Changes

|title=Sharps

|author=K J Parker

|publisher=Orbit

|date=July 2012

|summary=Yet again this author stretches familiar fantasy elements, but for once she is outdone by giving us too much early detail and not backing it up with her usual brilliant plotting.

}}

Fencing - it's such an exotic, rarefied world with it's own language, that it's no surprise to remember the director of ''Alien'', ''Blade Runner'' and ''Prometheus'' started his career with a fencing film. And it's all over this fantasy, but not in the usual sword-and-sorcery way of old, as a delegation of swordsmen and -women visit Permia from Scheria - two fencing-loving countries that until recently have been at war. But why exactly are they going - separately, and as a group? Who is playing what kind of diplomatic game between the two countries, and is a wielded sword the only danger they'll face?