored queen (altho this is still played as 'monarchy is inherently violent') and our main protagonists Alec and Seregil are bi men in an analogue to marriage (but it's not cringe I promise)... it also has a dragon that bites a wizard's balls.

The Persian Boy by Mary Renault. The most "literary" book out of this list. It's a true classic in the historical genre. Alexander the Great's life thru the eyes of his young eunuch. I'm not sure what I can say except Renault basically birthed the historical greek genre and I'd say had a significant influence in romance-adjacent writers like Madeline Miller (except yknow she's leagues better). Also extremely detailed research went into her books to the point they're respected by academics even tho they're def fiction. The prose is as you might imagine, exquisite.

Swordspoint by Ellen Kushner! Another entry into the out-of-print m/m fantasy (ish) genre. Master swordsman and his lowkey bipolar disorder suicidal lover get caught up in nobles' scheming for power in a city controlled by oligarchs. The opening is solid and the characters are incredibly fun and memorable. A

A Seditious Affair by KJ Charles. Alright so I read the vast majority of Charles' body of work and out out of all it, which is mostly fantastic, my favorite was this novel about a cop who is the English 19th C FBI equivalent and his seditious, "bring down the monarchy" writer and bookseller. It's set against a real-life event and the dubcon eroticism is handled masterfully.

The Bone Doll's Twin by Flewelling (again): This is her first novel in the Tamír Triad, a prologue of sorts to the main Nightrunner world that follows one of their queens wresting power back from her uncle. It's problematic in some ways: an indigenous culture is handled in a racist way even though Flewelling does have a lot to say about that indigenous racism in the society. But it's also a fantastic novel exploring patriarchy, monarchy, repression and what free will means in a world of prophecies and gods. It can be read as a transgender novel as well bc it has a character who turns into a boy, although I'd argue it has very little to do with real-world understanding of trans identities.

I feel like I have to mention Winter's King by Le Guin. It's a short story, not a book, but it drives me completely insane months after I read it. Le Guin at her true best imo.

My list of fave romance reads this year are here as well.

*Flewelling clearly had some shit copy-editors, plus my bootleg epub copies also had OCR-problems. Tbh I didn't even notice errors until I read it for a fourth or fifth time, and most readers don't seem to catch them. So there's some misspellings and sometimes Flewelling just puts the wrong name combos lmfao. This would usually send me to review it with one star, but the story is so charming, unique and strong that I not only genuinely don't give a fuck, I've read it five or six times by now.