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The Privilege of the Sword cover art

The Privilege of the Sword

Written by: Ellen Kushner
Narrated by: Ellen Kushner, Barbara Rosenblat, Felicia Day, Joe Hurley, Katherine Kellgren, Nick Sullivan, Neil Gaiman
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Publisher's Summary

Audie Award Nominee, Multi-voiced Performance, 2013

Award-winning author, narrator, and screenwriter Neil Gaiman personally selected this book, and, using the tools of the Audiobook Creation Exchange (ACX), cast the narrators and produced this work for his audiobook label, Neil Gaiman Presents.

The Privilege of the Sword tells the tale of a young girl who risks everything to go live with her eccentric, litigious - and extremely rich – uncle Alec in the colorful city Kushner has created, a city where elegant nobles can mingle with raffish actors one moment and deadly swordsmen the next. Fans of Kushner's first book, Swordspoint, will already be familiar with Alec as the angry young scholar with mysterious origins, living in the city’s Riverside district with a notorious killer swordsman. Now, in The Privilege of the Sword, some years later, Alec is the Mad Duke Tremontaine, living in a mansion on the Hill, still tortured by his past….

But you don’t need to have read Swordspoint to enjoy The Privilege of the Sword. This is the story of Katherine herself, a girl who starts out imagining her life will be a sort of Jane Austen-style romance, full of dances and dresses and parties - but finds that her iconoclastic uncle has other plans. When she gets to his house in the city, the Mad Duke dresses Lady Katherine in men's clothes, gets her a first-rate tutor in swordplay, and sets her loose on a traditional world that is not really ready for her…. Nor, at first, is she ready for it.

A few words from Neil on Privilege of the Sword: "Life hands us so many moments when we hover between who we were raised to be, who the people around us are trying to make us, and who we are trying to become. In Katherine's case, that means encountering a range of people and behaviors her mother never prepared her for - including some shocking acts of violence, both physical and emotional. As one of Kushner’s most charming characters, an actress known as 'The Black Rose', sighs, 'It's all so very difficult, until you get the hang of it.'"

In this exciting new "illuminated production", the author herself reads her own work, supported by a full cast. Author Ellen Kushner is also a popular performer and National Public Radio host (Sound & Spirit). As with her previous audiobooks, the award-winning Witches of Lublin and Swordspoint, Ellen teamed up with Sue Zizza of SueMedia Productions to illuminate certain key scenes with some truly stunning sound elements, including original music commissioned just for this book (!) by composer Nathaniel Tronerud. Ellen Kushner reads all of the first-person narration from Katherine’s own point of view. In scenes where an omniscient narrator takes over, we’ve called on the amazing talents of the award-winning actor Barbara Rosenblat, a woman who's been called "the Meryl Streep of audiodrama". The cast also features Joe Hurley (Alec Campion: the Mad Duke Tremontaine), Felicia Day (Katherine Talbert), Nick Sullivan (Lord Ferris; Arthur Ghent), Katherine Kellgren (Lady Artemesia Fitz-Levi; Teresa Grey; Flavia "the Ugly Girl"), and Neil Gaiman himself (Rogues' Ball Artist)! The artwork used here is an original painting and design by Thomas Canty created exclusively for the Neil Gaiman Presents audiobook edition of The Privilege of the Sword.

©2006 Ellen Kushner (P)2012 SueMedia Productions

What the critics say

"One of the most gorgeous books I've ever read: it's witty and wonderful, with characters that will provoke, charm, and delight." (Holly Black, coauthor of The Spiderwick Chronicles)
"Unholy fun, and wholly fun… and elegant riposte, dazzlingly executed." (Gregory Maguire, author of Wicked)

What listeners say about The Privilege of the Sword

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Good story

This is a very good story with interesting characters and an unusual plot line. I actually have this book in hard copy as well and have been enjoying it for years. Unfortunately it was the narration that let me down on this one. I think this was a case of too many cooks in the kitchen, and it detracted somewhat from the story. The number of narrators led to inconsistency in the story and some confusion on my part. At some points in the story individual characters had their own personal voice actor and at other points literally everything was narrated by a single narrator. They didn't do a very good job of evening out volumes between people either. There were many times where I frantically played with the volume because one voice would be very loud and in my headphones but then I couldn't hear what others were saying. They also added additional sound effects, from music to sword clashes to people talking in a crowd. Some of these were alright but overall I found them more distracting than enjoyable. The sword clashes especially were very jarring and were often used to both introduce and exit a scene involving swords rather than just to augment a fight.

Overall I did enjoy most of the book but in future I think I will usually stick with reading my hard copy.

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it's got Truths of the heart... and swordfights!

this is both a proper sequel to Swordspoint, and also a good stand alone story. I personally enjoyed it a little bit more than I enjoyed Swordspoint, for much the same reason I could expect people to dislike this one more. it is a bit more Jane Austen, but with sword play and scandal. this book does go much further into a more Regency style, but that is what I adore. it makes the setting all the more real, taking it out of the stuffy men's realm and bringing it into the warm and lively world of women.

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Not what I expected, DNF

But I got about half way through the book and had to stop listening. I saw no conflict. The main character is whiny, naive and prissy. The "mad-duke" isn't crazy, he just goes against social norms for the story's setting.
Secondary character development is pretty bad too. A friendship is formed between the main character and a secondary character when they meet each other at a party for the first time, and with less than a dozen words between the two, they decide they will be friends.
Any fighting or sparring lacks any interest or danger, and any training towards sword fighting doesn't seem like it's serious either.
The last straw for me was when done character was being courted by guys sending flowers to her house, and she was whining about who courted her and what flowers he sent.

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