Enter the World of Tremontaine

That’s a question usually associated with television, but in 2017, it can also apply to books. In this case, Tremontaine, a collaborative novel that collects the first “season” of the serial novel set in the world of Ellen Kushner’s Swordspoint. It comes to us as a physical book from Saga Press, but it began life as a week-by-week digital publishing project from Serial Box, a company founded on the idea that books can work on the same model—and be as addictive—as prestige television. Creators (in this case, Kushner herself) come up with an idea, staff a “writers’ room” of authors (Alaya Dawn Johnson,Malinda Lo, Joel Derfner, Patty Bryant, Racheline Maltese, Paul Witcover) to help bring it to life, and unspool the story across a 13 weeks of so. You can follow along, or wait, and binge it all at once.
That’s the idea, anyway. Now, though, Tremontaine exists as a normal book, printed on paper, sandwiched between two covers. I didn’t follow it as a serial, and my primary worry when I started reading it was that the transitions from one author to another would be jarring when separated only by the turn of a page. No need to worry: while the authorial styles change, the story unfolds seamlessly.
Readers should not be intimidated by the near 700 pages of the print edition. This book can be consumed in one big gulp, as delicious as the chocolate at the center of the tale. If you’re already a reader of Kushner’s Swordspoint novels, it will provide that needed fix. If it is your introduction to her fantasy of manners (like me), it is an excellent place to start.
The tale is set in a medieval fantasy city run by a ruling Council, with sharp class divisions between the nobility, merchants, and foreign traders. The story takes the reader to all corner of the city, from the Hill, to the University, to Riverside, the poor slum located on an island in the middle of the river. Naturally, Riverside tends to be full of the most interesting people.
It’s hard to pick the main character out of the sprawling cast, but the person whose desires and needs move the plot is Duchess Tremontaine, a woman facing financial ruin, a looming disaster she’s kept even from her husband, Duke William. “Rise of the Duchess” would be an accurate subtitle for this first season, though it’s a measure of how well the book weaves character narratives together that while the Duchess may ultimately gain all she wants, she loses something as valuable as well.

I wanted to hate the Duchess, but I ended up feeling equal parts revulsion and pity for her.
Meanwhile, there are so many other characters, there is a Wiki cast list to help you keep track of them all. The book pivots on three of them: the Duchess; Kaab, a princess from a family of traders in the exotic spice and chocolate; and Rafe, a university student whose studies uncover a secret that may radically alter the destinies of Kaab’s family. These three represent the three aspects of the city, along with Tess of Riverside, who becomes not only Kaab’s lover, but her lady love.
But the break-out character for me is Micah.
Kushner has been widely applauded for bringing people of color and LGBTBQ characters and themes into her fantasy novels at a time when they were difficult to find on the page, something that’s certainly true in Tremontaine, where everyone but the Duchess seems to be LGBTQ. Micah is representation of another sort, someone we’d term on the autism/Asperger’s spectrum in our world. He is the person with the knowledge that several of the main characters want, or want to keep secret, and I found her love of numbers endearing. She’s a full person, not “the math savant.” She’s from the country, thus young and naive in the ways of the University, but intellectually more intelligent than any student (or teacher). She has no tact when those around her are wrong in their use of numbers, but she also suffers from sensory overload. As someone with a child on the autism spectrum, I found the depictions of Micah’s coping mechanisms—and her sometimes meltdowns—well-done and realistic.

The other main character in the book is the chocolate.
The pages are permeated with the love of the stuff, from the rituals created for chocolate over the generations by Kaab’s family, to the locals who add their own twist with cream and sugar. People live, sleep and die for chocolate. The most sensual scene features Kaab seducing Tess after a chocolate ceremony. Chocolate also figures into the biggest betrayal of the book, a betrayal that will obviously reverberate into season two.
By the time I was done, I was eager to continue—alas, while Tremontaine: The Complete Season Two is available in an ebook omnibus, it hasn’t hit print yet.
I contemplated switching mediums, but no. I believe I’ll wait, and start Swordspoint next.
Tremontaine is available now.