Kushner, Ellen -- The Privilege of the Sword
Twenty years after Swordspoint, forty-ish before The Fall of the
Kings. Where Swordspoint was a prickly romance and Fall mused
about the romance of lost magic, Privilege is a tight dissection of
class and gender roles in the changing fantasy city. Or rather, it's a
excellently-rendered growing-up narration of a country girl who comes
to the big city and learns to duel -- with social issues shining out
from behind every crack. Fully readable on its own, but if you've read
the other two, this illuminates various characters from new angles.
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