Top Five Literary Swordswomen
Filed under: Books
To qualify for this list you need to be female sword-slinger whose adventures have appeared primarily as short stories, novellas, and novels. In addition, I’m looking for characters with staying power: there are a number of good female characters who have appeared in a single story, but I want to focus on those who have appeared in a number of books or stories.
2. Morgaine from C.J. Cherryh’s Morgaine Cycle. Maybe a little more science-fantasy then straight fantasy, but she still swings a mean sword.
3. Jirel of Joiry, C.L. Moore’s classic pulp character.
My top three are pretty much written in stone. They may not be everyone’s top three, but they better be in everyone’s list of five. If not, well, you’re wrong and you should come back after you’ve thought things over and admitted your mistake.
Numbers four and five are certainly open for debate, though.
5. Paksenarrion from the Deeds of Paksenarrion novels by Elizabeth Moon. If you ever wondered what a classic AD&D paladin would be like in action, this is the character for you.
Honorary mentions:
Jame (P.C. Hodgell), Kerowyn (Mercedes Lackey), and I’m sure there’s a swordwoman somewhere among Bradley’s Darkover novels.
November 28th, 2008 at 2:20 pm
Isobel Fisher was one of the titular characters of Simon R Green’s “Hawk & Fisher” series and the sequel Beyond the Blue Moon. She was orignally introduced in Blue Moon Rising as Princess Julia, changing her name before the events in the H&F books.
November 28th, 2008 at 8:27 pm
Moorcock’s Oona von Bek http://www.multiverse.org/wiki/index.php?title=Oona_von_Bek
Rosemary Edghill’s Holly Kendal http://www.sff.net/people/eluki/extras/cloak_proposal.html
Laurana? Pfft! shes a lightweight. What are you smoking? it so is Barb & JC’s Magiere from the Noble Dead books. http://www.nobledead.com/
November 28th, 2008 at 11:32 pm
First it’s canonical that Fafhrd and the Grey Mouser are the greatest swordsmen on this(or any other world). So,
1.) (Tie) Fafhrd and the Grey Mouser
Er…Conan? Progenitor of the Swords and Sorcery genre from whence all the greatest swordsmen sprang?
2.) Conan the Cimmerian
All for one,a and one for all, it’s numerically certain
3.) d’Artagnan
The dread albino his bad self
4.) Elric
And finally
5.) John Carter
Who skewered Mars on the point of a sword.
November 29th, 2008 at 7:04 am
So you’re saying they’re secretly women Mithel? Though it does point out that the good doctor left out Red Sonja. Unless he felt she simply didn’t have enough printed non-comic material to qualify…
I’d probably have Paks in the top 3, but I haven’t read any of the Tiger & Del books in a couple decades. And I’f we’re going to have a D&D sword-woman, I’d say Alias of the Azure Bonds, even if she only has 3 books I’m aware of. Or even Kitiara from DL..
November 29th, 2008 at 5:01 pm
Go for Alias- she was in the books AND the comics.
*NodNod*
November 29th, 2008 at 6:56 pm
Ahem: Drizzt Do’Urden.
That is all.
November 29th, 2008 at 7:06 pm
LurkerWithout -
Red Sonja only had one story ,and REH misspelled her name.
I’d have Belphebe (and possibly Britomart) from Spenser and de Camp/Pratt after Jirel.
November 29th, 2008 at 10:09 pm
rgl-
REH didn’t misspell her name. He created a character named Red Sonya living in the Renaissance and using a sword and pistol in a story in 1934. Roy Thomas changed that character for a Conan comics story in 1973 and changed the spelling. There are numerous other differences, such as her using only a sword and living in the Hyborian Age. For all intents and purposes, they are two different characters.
November 29th, 2008 at 10:53 pm
I’m a huge fan of PC Hodgell myself. The Doctor’s liking her only increases my respect.
What, no sentimental vote for Eowyn?
November 30th, 2008 at 12:53 pm
C.L. Moore’s Jirel of Joiry has my vote for slot 1. Then I’ll go for Steven Brust’s Sethra Lavode as 2, Aliera e’Kieron as 3, and Tazendra the Dzurlord for 4. For 5, I’ll happily put in Private Polly Perks from Terry Pratchett’s Monstrous Regiment (I’d say a different character from that same book, but ZOMG SPOILER).
I confess to a visceral hatred of Laurana, as she evokes for me all the Mary Sue AD&D Elf characters ever generated by high-school aged girls (myself included).
November 30th, 2008 at 3:04 pm
I KEEP forgetting to use smileys. My point was meant to be that Red Sonja did not meet the condition that her “adventures have appeared primarily as short stories, novellas, and novels.”
Number twenty on an Amazon search was the first prose work for her.
December 1st, 2008 at 12:53 am
Two of my favourites: Jirel of Joiry and Dark Agnes. I think Jirel definitely deserves a spot on this list.
Jirel of Joiry is one of the most notable creations of writer C. L. Moore, who appeared in a series of sword and sorcery stories published first in the pulp horror/fantasy magazine Weird Tales. Jirel is the proud, tough, arrogant and beautiful ruler of her own domain—apparently somewhere in medieval France. Her adventures continually involve her in dangerous brushes with the supernatural.
These stories are the very first stories to show the influence of Robert E. Howard on the genre sword and sorcery and introduced the heroine protagonist to sword and sorcery.
Dark Agnes de Chastillon (also known as Agnes de Chastillon, Dark Agnes, Agnes de la Fere and The Sword Woman) is a fictional character created by Robert E. Howard and the protagonist of three stories set in 16th Century France, which were not printed until a long time after the author’s death.
The character of Agnes was beaten by her father and almost forced into an arranged marriage. She avoids this by killing the bridegroom and running away. She meets Etienne Villiers, who at first attempts to sell her to a brothel, and Guiscard de Clisson, a mercenary captain who trains her as a swordswoman. When de Clisson is killed, Agnes heads for Italy with Villiers.
December 1st, 2008 at 7:32 am
Many cheers for including Jame (although she’s more of a knife and/or claws person when she isn’t using the Senethar and/or shrugging helplessly when people around her are spontaneously messily disemboweled in the destruction she leaves in her wake). If we’re going for a swordswoman in Dragonlance, I would be more inclined to use Kitiara as an example than I would Laurana.
And in terms of swordswomen in the Valdemar series, I would tend more towards Tarma, who had two books and a short story before becoming Kerowyn’s teacher in By the Sword. Kerowyn always felt a bit like a Tarma-lite with the commentary from Tarma about Kerowyn being a “natural” with the sword being how the author can justify shuffling off the legacy of one of her aging characters onto a new one.
December 1st, 2008 at 9:05 pm
There are clearly not enough 13-year-old girls (past or present) commenting here, because there is a distinct lack of Alanna of Trebond on this list. She is totally the best ever; we know this because it says so in the books.
December 1st, 2008 at 10:37 pm
For Dragonlance, I’m not sure if Laurana would be my choice of swordswoman. I would think more Kitiara Uth Matar. Past Chronicles, I can’t recall many if any times where Laurana fought one on one, while Kit was all about the fighting.
December 2nd, 2008 at 1:43 am
Oh, well, if we get to vote for who we loved as thirteen-year-olds, I have to chime in not for Alanna , but for the utterly wonderful Harry Crewe of The Blue Sword and Aerin of The Hero and the Crown, both by Robin McKinley. Aerin was a renowned dragon-slayer and Harry was the first and finest “lady hero” in generations, and they’re both tough women, despite their YA text origins. I read those books to pieces, and I still reread them coughcough years later. Man, Harry Crewe. I loved her so.
Other than them, I’d also have to go with Jirel of Joiry and Del, and yes, a sentimental vote for Eowyn. She and Harry were my gals, back in the day.
December 2nd, 2008 at 1:20 pm
You know, one of the things which impressed me about the Alanna books, albeit that I only noticed it several books in, was that while Alanna didn’t feel she needed to turn into a man to succeed (she definitely had her soft spots), she’s also not really your willowy heaving bosom female swordsman you so often run into. Tamora Pierce starts making a point that Alanna is pretty stocky and muscular. Although, honestly, I didn’t really start noticing this until the fourth book of her series and, of course, her cameos in Protector of the Small played up her less feminine traits to contrast her to Kel, who insisted on continuing to wear dresses and ribbons and look nice during her training.
December 2nd, 2008 at 10:19 pm
Brienne the Beauty from George R. R. Martin’s “A Song of Ice and Fire” series.
December 3rd, 2008 at 1:26 am
Man, I can’t believe I blanked on Pierce’s books. But I’d go with Kel over Alanna. Mostly because I like the Protector the Small series more than the Lioness one…
February 4th, 2009 at 4:20 pm
What about Hiro Protagonist?
Aside from being the self-proclaimed greatest swordfighter in the world, he was also the last of the freelance hackers, AND a stringer for the Central Intelligence Corporation.
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