lettersfromtitan:
nadiacreek:
lettersfromtitan:
A few night ago, @ellenkushner and I were in a lengthy email exchange about logistics, process, and, frankly, the state of my brain regarding Tremontaine, and I told her “Eventually I’ll write a post about why this whole thing is like fencing” but then didn’t explain, because it was after midnight and really, I just needed to go to bed, which is something I’m bad at doing when Patty is away.
To explain what I meant, though, I have to explain what I do on Tremontaine in a production capacity. The short version is, I herd the cats.
The long, idealized version is this: Need something looked up from one of the Riverside books? Ask me. Can’t make your deadlines? Tell me. Finished a revision that needs to go to the copy editor? I get it first, so I know where the file is. Ellen made a command decision that needs to be propagated through all the episodes? That’s me. No one can decide how to solve a thing? I point to who gets to solve the thing, or I throw up my hands, say screw it, and do it myself. I keep track of every single thread I can, and I know who can keep track of the ones I can’t.
And I’m both bad cop and good cop. Sometimes I’m kind of your assistant, and sometimes I’m kind of your boss, but I’m not really either. And since we’re all new to this, I’m figuring out what to do as I go, and everyone else is figuring out what they need me to do as they go, and then we have to remember no one is a mind reader.
It’s a lot more fun than it sounds.
But I do answer to everyone. And that’s why it’s like fencing.
Not in the sense of an actual engagement (although yes, sometimes there is testing… testing…okay let’s be decisive and do this), but in the sense of the community culture of a fencing salle in the context in which I studied historical fencing.
One of the fencing things I told the Tremontaine team about, that never makes it into this season, is Grand Salute, an ornately choreographed formal gesture of respect between combatants (and audience) at a fencing exhibition/tournament. It includes a ritualized crossing of blades where one swordsman says, “To you the honor” and the other replies with “I obey.”
This is a way of acknowledging respect for the use of each other’s bodies in the salle and acknowledging that to be honored for such a thing is also to receive a burden we must be responsible for.
“We all die alone,” my old fencing maestro always says. It’s true, and we can all only be responsible for our own actions.
However, in the salle, where we are partaking in a practice that has risks, and partaking in it as if training for an actual engagement, we must always comport ourselves as if we are responsible not just for ourselves, but for the well-being, decorum, and success of our peers. It’s impossible, of course, but if we all take that attitude, we all stand a chance of succeeding.
Basically, it’s like a rising tide lifts all boats, but with weapons.
So when everything is coming at me from many, many different directions on Tremontaine, it’s like fencing. I must serve, I must solve, I must lead, and I must take responsibility, because it doesn’t matter why something needs to be done, only that it is.
Some days, that feels like it would be hard for anyone. Some days it just feels like it’s hard for me.
But when it all comes together and we have this story that’s been built and executed by a team of writers who have had to be very vulnerable in terms of everyone getting their hands all over each other’s work (and Ellen, in particular, letting us run a little bit wild in her world), it flows, and it’s worth it, and for me and my weird background, it is exactly like that damn Grand Salute.
Welcome to Tremontaine, the prequel to Ellen Kushner’s beloved Riverside series that began with Swordspoint! A Duchess whose beauty is matched only by her cunning; her husband’s dangerous affair with a handsome scholar; a Foreigner in a playground of swordplay and secrets; and a mathematical genius on the brink of revolution—when long-buried lies threaten to come to light, betrayal and treachery know no bounds with stakes this high. Mind your manners and enjoy the chocolate in a dance of sparkling wit and political intrigue.
Written by: Ellen Kushner, Alaya Dawn Johnson, Malinda Lo, Joel Derfner, Racheline Maltese, Patty Bryant, Paul Witcover (guest author)
Launching October 28, 2015. Visit http://www.SerialBox.com to learn more and subscribe in both ebook and audio.
Is it okay to read this if I’ve only read Swordspoint, or should I read the other novels first?
You are definitely 110% okay if you’ve only read Swordspoint. You can come into the world cold and understand this story without having read any of the Riverside books.
Basically:
Reading Swordspoint first makes this fun as you will recognize many characters and you will learn all about Duchess Tremontaine.
Reading Fall of the Kings before this is fun in that there’s where you learn the most about the university, which is one of several key arenas Tremontaine takes place in.
Reading The Privilege of the Swords before this is fun in that that book speaks to what it means to be a woman in this world in a way that’s an interesting companion to Tremontaine (which arguably has four main characters, three of whom are women).
The first episode is called Arrivals precisely because several characters come to the City – or parts of the City – for the first time. Everyone can be new, even the readers.