Swan Tower - Open Book Thread: Deeds of Men

I liked the way the older Deven was still so analytical, and the contrast between poor Henry and his brother, and the way Antony is realistically uncomfortable with his brother's sexuality, and how the title worked on a couple of levels.
The trick of not giving a source for the epigrams kept me guessing thoughout, and Sejanus, from what little I know about it, has some neat resonances.
But Penshby sort of dropped away toward the end, and he was so interesting in the tennis scene. The offstage end of his storyline seemed an anticlimax.
Quibbling aside, thanks for posting it for free!
~mc

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Glad you enjoyed it!

Sejanus is all about royal favorites. Mind you, Sejanus himself is a thoroughly backstabbing and untrustworthy man, so the fit isn't perfect, but I wanted to draw my epigraphs from Ben Jonson's plays, and that was the first one I found that seemed fitting.

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Though Deven is described as retaining elements of his youth, he does become winded during any physical exertion. About how old (physically speaking) is he during this novella?

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Fifty-eight to sixty-two. But this is also in the context of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries -- despite faerie protection, he isn't as healthy as a man of that age would be nowadays.

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