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A Point of Honor
A world-renowned knight in the virtual reality land of "Chivalry," Mary de Courcy sees her fantasy and real worlds collide when someone attempts to kill her after she wins the virtual manor of St. Chad's-on-Wye. Original.
302 pages, Mass Market Paperback
First published April 1, 1998
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Displaying 1 - 17 of 17 reviews
May 4, 2015
So, as you may recall, Dorothy J Heydt is the real name of "Katherine Blake." Under the former name, Heydt wrote POINT OF HONOR, which came out in 1998 from, let’s see here, DAW. Under the latter name, she wrote AN INTERIOR LIFE which came out in 1990 from Baen. Heydt didn’t write any other novels, though I gather she wrote a fair number of short stories.
Now, as it happens, I first read AN INTERIOR LIFE a long time ago. I bet I read it the year it came out, though I don’t remember for sure. I’ve read it several times since then, and as I say, it’s unusual – structurally unusual. There are two very distinct plotlines that are hardly connected at all: in one we have Sue, a wife and mother in a contemporary setting, involved with deciding what to cook for dinner and what color to paint the living room, and her family; and then in the other we have Marianella and Lady Amalia and a bunch of others in a fantasy setting where the Darkness is encroaching on the lands of men. Sue can see and talk to and more or less share in the experiences of Marianella and the others, and many of them can talk to her, but basically the two worlds are separate at the beginning, separate all through the story, and separate at the end. Sue plays no role at all in the excitement that takes place in the fantasy world, and Marianella and the rest play essentially no active role in Sue’s life, either, though they influence her growing interest in music and so forth.
So, that’s certainly different. Juxtaposing the two storylines like that somehow infuses Sue’s ordinary life with interest and I find it the more appealing of the two stories. I can hardly imagine how Heydt got this book past her Baen editor, except I guess the editor had the same reaction I did – “Strange how this works when by all rights shouldn’t, but hey, here it is, working.”
Now, I didn't hear about Dorothy Heydt being the real name of Katherine Blake for a long time, but when I found out, I picked up A POINT OF HONOR. It turned out to be a good choice – it was easy to read, easy to enjoy, and I wound up liking it a lot.
It’s a virtual reality story, with a near-ish future world as the frame setting and a variety of interconnected fantasy-esque worlds in the VR setting. The pov protagonist is Mary Craven, an interesting choice of names for a character who is pretty much defined by her fearlessness. “Inside,” she is known by the more appropriate name of Sir Mary de Courcy, and she has just won the championship of the Winchester Lists in a jousting VR setting.
This book has a lot of flaws, which are mostly interesting flaws that don’t detract very much at all from the reading experience. The actual writing is solid and I liked Mary a lot, and also Greg, the male lead. He’s a “Lord of the Lists” – a programmer of the VR realities, who can look past the outward VR setting to the code beneath, and program on the fly if necessary. In other words, when they’re “inside,” Mary is a knight and Greg is a wizard.
The basic plot concerns Mary finding herself the target of one murder attempt after another and helping Greg figure out why and track down the culprits. I say “helping Greg” because Mary herself, though the pov protagonist, plays a very, very subsidiary role in driving the plot. For the longest time, I could not imagine why Greg needed her help at all, except that I supposed he just liked having company on his quest. Much farther into the story, it finally starts to look like he does actually need her help, but wow, he is a very powerful wizard / sharp programmer. So that’s a flaw, if you like: the protagonist not driving the plot. Making sure your protagonist does drive the plot is a very basic thing, a real fundamental. So this struck me as kind of like what was going on with Sue in AN INTERIOR LIFE, right? Because Sue did not actually influence the plot in the fantasy half of the story, yet it didn’t seem to matter much to the readability of the story. In the same way, though Mary does not really have a very important role in driving her plot, the story is still perfectly readable and enjoyable.
You remember how Sue connects with Marianella because she just does, with no explanation given? Well, Mary connects with Greg in kind of that way. When Greg first contacts Mary, with this, “Hey, please come “inside” to talk to me even though you’ve just been attacked and don’t know me a bit,” she basically just goes, “Sure, why not?” To me, this decision cried out for more of a justification than just The Author Wants You Two To Get Together, but really, that was all there was. I mean, there is a slow romance between them, though I must say their relationship develops with quite restrained sexual energy by current standards – almost no thoughts about how hot / beautiful / physically splendid the other person is, very little physical awareness overall. (This is not a criticism; I like a restrained romance and seriously dislike the "he's SO super-hot" modern male lead we see so often these days.)
More than that, I thought some aspects of the fantasy plotline from AN INTERIOR LIFE were highly predictable. So were some of the plot twists of A POINT OF HONOR. The identity of the actual bad guy is not in the least surprising; the identity of the minor sidekick bad guy is also rather obvious, at least in general terms. So, as far as WOW DIDN’T SEE THAT COMING, well, no, not so much.
So you see what I mean about flaws.
Yet none of this – none of it – interferes particularly with the reading experience. The setting is a pleasure to read about, the way Heydt handles the VR thing is really a lot of fun – I haven’t read enough VR stuff to be at all bored by it – Mary is a good enough protagonist to carry the story, Greg is a calmly proficient wizard/programmer, and the reader is just carried gently along from front to back without a lot of tension about how the story is ultimately going to end. A pleasant, thoroughly readable, low-tension story is just the sort that becomes a comfort read for me, so I fully expect to revisit this one in the future.
Now, as it happens, I first read AN INTERIOR LIFE a long time ago. I bet I read it the year it came out, though I don’t remember for sure. I’ve read it several times since then, and as I say, it’s unusual – structurally unusual. There are two very distinct plotlines that are hardly connected at all: in one we have Sue, a wife and mother in a contemporary setting, involved with deciding what to cook for dinner and what color to paint the living room, and her family; and then in the other we have Marianella and Lady Amalia and a bunch of others in a fantasy setting where the Darkness is encroaching on the lands of men. Sue can see and talk to and more or less share in the experiences of Marianella and the others, and many of them can talk to her, but basically the two worlds are separate at the beginning, separate all through the story, and separate at the end. Sue plays no role at all in the excitement that takes place in the fantasy world, and Marianella and the rest play essentially no active role in Sue’s life, either, though they influence her growing interest in music and so forth.
So, that’s certainly different. Juxtaposing the two storylines like that somehow infuses Sue’s ordinary life with interest and I find it the more appealing of the two stories. I can hardly imagine how Heydt got this book past her Baen editor, except I guess the editor had the same reaction I did – “Strange how this works when by all rights shouldn’t, but hey, here it is, working.”
Now, I didn't hear about Dorothy Heydt being the real name of Katherine Blake for a long time, but when I found out, I picked up A POINT OF HONOR. It turned out to be a good choice – it was easy to read, easy to enjoy, and I wound up liking it a lot.
It’s a virtual reality story, with a near-ish future world as the frame setting and a variety of interconnected fantasy-esque worlds in the VR setting. The pov protagonist is Mary Craven, an interesting choice of names for a character who is pretty much defined by her fearlessness. “Inside,” she is known by the more appropriate name of Sir Mary de Courcy, and she has just won the championship of the Winchester Lists in a jousting VR setting.
This book has a lot of flaws, which are mostly interesting flaws that don’t detract very much at all from the reading experience. The actual writing is solid and I liked Mary a lot, and also Greg, the male lead. He’s a “Lord of the Lists” – a programmer of the VR realities, who can look past the outward VR setting to the code beneath, and program on the fly if necessary. In other words, when they’re “inside,” Mary is a knight and Greg is a wizard.
The basic plot concerns Mary finding herself the target of one murder attempt after another and helping Greg figure out why and track down the culprits. I say “helping Greg” because Mary herself, though the pov protagonist, plays a very, very subsidiary role in driving the plot. For the longest time, I could not imagine why Greg needed her help at all, except that I supposed he just liked having company on his quest. Much farther into the story, it finally starts to look like he does actually need her help, but wow, he is a very powerful wizard / sharp programmer. So that’s a flaw, if you like: the protagonist not driving the plot. Making sure your protagonist does drive the plot is a very basic thing, a real fundamental. So this struck me as kind of like what was going on with Sue in AN INTERIOR LIFE, right? Because Sue did not actually influence the plot in the fantasy half of the story, yet it didn’t seem to matter much to the readability of the story. In the same way, though Mary does not really have a very important role in driving her plot, the story is still perfectly readable and enjoyable.
You remember how Sue connects with Marianella because she just does, with no explanation given? Well, Mary connects with Greg in kind of that way. When Greg first contacts Mary, with this, “Hey, please come “inside” to talk to me even though you’ve just been attacked and don’t know me a bit,” she basically just goes, “Sure, why not?” To me, this decision cried out for more of a justification than just The Author Wants You Two To Get Together, but really, that was all there was. I mean, there is a slow romance between them, though I must say their relationship develops with quite restrained sexual energy by current standards – almost no thoughts about how hot / beautiful / physically splendid the other person is, very little physical awareness overall. (This is not a criticism; I like a restrained romance and seriously dislike the "he's SO super-hot" modern male lead we see so often these days.)
More than that, I thought some aspects of the fantasy plotline from AN INTERIOR LIFE were highly predictable. So were some of the plot twists of A POINT OF HONOR. The identity of the actual bad guy is not in the least surprising; the identity of the minor sidekick bad guy is also rather obvious, at least in general terms. So, as far as WOW DIDN’T SEE THAT COMING, well, no, not so much.
So you see what I mean about flaws.
Yet none of this – none of it – interferes particularly with the reading experience. The setting is a pleasure to read about, the way Heydt handles the VR thing is really a lot of fun – I haven’t read enough VR stuff to be at all bored by it – Mary is a good enough protagonist to carry the story, Greg is a calmly proficient wizard/programmer, and the reader is just carried gently along from front to back without a lot of tension about how the story is ultimately going to end. A pleasant, thoroughly readable, low-tension story is just the sort that becomes a comfort read for me, so I fully expect to revisit this one in the future.
January 14, 2020
This is one of those surprise! favorite books. It's the only thing by the author I've ever read, in part because it's the only novel she ever wrote under this name, though I understand she wrote a few others under other names and an array of short stories. It's a shame she didn't write more novels, given that I've gotten so much enjoyment out of this one over the years.
I always liked the worldbuilding aspects of this book. It's mostly simmering in occasional asides, but in the future global warming and the energy crisis have gotten really bad. Everyone has to be a little green to survive well--grow some food, generate enough energy to sell back, etc. Long distance travel via what methods remain is expensive, shorter distance is slower--and so it's become relatively circumscribed.
This propelled virtual reality technology to replace widespread global mobility. It's a huge industry with more business than entertainment applications. The virtual and real economies overlap--in-game microtransactions are ubiquitous, and virtual currency can be exchanged for real. The main character is a professional gamer; she makes her primary income jousting in a popular virtual reality game called Chivalry. It predates many later forays into this setup!
Although occasionally there are things that stand out as inaccurate, for example, a character mentions their hard drive size, and it's whoa-small, when the VR programmer named Greg shows up, there is good judgment in some details included. Greg can act as a "wizard" in the game, even though there's no magic in Chivalry, because he's one of the original developers (also, of course, a bit of a white hat hacker) and uses custom code instead of built-in game functionality. It's made clear that he's mostly not writing the code from scratch right then--he's utilizing code he has previously written. Otherwise it would be unbelievable how he could be so fast and especially how he'd still find the time to include full-blown sensory effects. It's not much like the type of programming I do, but I'm given to understand that's closer to the reality than what's often presented in fiction.
What makes the worldbuilding more noteworthy is that there are several, really. There's the real world, the world of Chivalry, the world of Golden Road (a Carolingian fantasy world with elves that is pivotal to the plot), as well as brief glimpses of a few other VR worlds. Few were direct references I recognize, though I suspect they are at most semi-original homages, but all are recognizable game genres and well-rendered.
On top of that, it's got a solid adventure plotline and there's also my favorite sort of romance subplot--the basically subtle, slow sort that doesn't overtake anything else that's going on. If only Urban Fantasy authors could do this...
All of the ideas are interesting, mostly well executed, and fit together. A few seem even a little uncannily prophetic given how things were the year the novel was written and how they are now.
It also has a quote I get a laugh out of still... Greg's character is a monk and he likes to stay "invisible," plus Chivalry has a realistic medieval setting with seemingly enforced RP. At one point Greg helps a player who has been infected with a viral wound, making it seem as if Mary has done so, almost like a Paladin's healing spell. The other player clearly wants more of an explanation. In playing it off, Greg says, "Give glory to God, who made all the ones and zeroes."
I always liked the worldbuilding aspects of this book. It's mostly simmering in occasional asides, but in the future global warming and the energy crisis have gotten really bad. Everyone has to be a little green to survive well--grow some food, generate enough energy to sell back, etc. Long distance travel via what methods remain is expensive, shorter distance is slower--and so it's become relatively circumscribed.
This propelled virtual reality technology to replace widespread global mobility. It's a huge industry with more business than entertainment applications. The virtual and real economies overlap--in-game microtransactions are ubiquitous, and virtual currency can be exchanged for real. The main character is a professional gamer; she makes her primary income jousting in a popular virtual reality game called Chivalry. It predates many later forays into this setup!
Although occasionally there are things that stand out as inaccurate, for example, a character mentions their hard drive size, and it's whoa-small, when the VR programmer named Greg shows up, there is good judgment in some details included. Greg can act as a "wizard" in the game, even though there's no magic in Chivalry, because he's one of the original developers (also, of course, a bit of a white hat hacker) and uses custom code instead of built-in game functionality. It's made clear that he's mostly not writing the code from scratch right then--he's utilizing code he has previously written. Otherwise it would be unbelievable how he could be so fast and especially how he'd still find the time to include full-blown sensory effects. It's not much like the type of programming I do, but I'm given to understand that's closer to the reality than what's often presented in fiction.
What makes the worldbuilding more noteworthy is that there are several, really. There's the real world, the world of Chivalry, the world of Golden Road (a Carolingian fantasy world with elves that is pivotal to the plot), as well as brief glimpses of a few other VR worlds. Few were direct references I recognize, though I suspect they are at most semi-original homages, but all are recognizable game genres and well-rendered.
On top of that, it's got a solid adventure plotline and there's also my favorite sort of romance subplot--the basically subtle, slow sort that doesn't overtake anything else that's going on. If only Urban Fantasy authors could do this...
All of the ideas are interesting, mostly well executed, and fit together. A few seem even a little uncannily prophetic given how things were the year the novel was written and how they are now.
It also has a quote I get a laugh out of still... Greg's character is a monk and he likes to stay "invisible," plus Chivalry has a realistic medieval setting with seemingly enforced RP. At one point Greg helps a player who has been infected with a viral wound, making it seem as if Mary has done so, almost like a Paladin's healing spell. The other player clearly wants more of an explanation. In playing it off, Greg says, "Give glory to God, who made all the ones and zeroes."
April 15, 2016
Lovely read. Would you like a book that is equal parts SF and fantasy, where the tech doesn't feel dated after two decades, and the final scene is an Advent celebration? Then this is your book.
I picked this up because I loved "The Interior Life" by the same author. I was not disappointed.
I picked this up because I loved "The Interior Life" by the same author. I was not disappointed.
November 15, 2020
Have seen this rec'd as an under-appreciated classic, and I can kind of see the appeal -- yet it just wasn't for me. The entire book felt low-stakes and bland, moving from one action set-piece to the next, and since the characters didn't click for me, I was never engaged. Alas.
December 13, 2011
This book thrilled me because I could tell that the author understands and potentially participates in the medieval recreation group, the SCA. That and it's about an honorable female gamer (:
January 4, 2026
Three and a half stars
This was light and pleasant, it's about Mary who plays a knight in a chivalry game in full immersion virtual reality and when someone starts trying to kill her in real life, she teams up with a hacker to go adventuring across interconnected virtual worlds to find out who and why. As such I found the beginning more interesting where I was first learning about the world and found it got a bit repetitive as we continued to visit more virtual worlds. Mary's role is somewhat passive as Greg is the wizard doing most of the work, but nevertheless it was enjoyable to tag along on their quest. The story is actually concerned with questions of copyright and programming and gaming as well. Some of the technical details of the digital world were a refreshing change from other stories with similar VR ideas.
This was light and pleasant, it's about Mary who plays a knight in a chivalry game in full immersion virtual reality and when someone starts trying to kill her in real life, she teams up with a hacker to go adventuring across interconnected virtual worlds to find out who and why. As such I found the beginning more interesting where I was first learning about the world and found it got a bit repetitive as we continued to visit more virtual worlds. Mary's role is somewhat passive as Greg is the wizard doing most of the work, but nevertheless it was enjoyable to tag along on their quest. The story is actually concerned with questions of copyright and programming and gaming as well. Some of the technical details of the digital world were a refreshing change from other stories with similar VR ideas.
Read
March 15, 2018I was inspired to re-read this book after seeing what e-sports coverage has become—notably, e-sports is almost identical to the production and style values of mainstream sports coverage, but it's focused on people playing video games.
This book is almost twenty years old, and of course its near-future predictions haven't aged particularly well; Heydt was exploring a particular idea that required limited transportation along with good VR, which was certainly more important than the "accurate predictions" many people think that SF is trying to do. The focus of this book is more about cybersecurity issues with real-world repercussions, along with copyright issues, piracy, and making a living in a VR world.
That might make it sound boring, but this book is full of action in multiple fantasy and SF settings, while retaining a down-to-earth basis behind it all.
If you are familiar with 90s-era SF and fantasy, it's going to feel very much of that period. Personally, I still find this an enjoyable read.
This book is almost twenty years old, and of course its near-future predictions haven't aged particularly well; Heydt was exploring a particular idea that required limited transportation along with good VR, which was certainly more important than the "accurate predictions" many people think that SF is trying to do. The focus of this book is more about cybersecurity issues with real-world repercussions, along with copyright issues, piracy, and making a living in a VR world.
That might make it sound boring, but this book is full of action in multiple fantasy and SF settings, while retaining a down-to-earth basis behind it all.
If you are familiar with 90s-era SF and fantasy, it's going to feel very much of that period. Personally, I still find this an enjoyable read.
November 14, 2018
I read this a few years before I joined the SCA, and went back & got it after I joined the SCA. Well written, with good characters, and the technical & geeky aspects of VR were never beyond my limited understanding of computers. A good light read.
August 12, 2012
This was a very, very fun read. Especially for anyone who participates in any kind of historical reenactment group.
October 17, 2024
This book was pretty promising at first - a sci-fi fantasy book with a woman lead is definitely something that I thought I would enjoy - but it ended up falling really flat for me. Mary has very little substance as a character, it feels like all of this work was put into developing a character that was capable and smart and independent before the story started only for her to become completely passive once she was dropped into a book. The only real decision she makes based on her personal values ends up being thrown back in her face later as the reason that everything bad in the book happening and she's told she was wrong for it. I constantly found myself wondering if she cared at all about the things that were happening to her and her lack of reaction/emotion gave the story no stakes whatsoever. I also found her character development weirdly sexist - Mary starts as a single woman fending for herself and being seemingly satisfied with her life (again, hard to tell with how emotionless she is) and by the end of the book she just does and thinks whatever Greg tells her to. Speaking of Greg, the moment he's introduced it becomes a two-character story until the very last chapter and his main purpose seemed to just be saving Mary and telling her what to do, and of course serving as a completely unnecessary romantic interest. I could go on about how frustrating that entire sub-plot and dynamic is but I'll refrain, I've ranted to the people in my real life enough about it, just know I found it infuriating. To the book's credit there was a lot of really thorough and detailed nerd culture aspects and if I had read this in 1998 when it came out or was a slightly different genre of nerd than I am then I probably would have loved it, and I can understand why people do love this book for those reasons. Unfortunately, because I didn't have much knowledge or interest in the specific things the book did very right I was left wildly disappointed in the character development, plot, themes, pacing, and how oddly sexist it felt at times. This is absolutely worth a read if you want a low-stakes fluffy romp through an action-adventure world that gets nerdy about knights and coding, but if you want a book that has depth of character and a well structured plot then I would suggest moving on.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
July 18, 2022
Very long for the plot. A lot of nerdgasm over jousting and learning to joust and the minutiae of role-playing games, and a lot of carefully detailed fights with opponents of various species. I had a problem with the main character, who basically had little in the way of a personality beyond being able to fight in a medieval setting. An attacker actually gives her information during his attack, and she doesn't try to figure out what he's talking about. She overhears a conversation and neither thinks about it, nor mentions it to the man who's helping her. She realizes who is behind attacks on her, and there's no sense of surprise. Other than fighting, Mary is basically a non-playable character in her own book. About halfway through the book, things got a little technical for this reader, who doesn't play role-playing games. And after a while, the endless fight scenes began to pall.
Probably a better fit for somebody in the SCA or someone who plays this kind of video game.
Probably a better fit for somebody in the SCA or someone who plays this kind of video game.
August 1, 2018
Captivating. Slow beginning but worth continuing.
April 30, 2019
Did you know that with the book out of print, the author has made the book available online for download on their website? www.kithrup.com/~djheydt/.
August 14, 2020
Available for free on the author's website: http://www.kithrup.com/~djheydt/index...
April 5, 2013
The novel seemed quite promising, and I did enjoy it, but I must admit that I liked the start and middle much more than I did the ending. What it did offer was some interesting concepts. This is one of those books that you can either take or leave — nothing special, but certainly not a waste of time, either.
March 24, 2023
Read my review of on of my all-time favorite books at amrauthor.com,
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