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)

My favorite NGP so far!

I have listened to several of the Neil Gaiman presents audiobooks and this is my favorite so far by a vast margin. The characters are rich and delicious and it is a pleasing period piece with excellent female characters.

The story is very satisfying in a Jane Austin way without being too stereotypical.

Best of an audio book and audio drama

The first time this switched from a more forward audio book to a full cast audio drama, I was a bit taken aback by it. However, it became clear this was all for the benefit of this great listen. Kushner herself does a great job of narrating her text, but I have to say Felicia Day shines as Lady Katherine and Neil Gaiman's brief appearance is nothing short of brilliant.

This book isn't something I would normally go for, but I can't adequately describe how much I ended up enjoying it.

Enormous fun

What did you love best about The Privilege of the Sword?

High adventure and derring do.

What about the narrators’s performance did you like?

The book is narrated by the writer with embellishments including music and guest performances by Neil Gaiman and Felicia Day, amongst others. The embellishments really add to the feel of the piece.

Any additional comments?

Kushner writes full on and unashamedly queer fantasy. If that's not your cup of tea, try something else.

Maybe the best audiobook I've ever heard

If you could sum up The Privilege of the Sword in three words, what would they be?

Entertaining, with wonderful performances that matched the text.

Which character – as performed by the narrators – was your favorite?

Narrators Ellen Kusher and Barbara Rosenblatt were terrific.

Was this a book you wanted to listen to all in one sitting?

I wanted listening to this book to take as long as possible, because I didn't want it to end.

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.

A Delight to Hear-

I've always enjoyed reading this book, and when I heard Neil Gaiman had produced an audiobook version of it, I knew I had to hear it. I'd been intrigued by an interview I'd heard where he'd spoken to how aware he was of the audible quality of his writing for children. So I picked up from the library his audiobook for Stardust, which he himself read, and greatly enjoyed it. Hearing a book read by the author is an entirely different experience from reading one.
When I first started listening to The Privilege of the Sword, I was initially thrown off by the switching actors. Yet eventually I figured out where and why they were switching the voices, so that made sense and I just enjoyed it. I wish there had been more parts with the actor who played Duke Tremontaine! Ah- what a fabulous voice that man has, and PERFECT for the part. And there was another woman who read most of the narration when it wasn't from the first perspective of the main character, and her voice was so rich, yet stern, yet purring all at the same time... like rubbing your ear on an old velvet cushion.
Come to think of it, all of the other actors brought in for the roles had voices wonderful to hear and perfect for their roles. Great casting.
Ellen Kushner reads the story very well, even though the story is from a much younger woman's point of view. The fact that she is the author adds everything I could want to the story- I love getting to hear how the story sounds in the author's own head, where they put emphasis and inflection, how they hear the voices of the characters and such.
I did wish for a bit more consistency as to when they brought in the external actors besides the two main narrators, but I suppose there were probably some budget or time constraints there, so they only did it at the really pivotal scenes. I felt like an old throwback to the days where families would gather around radios, as I sat next to my computer, my other tasks forgotten, listening it go back and forth and back and forth between actors like I had snuck into a play backstage, with only a backdrop to hide the action from me... yet it all played out in my head so there was no lack.
Excellent story, excellent production- a delight to hear.