The Privilege of the Sword

By: Ellen Kushner

Narrated by: Ellen Kushner, Barbara Rosenblat, Felicia Day, Joe Hurley, Katherine Kellgren, Nick Sullivan, Neil Gaiman

Length: 15 hrs and 36 mins

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.

To hear more from Neil Gaiman on The Privilege of the Sword, click here, or listen to the introduction at the beginning of the book itself.

Learn more about Neil Gaiman Presents and Audiobook Creation Exchange (ACX).

©2006 Ellen Kushner (P)2012 SueMedia Productions

Critic reviews

"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)

great acting

the acting was superb, the voices were delightful, but many details left hanging, motivations etc. Overall an enjoyable experience.

great book

I'm glad I gave this one a chance. It was very enjoyable and I liked it very well.

Fascinating story and stellar performances.

My only minor complaint, and I wish I could only take off a half a star for this, is the inconsistent audio volume levels. Some conversations were too low to hear, followed by a loud sound effect or a shouting person. Needs a normalize pass.

My All Time Favorite in audio

One of my all time favorite books is available in audio, how good is that! This version by Neil Gaiman didn’t disappoint. I love the buzzing noises of Riverside, the music at the balls of the aristocracy, the budding romance of the swashbuckling heroine and the personal assistant of the Mad Duke.
Agreed, some noises like closing doors and ticking clocks can be missed. Some voice actors are better than others, but I find it an added bonus this version is narrated by author Ellen Kushner herself.
If you like the world of Victor Hugo, Dickens and Georgette Heyer put together, painted in erotic colors, this is for you. Don’t miss it.

Terrible audio mix can't ruin this amazing story.

Kushner is brilliant with dialogue, and her characters are colorful and engaging. This book is ahead of its time w/r/t the ideas it engages with--esp. gender norms, the societal constructs that prop up social hierarchies. A few of the characters and plot elements trend towards familiar romantic archetypes, but the book does more to comment on these norms and remix them than to wallow in the traps of their familiarity. Kat is a fun hero to root for.

Unfortunately, the audio engineers really dropped the ball on this one. There are way too many "fun" sounds effects of swordfighting and music and tavern chatter, etc., which are so loud in the mix that they quite literally hurt your ears. This is worsened because you have to crank the volume in order to hear the quiet narrators, and the engineers did a very poor job normalizing the volume between the various voice actors (who are not used to good effect, largely unnecessary). A standard reading of this book, done well, would've been much better than this "fancy" reading, achieved poorly.

This is how to do a multi-voice production!

I would recommend both books in this series. They are fairy tales with adult themes, a vividly drawn world and the absolute best audio production ever. Neil Gaiman has put together the most outstanding team to produce this book which is actually read by the author and former radio host, Ellen Kushner.

The audio production uses multiple voices and sound effects. The various voices slide into the narration without interrupting the flow of the story adding a rich, vibrant texture to the story. The sound effects are not as seamless but that is as it should be since they are used to show the transitions in the narrative. This production is the gold standard by which I will judge all future multi-voice narrations. I am afraid most will fall far short.

Ellen Kushner knows her archetypes and plays with them beautifully. Although set in a time of swords, carriages and masked balls, her heroine meets challenges and grows in very modern ways. Her guide through this process is her uncle, the Mad Duke. With benign neglect, he offers her an unorthodox upbringing in his chaotic world.

Her themes are too adult for kids or I would have shared this with my granddaughter on a recent road trip. I would have loved to introduce her to the heroine. I will recommend this to my friends who love an off beat fairy tale and an outstanding audio experience.

Thanks, Neil Gaiman!

Where does The Privilege of the Sword rank among all the audiobooks you’ve listened to so far?

I've not listened to very many audiobooks, but it is definitely a great one.

What did you like best about this story?

The story is great - strong female character defying gender stereotypes - not entirely genre, but alt-universe. Swordfighting, political intrigue and great romance.

What does the narrators bring to the story that you wouldn’t experience if you just read the book?

Fantastic narration all around - made that much better during party scenes when additional voices were added to the mix. The author is fantastic, but the breadth of emotion and the different speaking styles of the additional actors really created a deeper world. Barbara Rosenblatt was terrific.

Did you have an extreme reaction to this book? Did it make you laugh or cry?

I laughed out loud a few times and got misty eyed as well. It's touching and amusing.

Any additional comments?

Definitely a treat. Have to thank Neil Gaiman Presents for turning me on to a new author - and with such panache.

It was ok ... I guess

I guess I went into this expecting to be blown away (Neil Gaimon clearly adores it, after all), but it was rather underwhelming. The protagonist's utter mastery of the sword after what appears to be only a few weeks worth of lessons was odd to say the least, and some other characters seemed rather underdeveloped, particularly as relates to a love-story subplot that just seemed to be based on convenience and proximity of the lovers rather than true passion. It all felt pretty 'meh'.

Fun listen

Fun listen, it has great music, a good cast, and an even better story than the first book.

Unusual fantasy, and an unusual audiobook

I enjoyed the story, without having read the previous book. The characters were complex, and I enjoyed how my understanding of them evolved over the course of the story. The main character was relatable, and I enjoyed her passion and strength. The Duke was mysterious, and well voiced.

The audiobook did something unusual by adding some sound effects in, with very mixed results. Some of them were useful in setting the scene, like the party sounds, but I HATED the metal clashing sound that they used at the opening of the sword practice sessions. That sound is what pulled my performance rating down to three stars, since it almost made me stop listening.

However, I did keep up with it and I enjoyed it in the end.