Power is a fascinating and revealing component of civilization. For though it is sufficiently potent to rewrite the past and reprogram the future, to swell the influence of nations and crush the will of unfortunates, it is virtually impossible to evenly distribute. Power is neither tangible nor zero-sum. It can expand and contract, ebb and flow, on levels as grand as governments and as small as conversations. And yet, despite its elusiveness, power is forever being chased. For its accumulation can, at worst, ensure one's future and, at best, place one on an untouchable pedestal from which the world is malleable and enjoyable. This great game of trade and acquisition cannot be stopped. It can barely even be regulated. It is simply what humans do, consequences be damned. This Ellen Kushner illustrates to charming effect in her Riverside Series.
At the foot of a sprawling city shaped by nobles and blessed with beauty lies Riverside, a lowly quarter of knaves and workers who toil quite literally in the shadow of power. For it squats at the base of a hill upon which the rich and powerful plot and frolic, scheme and operate, its denizens barely heeded by the largely incestuous powerbrokers who occupy the upper reaches of its society.
For the most part, the citizens of Riverside are content with this arrangement. For the nobility has agreed to largely leave them be, to act as they please, within reason. Perhaps this is in deference to Riverside's enduring spirit. Perhaps it is an acknowledgement of its quiet menace. Or perhaps it is simply convenient for the duchesses and chancellors to ignore the little people while drawing from their depths talented arms to wield swords in their honor. For though Riverside might well produce many other goods, its most notable export is swordsmen, trained champions paid handsomely by nobles who seek, through duelling, to settle points of honor. Sometimes, these questions are small, requiring the combatants to engage only until the first drop of blood is shed. However, other times, only a death can settle a slight.
This dangerous game naturally produces its fair share of heroes, shadowy figures who are as skilled with the blade as their reputations are darkly grand. And though they fight in the name of the nobility, dependent upon them for their livelihoods, their code has nothing to do with the settling of noble questions. They perform as much for the glory of the contest as for the coin that will flow into their purses, delighting in the clash of steely wits that convinces them that they are alive.
Entangling the powerplays of the nobility with the fortunes of the swordsman, The Riverside Series is a delightful, dramatic romp through a land of political machinations and difficult, classist realities. Ms. Kushner combines the playwrite's sense of flair with a Romantic's aesthetic to create a familiarly medieval world where the intersection of plots and swords creates a wealth of vengeance and humor, tragedy and triumph. These emotions and outcomes drive these interconnected tales forward, enthusing them with dark wits and sad laments that call to mind films like The Princess Bride and the themes of Shakespeare, a land where playfulness and consequence can coexist without risking the story's slide into the darkness of depression or elevation into the airy-fairy of the inconsequential.
Though The Riverside Series pulls in any number of charming commoners, the story primarily revolves around the life and family of Alec Campion, a powerful nobleman whose appetites are as unpredictable as his moods. His languid charm is perfectly rendered by Ms. Kushner who invests Alec with a wonderful sense of indolent pride and endless power. It's through alec that we come to understand the series' political views. For it is he and his friends who pick up and toss away the lives of those beneath them, using them as pawns in their games until they grow tired of them and move on. Their machinations with one another are invariably more important, more vital, more real, than the consequences to the outsiders who happen into their orbits. Such would be impossible if not for the enormous disparity in power and wealth between the two classes which, though analogous to any number of past realms in our world, draws the closest comparison to Renaissance Italy.
A review of The Riverside Series cannot pass without commenting on its sexuality. Ms. Kushner, who began this journey in the late 1980s, has penned a truly post-gender fantasy series. Her characters are utterly unself-conscious about their tastes, or their habits. Yes, they judge one another for them, but only as a means of finding their place, finding their pleasures. In this, the series is not only groundbreaking, but its shamelessness allows the reader to improve his understanding of the essence of love, its boundlessness and its multi-facetedness. For this is a force that is only limited by the limitations we give it, not by anything else. Whether we find joy in the arms of those who are like us, or unlike us, matters not as long as we find joy in someone. This subtle but pervasive message is conveyed with grace and class in a series that, sadly, is as transgressive in 2013 as it was in 1987, when the journey began.
No, The Riverside Series is not weighty fare. It likely will not linger long, its schemes evaporating into the mental caverns in which we harbor the facts of past adventures. However, its quiet messages about sexuality and gender, power and class, make it eminently worthwhile. (3/5 Stars)
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