At the end of the previous book, the Mad Duke had what seems like a happy ending – after he killed Lord Ferris he went off with Richard, who has lost much of his vision. I’m going to have to look at the short stories in my edition of Swordspoint to see if they cover this period, otherwise I’m curious how that worked out.
This book is very different in tone from the previous ones: less fun and mannered, more serious. Katherine is running the Tremontaine estates with Marcus. Despite her sexual awakening with both Marcus and the Black Rose, she’s a spinster. I would have liked her to be more of a character in this book, and not just the aunt / cousin of Theron.
I was confused by relationships. Sophia and Theron came from nowhere and it wasn’t clear to me that David the Mad Duke was his father. At least we knew about Jessica from the previous book but the way she showed up to resolve things felt wrong.
I liked learning the history of the two kingdoms. The conflict between the nobles and the status quo with Basil St Cloud and his students' research was interesting. The gradual reveal that Theron is the king to be (though he must go through the trial) and St Cloud is his wizard went on too long. Is that how kingship works? There are Companions but they aren’t Theron’s Companions. They respect how he ran in the hunt, but that seems to be all. Truth be told, I didn't care for Theron. He seemed like kind of a drip. We read that Basil loves that he's interested in history, but we don't actually see it. He's mostly swooning after one person or another, whoever life throws in his way.
I wanted to like this more than I did.
Not only did the ending fail to give us the payoff we were waiting for – Basil and Theron come together, the monarchy and wizardry are restored, and magic is shown to be real – but Theron is taken to the island of his birth, despite his need for his land. Will any land do, or does it have to be his adopted country? Will he ever be at peace? ( )

si fa leggere ma.. è tutto una forzatura e quello che non lo è.. è annacquatura
in soldoni: la trama è una serie ininterrotta di cazzate e il libro in generale è una serie ininterrotta di ripetizioni

TRAMA E SPOILER:
la nipotina del Duca è ora una duchessa 60enne contrariata dal nuovo rampollo di famiglia che invece di andare alle feste, frequentare balli e partite a carte della buona società come dovrebbe, ha il cattivo gusto di frequentare l'università; a peggiorare queste sue pessime maniere si aggiunge il fatto che dopo più di 200 anni di assenza ingiustificata la magia si ripresenta e lo sceglie come suo rappresentante ( )

Reread, and adjusting the rating a bit. This novel reads like contemporary urban fantasy set in Kushner's Riverside setting. It does a lot to expand the world of Riverside, giving it folk customs and ancient history and a lively academic scene, and I definitely had fun rereading it. But as a narrative it didn't totally gel for me, especially the second time round.

The Fall of the Kings follows the messy romance of a young nobleman who hasn't quite figured himself out and a young scholar who is really, really bad at departmental politics. Their attempts to realize their destinies get tangled up in ancient magic. I liked Theron and Basil an awful lot, but their lack of self-awareness (and self-preservation!) is frustrating. They are both such earnest, clueless guys and as a result they become passive characters, swept along by magic and the engine of the story. I have a notion that Kushner and Sherman didn't have an ending in mind when they started writing, and the plot, while pleasingly organic, lacks the intensity of the other Riverside novels.

That said, after a muddy middle, there was a lot to enjoy in the third act. Theron's swashbuckling art dealer/pirate half-sister Jessica is a delightful character who absolutely works despite showing up late in the game. I found Theron's resolution satisfying as well, even if it's a bit out of left field.

As for Basil, this time round I realized this is a novel about dealing with the legacy of problematic intellectual pioneers, who are brilliant one moment and weighed down with scandal and junk theories the next. I think this is one of the strongest themes in the book and would have liked to see it more in the forefront.

At the end of the day, The Fall of the Kings is a book as messy and fascinating as Basil St. Cloud's scholarship. I wouldn't recommend it to those who haven't read Kushner and Sherman's other works, but it's certainly a must-read for Riverside completists. ( )

This book has been on my to-read list for ages and ages, long enough for me to forget pretty much everything about Swordspoint. But that didn't matter. I wasn't quite sure what I was expecting from this book, but throughout, I kept finding it surprising in its imagination, its vision, and how it carried the story forward. ( )

I could barely finish this. Characters were introduced with a list of their distinguishing characteristics. One chapter started with what appeared to be the notes for that chapter. Random druid-like stuff happens. The ending doesn't make anyone happy, especially me.

Skip this, assume it was nice, and go read a different book. ( )

This is the 3rd book (soon to be the 4th book) in the Riverside series, although it was the 2nd published in the series. I love the series; Kushner's writing has improved in the intervening time.

Katherine is still Duchess of Tremontaine, but Theron, Alec's posthumous son is her heir presumptive. He is involved with Basil St Cloud, a magister at the University. We see more of the University and the political machinations.

Enjoyable.

A really, really fascinating book, replete with history and University intrigue and power plays and repressed learning. The history of Riverside and its mainland involves kings who came from the North to the South and wizards who controlled them. Maybe. Maybe it was control, or maybe it was love, but the kings gave up their lives for the land. But none of this is really documented and this is where both Kushner and Sherman excel.

The University world that they populate is full of young men with aspirations and a lust for learning (and sometimes for each other), with professors who encourage their students and discourage those who dispute them, and the progeny of their first book [Swordspoint]. While the majority of the characters are young men, there are a number of women in power behind the scenes who are powers in their own rights. And this book and its characters transcend gender because of the vulnerability and learning that serves as the focus of this particular sequel. ( )

This is a real treat, a wonderful performance of a very enjoyable book.

Set in the world of Ellen Kushner's Swordspoint and The Privilege of the Sword, it's about forty or fifty years after Privilege. Katherine is Duchess Tremontaine, and Theron, Alec's posthumous son from his very late marriage to Sofia, now a physician and a Doctor of the University, is her heir presumptive.

He's also young, romantic, a poet, and an eternal student, flitting from one field of study to another, currently studying rhetoric. His heart broken (most recently) by the artist Isolde, who painted him for a year and then was done with him, he meets the dynamic young magister, Doctor of History Basil St. Cloud.

St. Cloud doesn't know this about himself yet, but he's a budding radical, a specialist in ancient history who is starting to go back to primary sources, and beginning to suspect that the despised wizards that the equally despised "mad" ancient kings brought south with them were not all charlatans and frauds.

When St. Cloud, trouble-making scholar, and Theron Campion, descendant of Duke David, the killer of the last king, but also of that last king's sister, fall in love, they set in motion political and emotional upheaval that will rock the city.

We see parts of city life absent from the earlier novels, and an exploration of why, until now, these have been fantasy novels without magic. We finally get some sense of the larger kingdom, and how it works for those who are neither the privileged class nor the Riversiders.

The performance is in every way excellent. The voices are well matched to their characters, with sound effects and transitional music that enhance the sense of being drawn into the world of the story.

Highly recommended.

I bought this book. ( )

Fifteen years ago, Ellen Kushner's Swordspoint delighted appreciative readers with complex, interesting characters, a richly textured setting, and a fantasy novel with no magic at all. The Fall of the Kings admits magic into the picture, but the characters are as interesting, and the setting at least as textured and lived-in.

It's sixty years later, and Alec Campion, now remembered as the Mad Duke, has been dead for twenty years. Before he died, though, he brought back from his travels a wife, Sophia, who gave birth to a son a few months after the Mad Duke's death. That posthumous son, Theron, is heir to his cousin Katherine, the Duchess Tremontaine. Theron and his mother live, not in Tremontaine House, but in Riverside House, the great house Alec built where the little house he once lived in with Richard St. Vier had stood. The Riverside neighborhood has ha d some of the edge taken off of it by the effects of the presence of a great household, and the civilizing influence of Sophia. (Sophia, not long after arriving in the city, successfully badged the University into letting her study medicine, and operates a clinic for the residents of Riverside.) It's still a rough and dangerous place, though, and naturally Theron likes it better than the Hill, where all proper young noblemen belong.

He likes the University even better, especially after he meets Basil St. Cloud, a magister who teaches, and studies, ancient history--the early history of the Kings who came down from the north and ruled with wizards by their sides. Everyone knows that the wizards were charlatans and the kings were dupes and puppets. Basil wonders if everyone is right, and persists in his academically unfashionable practice of reading contemporary documents rather than just the official and unofficial histories, until he find a very dangerous book.

Meanwhile, as Basil and Theron become lovers, the Serpent Chancellor, Lord Arlen, becomes concerned about a possible northern plot to restore the kings. He sets an ambitious young nobleman, Lord Nicholas Galing, to investigate. Galing quickly becomes less interested in finding out if there's a plot than in proving that Theron and Basil are part of it.

The politics of the city and the politics of the University are sticky and intricate, and get more so when they become tangled up in each other. Theron's idealism and his self-absorption both feel quite convincingly real. The same is true of Basil, who really isn't very many years older, and in some ways is even less realistic than Theron about what he can get away. No one in this story is perfect, and no one in it is just a cardboard bad guy, either. These are real people, with real motivations. Beautifully done, and worth the wait.
( )

http://tamaranth.blogspot.co.uk/2018/03/201812-fall-of-kings-ellen-kushner-and.h... ( )

The other two books get on just fine without magic - I don't like it's forming the core of this story. ( )

Supremely disappointing! Not so memorable as the first two, hard to follow...I'm heartbroken! ( )

The Fall of Kings is chronologically the last novel set in Ellen Kushner’s Riverside. While it stands on its own, I would recommend starting with one of the other works – Tremontaine, Swordspoint or The Privilege of the Sword.

In her novel Swordspoint, Ellen Kushner crafted a fantasy setting without magic, full of scheming nobles and swordsmen for hire. It’s a setting without homophobia or heteronormativity, and same-sex relationships are common. Much of the cast of the series is either gay, lesbian, or, most commonly, bisexual. The Fall of Kings is set sixty years after Swordspoint. Most of the original characters are dead, and the torch has been passed down to their children and grandchildren.

Theron Campion is the heir to the house of Tremontaine, but has recently exited a scandalous love affair with an artist. He takes solace in the university where he meets Basil St. Cloud, a young magister who holds controversial views regarding the ancient kings and their wizards and historical methodology. But with unrest in the North and some agitating for the return of the kings, Theron and Basil find themselves at the center of something greater than they ever could have imagined.

The Fall of Kings is much more mythic in tone than other Riverside stories. It’s a larger perspective, looking back into the history of the country and of its old kings and wizards. It’s also the only Riverside story so far to feature magic in any capacity. And while I wouldn’t say any of the other Riverside books I’ve read have been necessarily happily ever after (although The Privilege of the Sword comes the closest), The Fall of Kings is the most tragic. It’s basically a slowly unfolding disaster, and by a certain point I knew it couldn’t possibly end well.

On the other hand, it can be hard to grieve for either Theron or Basil. There were moments where I felt sympathetic for them, but they are both so utterly self centered. Despite their protestations of love, there didn’t seem to be much more to their relationship than sex. Combined with some atrocious behavior on Theron’s part, it’s no wonder that the relationship implodes. Seriously, if Alec’s famously been called the “boyfriend from hell,” Theron gives him a run for his money.

The cast of characters is almost predominantly male. There are a few female characters (Katherine, Sophia, Jessica), but we never get to spend much time with them, although Jessica at least does get to effect the plot. It actually makes a lot of sense that this was written before The Privilege of the Sword, where the female characters do have more of a presence at the story line actually examines the patriarchal society it’s established instead of leaving it unquestioned.

While The Fall of Kings is far from my favorite Riverside story, it has reminded me of two things. Firstly, Ellen Kushner (and presumably Delia Sherman, her co-author here) is an absolutely brilliant writer. She’s someone who really knows how to craft prose. Secondly, Riverside has one a place in my heart. I love seeing the same setting and sometimes characters over the course of the eighty odd years this series spans. I really need to track down those short stories Ellen Kushner set between books…

I would strongly recommend the Riverside novels to anyone who’s a fan of fantasy driven by intrigue instead of magic or stories focused around queer characters. However, The Fall of Kings is not the book I would recommend starting the series with.

Originally posted on The Illustrated Page. ( )

A very different beast to the other Riverside novels, this has plenty to recommend it (prose, characters, world building) but is much harder to read (and to like). My favourite characters are peripheral, and while I did come round to a sort of horrified empathy for Theron's situation, it was difficult to maintain at times. Overall I think this suffers from being over-long - and for going exactly where you expect it to - like a slow motion car crash.

Full review ( )

3 and a half stars. written second in the Riverside series, although chronologically it comes third. Riverside seems less vivid in the absence of the Mad Duke and his swordsman. his son is a pale shadow of his father, his daughter a deus ex machina, his heir Katherine not nearly as intriguing as her youth promises (in The Privilege of the Sword) she may become. lots of interesting themes are raised, but there's a vagueness at its core of this one. ( )

Summary: Everyone knows that the kings were mad and corrupt, the wizards that attended the kings were manipulative greedy frauds, and the country has been much better off in the centuries since the last king was deposed, the wizards were outlawed, and the power was handed over to the ruling council of nobility. But for the most part, nobody ever thinks about the subject much… except for Basil St. Cloud, a scholar of Ancient History at the University. His unconventional methods of searching for the truth attracts students, among them the young noble Theron Campion, son of the Mad Duke Tremontaine. Theron is not particularly interested in settling down, following his passions where they lead him. And when they lead him to St. Cloud, both of their lives will be turned upside down, for when it comes to the subject of kings and wizards, the personal can all too easily become political.

Review: Oooh, this was really good. I'm not going to say that it's better or worse than Kushner's other Riverside books; it is quite different. It takes place thirty to forty years after The Privilege of the Sword - Katherine is now Duchess Tremontaine and in her 50s. The city is recognizably the same - Theron lives with his mother in his father's Riverside House - but dueling has more or less fallen out of fashion, and this novel focuses on a part of the city we haven't seen much of before: namely, the University. This book also has a broader worldbuilding scope than the previous two: we learn more about the rest of the country (other than being "that place where nobles go for the summer"), and about its history. This book is also quite different from the previous two in terms of approach to the genre. While Swordspoint and The Privilege of the Sword were fantasy only inasmuch as they did not take place in a real historical world and time, The Fall of the Kings is much more decidedly fantasy - there is a fair bit of magic, although it's largely mysticism blending into magic, replacing the swordsplay and some of the political machinations of the first two.

As much as I did enjoy this book - and I did, for reasons I'll get to in a minute - it did take me a while to get into and read. Part of this may have been the sudden uptick in historical worldbuilding; some amount of infodumping is unavoidable when one of your main characters is a history professor, I suspect. It wasn't uninteresting by any means, but it also didn't suck me in right off the bat, either. I also didn't really feel a strong connection to either Basil or Theron right away. They both have strong shells up to start with, for legitimate reasons, but it almost felt as though they were keeping the reader at a distance along with everyone else. As the story went on, those defenses started to come down, and I got more and more involved with the characters (although I don't know that I ever loved them as much as I did Alec and Richard) and more involved with the story, but it was a bit of a slow build for me.

But it turns out that I didn't mind, because "build" is exactly what this story does, and does so very well. Kushner and Sherman co-opt a lot of Celtic/Druidic imagery, of the oak grove and the horned king and the sacrifice to the land. But it almost didn't feel like borrowing, because this story imbues that imagery with so much power, such a strong feeling of portent and magic and significance. And even though it's clear fairly early on what everything is building up to, all of the story elements have so much resonance that watching each one slot into place and build up to the conclusion that you know is coming still manages to be almost breathtakingly tense. It's the kind of book whose power of imagery and illusion is so strong, so real, and so resonant that you can feel it in your chest. 4 out of 5 stars.

Recommendation: Because this book involves the next generation, it would be just fine as a standalone. Recommended for people who like stories of the past impinging on the present, and books with scenes and images that will linger in your head long after you've finished them. ( )

♦ What I Liked: Once again I enjoyed the uniqueness of this tale. Unlike book one, magic plays a big role in this adventure, though mainly as a subject of debate with tantalizing hints as to its validity.

The story centers around Theron Campion and his University mentor/lover. Theron has many of the qualities of his father, Alec. He is an enigma when it comes to personality. Sometimes blindly passionate, sometimes easily led, insecure but with the arrogance that comes from a being member of the upper class, he often wavers between loyalties. His lover however, the handsome professor Basil St. Cloud, is more single minded in his pursuits. Whether is the search for historical truth or romancing his soulmate, Dr. St. Cloud throws all of his attention into his current task to the exclusion of all else.

I also liked the political aspect. It is a true fact that history is rewritten by the victors and this tale brings that lesson home in a big way. Truth is not always welcome, especially when it challenges current opinion. Basil St. Cloud has an uphill battle as he attempts to prove that not only did magic exist in the past, but there is a vital need for it to come into play again.

And it is much more than politics, romance or even magic. There are layers upon layers of story as complicated and unbalanced as the society itself. Loyalties change frequently as the players in this melodrama try to choose a side. Betrayal, deceit, broken hearts and secrets test each player on this theatrical stage. Bonds are formed and bonds are broken. Lies are told and truths are spoken. And all the while ancient mystical forces are behind the scene leading the dance.

Sometimes humorous, sometimes tragic, but rarely boring, this story has alot to say.

♦ What I didn't like: Because this tale takes place many years past the events that took place in book one, I often felt a bit lost. There were too many interesting characters, a number of them very strong women, whose story I wanted to know more about. I would have been in worse shape if the short stories included in Swordspoint hadn't provided a bit of a lead in, but even with that, the lead in was incomplete. Interesting enough, I did get a good amount of fascinating detail on the history of Riverside. Unfortunately I did not get much background on the current players in this drama.

I also wish I had known a bit more about the lore regarding the "Great Hunt." I vaguely remember it being associated with druids. (I think) The basic premise having to do with Kings being bound by blood to the land in a series of rituals which included a hunt for a horned stag. Now here is my problem. I could have looked it up but that would have meant pulling out of the book to research well... the book. Again I felt like I was missing information that would have greatly enhanced the story. As it was, I muddled along as best I could.

♦ Conclusion: I can't say in all honesty that I loved this book. Liked it, yes, loved it, no. I kept wishing it was about Jessica, Theron's pirate sister, or Sophia, Theron's physician mother, the first woman ever to hold a chair in the University or even his strong-willed aunt Katherine, the Duchess of Tremontaine, who was an excellent swordswoman and a fierce matriarch.

Now, from what I read in the Afterword of Swordpoint, Ellen Kushner actually started writing the third book, which is set only 15 years after Swordspoint, before writing and publishing The Fall of Kings with Delia Sherman. It appears that Priviledge of the Sword is indeed written about Katherine. I have a feeling, gleaned from the parts she played in this drama, I am going to love her story. What I am questioning now is if I should have read them out of order. I'll have to let you know.

Source: Dragons, Heroes and Wizards ( )

Not the best of the three ( )

More, more, give me more!!!! ( )

I have to admit I struggled with this one, and not just, I think, because of my fragmented reading times. The story follows on from 'Swordspoint', set in the same city and within the same family, but 60 years later. I read it a while ago, and though I don't remember the twists and turns of the plot, I remembered I liked it enough to pick up another book in the series when I came across it.

'Fall' , however, didn't capture me and draw me in to the story. It felt as though, in spite of impending crises in their respective lives, the two main characters were always jumping into bed together in every chapter, or, if not, making excuses to meet so they could jump into bed ... Although I understand (and understood while reading) that it was part of the plot (but not essential, I felt), quite so much of it got a bit tiresome for me, and interrupted the flow of the story.

Torrid affair aside, the story is told from the viewpoint of a few different characters about how the legends of ancient kings and wizards, which have been suppressed by history, affect various factions in contemporary times. The scholars of the University are keen to unearth the truth, Northerners want to reinstate the long-deposed kings and ceremonies, politicians want to leave things buried and noblemen and women somehow get caught in the middle. The plot, when it came together at the end, didn't have (for me, at least) the blinding revelation it kept promising, and left questions unanswered.

(June 2010)
2 stars ( )

Having read the other two books set in this world, I simply couldn't resist this one. Of course, I did somehow manage to put off reading it for a couple years. That's what happens when your "to be read shelf" becomes a "to be read bookcase" instead.

I cannot summarize this story for you. It's simply too complicated. Suffice it to say that it is a story about magic, love, madness, treason, and family. The characters are amazing - as expected. The plot was thrilling and kept me interested even when I wasn't reading. It had such amazing potential. And then, the ending came. It felt like the authors got bored and just ended the book as quickly as they could. Essentially, someone swooped in and saved the day. It was just.. so disappointing.

Even with that complaint, I'd still recommend the book to anyone who ejoyed the others.

A belated sequel to my beloved 'Swordspoint', but so very different from it that it took me forever to read. Densely written and plotted, richly textured and filled (possibly over-filled) with vivid, memorable characters and echoes of forgotten tradition: the theme of Divine King/Dying God is tightly enmeshed throughout. A beautiful book. Plus gay romance, yay! ( )

I guess I have mixed feelings about The Fall of the Kings. It is on one hand an academic thriller, stuffed with intrigue (romantic & political) as well as a masterful feat of world-building. The balance between telling the history of the world and the present-day narrative is pulled off very well I think. There is also, however, a lot of fluffy, unrealistic, vague gay sex that happens. When i was sixteen it called for a swoon. Now, however, I guess it would qualify as a guilty pleasure accompanied with an eye roll or two. ( )

I liked this book but didn't get as sucked in as I wanted to be. I went back and forth from being engaged to indifferent regarding the characters. I did like the way they incorporated the history of the world in the story, and how you never knew if two of the characters were crazy or not, right up until the end.
The Privilege of the Sword is my favorite of these three books, Fall of Kings is either tied or slightly less good than Swordspoint. ( )

I wanted to like this book more than I did. It's well written about subjects I usually enjoy. It has very solid world building and feels real, but somehow I couldn't get into it. Set in a world like Medieval England, with similar divisions between North and South, but with magic as well. It's set 400 years after the last King fell, and an ancient historian is looking at the wizards and kings trying to sort out how it all worked. A wizards book falls into his hands, and then things start getting strange... Really very nicely written, and has lovely moments, but I kept having to force myself to read and started to skim, felt vaguely guilty about not liking it as much as I felt I should. Maybe the hero was too young for me, but I just couldn't get into his head and feel his plight. Also, for a book written by two women, females were conspicuous by their absence in this book, it was so male centric, even their lovers were men, and women felt like a whole 'nother world. ( )