Ellen Kushner The Privilege of the Sword

This book charmed me to pieces. In fact I loved it so much I don't quite know how to review it. It pushed all my buttons so well I'm afraid it might not be quite as good as I think it is.

There's a girl from a good family whose rich Ducal uncle unexpectedly calls her to the capital to have her trained as a swordsman, which she doesn't want at all until she does, a lot.

This is set in the same world as Swordpoint (no magic either) and The Fall of the Kings (lots of magic). It's fantasy by courtesy, as we don't have a word for imaginary-world fiction.

It's beautifully written, streets above most things published as genre, with lovely characters who come to life and wonderful incidentals, like the romantic novel that runs through the book like a motif and is called The Swordman Whose Name Was Not Death. It helps to have read Swordspoint, which is no hardship, especially as the SFBC are selling the two books in one volume as Swords of Riverside. I should think it would stand well enough alone though.

The only real criticism I have is that the end is a little abrupt and comes around a blind corner, which I seem to remember was true of Swordspoint when I first read it a long time ago.