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Author Topic: Guy Gavriel Kay (Tiganna, Sailing to Sarantium, The Lions of Al-Rassan etc.)
sidious618 
Registered: Apr '03
8059_Qui-Gon Jinn
Date Posted: 1/15/06 9:01am Subject: Guy Gavriel Kay (Tiganna, Sailing to Sarantium, The Lions of Al-Rassan etc.)
So who else reads his books besides Raven? tongue

I've read Sailing to Sarantium and Lords of Emperors. I'm currently working on The Lions of Al-Rassan which is pretty good if a little slow(then again all of his books start like that!).

Guy Gavriel Kay

Discuss his works. I'll be sure to pop in quite a bit.

 

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emilsson 
Registered: Oct '98
7432_Vader's Shaving Habits
Date Posted: 1/15/06 10:46am Subject: RE: Guy Gavriel Kay (Tiganna, Sailing to Sarantium, The Lions of Al-Rassan etc.)
I read The Lions of Al-Rassan last year and enjoyed it a lot. Guy Gavriel Kay takes his time to set up the plot and characters but the second part was very good and exciting. And I think it wouldn't have been like that without the careful writing that preceeded it.

Also, he uses other historical eras as sources of inspiration rather than the Western European midieval civilisation which is common for many other fantasy works. A thing I enjoy a lot happy .

 

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sidious618 
Registered: Apr '03
8059_Qui-Gon Jinn
Date Posted: 1/15/06 1:02pm Subject: RE: Guy Gavriel Kay (Tiganna, Sailing to Sarantium, The Lions of Al-Rassan etc.)
Yeah, he creates a great atmosphere for his stories.

 

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JediNemesis 
Registered: Mar '03
44157_Darth Vader & Luke Skywalker
Date Posted: 1/15/06 1:05pm Subject: RE: Guy Gavriel Kay (Tiganna, Sailing to Sarantium, The Lions of Al-Rassan etc.)
I've read The Lions of Al-Rassan and A Song for Arbonne, and liked them both very much. Like emilsson said, the way he picks on slightly unusual sources for his fantasy civilizations is great - Arbonne is early-mediaeval France - and makes it somehow a fresher read, because this is history you know enough for it to be navigable but not too much to be boring. Bertran de Talair and Blaise de Garsenc from Arbonne are two of my favourite fantasy characters. Rodrigo Belmonte is also up there.

I've read The Summer Tree, but can't be bothered with the rest of the Fionavar Trilogy unless maybe someone gives me them. TST's two major flaws, for me, are 1) It's constantly jarring, because the key characters are five law students from right here on Earth and they're annoying. The bits dealing purely with Fionavar are great, but the Earthkids irritate the hell out of me. 2) Bits of it are identical to LOTR, and others are just clichéd. Still worth a look, though, if not too much trouble is involved. happy

 

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Raven 
Title:
SFF: Books and Comics Mangler
 Registered: Oct '98
6170_Padme
Date Posted: 1/15/06 1:38pm Subject: RE: Guy Gavriel Kay (Tiganna, Sailing to Sarantium, The Lions of Al-Rassan etc.)

Fionavar is GGK trying to redo Lord of the Rings, on a less all-ages level. Kay has the greatest of respect for Tolkien - he helped to edit the Silmarillion - but I think that he wanted to explore the same kind of storytelling that didn't shy away from the darker sides of some legends.

And I'm a fan of the earth-kids. Paul/Pwell in particular. I really wish that at the end of the story, he had wrapped up his affairs a little more. I would have really liked to see him explaining what happened to Kevin's father. Don't get me wrong, I like how his story ended, I just wanted to see him tell Sol.

 

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sidious618 
Registered: Apr '03
8059_Qui-Gon Jinn
Date Posted: 1/15/06 3:48pm Subject: RE: Guy Gavriel Kay (Tiganna, Sailing to Sarantium, The Lions of Al-Rassan etc.)
Raven, what did you think of TLoAR?

 

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Raven 
Title:
SFF: Books and Comics Mangler
 Registered: Oct '98
6170_Padme
Date Posted: 1/15/06 7:59pm Subject: RE: Guy Gavriel Kay (Tiganna, Sailing to Sarantium, The Lions of Al-Rassan etc.)

It was good, but it wasn't his best. The Sarentine Mosaic was better; so was Last Light of the Sun.

 

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sidious618 
Registered: Apr '03
8059_Qui-Gon Jinn
Date Posted: 1/15/06 8:10pm Subject: RE: Guy Gavriel Kay (Tiganna, Sailing to Sarantium, The Lions of Al-Rassan etc.)
Raven posted:

It was good, but it wasn't his best. The Sarentine Mosaic was better; so was Last Light of the Sun.


I liked the Sarantine Mosiac. I have Last Light of the Sun but I've yet to read it.

 

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JediNemesis 
Registered: Mar '03
44157_Darth Vader & Luke Skywalker
Date Posted: 1/16/06 2:50am Subject: RE: Guy Gavriel Kay (Tiganna, Sailing to Sarantium, The Lions of Al-Rassan etc.)
Raven posted:
And I'm a fan of the earth-kids. Paul/Pwell in particular. I really wish that at the end of the story, he had wrapped up his affairs a little more.


Actually, I'll rescind what I said earlier. I do like Paul/Pwyll. IMHO he has the most character depth to him of the five, and certainly in The Summer Tree he has the most interesting role. Maybe I should read the other two, if only to see what happens to him.

 

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Excellence 
Registered: Jul '02
6338_New Republic Seal
Date Posted: 1/16/06 3:47am Subject: RE: Guy Gavriel Kay (Tiganna, Sailing to Sarantium, The Lions of Al-Rassan etc.)

There was a Pwyll in The Swans' War trilogy, but I'm guessing no relation. What are Kay's best books?

 

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JediNemesis 
Registered: Mar '03
44157_Darth Vader & Luke Skywalker
Date Posted: 1/16/06 3:57am Subject: RE: Guy Gavriel Kay (Tiganna, Sailing to Sarantium, The Lions of Al-Rassan etc.)
I haven't read them all, so can't judge, but I'd definitely recommend both A Song for Arbonne and The Lions of Al-Rassan, if only for sheer originality and detail of setting. happy

 

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Raven 
Title:
SFF: Books and Comics Mangler
 Registered: Oct '98
6170_Padme
Date Posted: 1/16/06 6:12am Subject: RE: Guy Gavriel Kay (Tiganna, Sailing to Sarantium, The Lions of Al-Rassan etc.)
JediNemesis posted:
Raven posted:
And I'm a fan of the earth-kids. Paul/Pwell in particular. I really wish that at the end of the story, he had wrapped up his affairs a little more.


Actually, I'll rescind what I said earlier. I do like Paul/Pwyll. IMHO he has the most character depth to him of the five, and certainly in The Summer Tree he has the most interesting role. Maybe I should read the other two, if only to see what happens to him.


One of the things I like about Paul/Pwell is that he's different from everyone else. He's somewhere between being a god and being a man, but not like the demigods of the world. He's alone; there is no one else like him in any of the worlds.

It's Kim though, that gets the most character developement done to her. She's the driving force behind books two and three in my opinion. She very quickly becomes the Gandalf-type character that travels around and helping others reach their destinies.

 

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JediNemesis 
Registered: Mar '03
44157_Darth Vader & Luke Skywalker
Date Posted: 1/16/06 9:07am Subject: RE: Guy Gavriel Kay (Tiganna, Sailing to Sarantium, The Lions of Al-Rassan etc.)
Raven posted:
It's Kim though, that gets the most character developement done to her. She's the driving force behind books two and three in my opinion. She very quickly becomes the Gandalf-type character that travels around and helping others reach their destinies.


Sounds interesting. Alright, maybe I'll look for books 2&3 after all happy

 

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JediNemesis 
Registered: Mar '03
44157_Darth Vader & Luke Skywalker
Date Posted: 2/26/06 1:13pm Subject: RE: Guy Gavriel Kay (Tiganna, Sailing to Sarantium, The Lions of Al-Rassan etc.)
I managed to get hold of both Tigana and The Fionavar Tapestry #2 (Wandering Fire?) recently - I've read Tigana but not the other one yet.

I liked Tigana a lot. I also felt pleasantly smug in a geeky kind of way for recognising the obligatory Fionavar reference. tongue The thing about Tigana, IMO, is that almost the entire cast are memorable, not just the main players. Alessan, Devin, Sandre, Dianora and Brandin of Ygrath could all happily have carried a book on their own. Great stuff, and as always the depth of detail Kay puts into the background world is breathtaking.

 

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Excellence 
Registered: Jul '02
6338_New Republic Seal
Date Posted: 3/2/06 2:04am Subject: RE: Guy Gavriel Kay (Tiganna, Sailing to Sarantium, The Lions of Al-Rassan etc.) - Date Edited: 3/2/06 2:07am (1 edits total) Edited By: Excellence

I'm looking into these books. Canadians seem to know how to write, I don't know why. Are any of his books young adult by any chance? How much fantasy archetypes does The Fionavar Tapestry have? The Lions of Al-Rassan is considered the best work?

There's a heavy historical Iberian pernisular background in all his books. I've perused the main site and gotten the impression the books could be quite similar to each other. That won't in a first read for me, but are they?

 

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JediNemesis 
Registered: Mar '03
44157_Darth Vader & Luke Skywalker
Date Posted: 3/5/06 1:31pm Subject: RE: Guy Gavriel Kay (Tiganna, Sailing to Sarantium, The Lions of Al-Rassan etc.)
Excellence posted:
Are any of his books young adult by any chance? How much fantasy archetypes does The Fionavar Tapestry have? The Lions of Al-Rassan is considered the best work?

There's a heavy historical Iberian pernisular background in all his books. I've perused the main site and gotten the impression the books could be quite similar to each other. That won't in a first read for me, but are they?


Point #1: depends what you mean by 'young adult' - they've got plenty of sex and death in them, but nothing too graphic. On the other hand, there's angst, destiny, background atrocities and so forth by the bucketload. In terms of emotional depth, I think you'd have to try one and see - it's such a subjective thing.

#2: Fantasy archetypes in The Fionavar Tapestry: oh, a fair few, IMHO. Although you should read The Summer Tree if you can, because then you can go onto The Wandering Fire, which I've just finished and which I personally think is way better than TST. In retrospect, TST acts as an extended introduction to the world, and things get going in TWF. Plus, in TWF Kay starts integrating elements of Earth mythology, which fits nicely with his concept of similar but different universes, and pleases geeks like me. tongue

#3: No idea if Lions of Al-Rassan is considered his best work, or if it isn't then what is. Sorry. happy

#4: I wouldn't say the Iberian peninsula is the model for all his book-worlds. Fionavar Tapestry, certainly not. I think it's legitimate to say that he took the settings for The Lions of Al-Rassan and Tigana from there, but Song for Arbonne is taken from mediaeval France.

#5: As for them all being similar, IMO Kay has a very distinctive style, and I imagine they would start to seem a bit alike if you read several in quick succession.

 

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