Angel with the Sword

Orphaned Alair Jones sees the black legs dump a naked blond man into the canal nearly on top of her skip and pulls him, and a whole lot of trouble, onto her boat. The story takes place amongst a welter of world-building and specific locations in a well-mapped, if not error-free, geography. We know we're on the canals in Merovingen on the world Merovin, where the wealthy can buy life or death and the poor may survive long enough to end up crazy on the edges.

The action is pretty non-stop, even if Jones does spend a lot of time in her head "figuring" things.

It was fun to revisit this book, it was one of my favorites back in the 80's, I loved the whole series before moving on to harder Scifi.

It doesn't hold up quite as well as I was hoping it would but I can't tell if it's the writing itself or my tastes have changed.

I do wish, and I remember wishing this back then as well, that the story was told from both the main characters perspectives instead of just Altair Jones's and I find I wish it even more now.

It was fun though and I would like to read the rest of the books, but I don't think I want to enough to buy them and sadly, they aren't in my library's system.

Angel with the Sword takes place in a rich, atmospheric world where the warring religious factions of the upper class collide with the dregs of society - the canalers - who have made their own world in the literal underbelly of Merovingen, a sort of alien, medieval version of Venice. When Jones, a canaler, saves an uptowner from drowning, she is drawn into a complex game of political intrigue that takes her out of her element and into dangerous waters. The plot is compelling, and Jones is a tough, funny, and self-aware heroine who I couldn’t help but love. If you’re looking for a standout fantasy novel with interesting characters and creative worldbuilding, then I highly recommend Angel with the Sword.

Anyone who likes Cherryh as a writer will like this book. It has everything that her books are known for: extensive world building, cultural and linguistic exploration to the point that it feels more like a historical novel than an invented world. Nothing is flat in this book, not the characters, not the descriptions, not the backgrounds.

Her main Character is a strong female lead with all the believability of Joan of Arc or Catherine de Medici. Altair Jones is a canaler, a poor hauler of rum barrels on the canals of Merovingen, who fishes a naked man from filthy waters of the Grand Canal and then must spend all of her energy and resources to protect him.

This book is a fun adventure that I'd highly recommend.

Dear HRH, As you wrote," Nothing is flat in this book, not the characters, not the descriptions, not the backgrounds" Yes, and really what's wrong with an excellent non-electronic mind excursion?. It's in my Five Foot Shelf and I get back to it about every two years and each time I'm lost in the labyrinth of canals and bridges. . -30-

I've tagged it as science fiction, but it really isn't. If you ignore the fact that it's set on the planet Merovin (in the Alliance-Union universe long after the mri wars), it's really just a historical fiction piece set in a Venice-like city. This book set up the world for what became a shared world series that continued through seven more volumes.

If you don't insist on science fiction, this is a definite recommendation.

Great start, weak ending. Interesting world, too bad about all the exposition at the back.