Amph Guy Gavriel Kay (Tiganna, Sailing to Sarantium, The Lions of Al-Rassan etc.)

So who else reads his books besides Raven?

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.

 

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 .

 

Yeah, he creates a great atmosphere for his stories.

 

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.

 

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.

 

Raven, what did you think of TLoAR?

 

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.

 

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.

 

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

 

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.

 

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.

 

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

 

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. 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.

 

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?

 

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.

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

#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.

 

While you can actually say you read one Zahn book you've read his all, this won't be a problem for me coming in fresh, where nothing is recycled. I'm a wee bit suspicious of Raven's rave of these book; he told me Elizabeth Haydon was nothing special but still okay, whereas he forgot to say they're actually the worst vile I've ever read in my life.

Another thing I noted was the age of these books. Times and technology were different that long ago. I remember the first mouse I saw, what a big deal it was, wee, look at us zip it around the screen. Not that I'm saying modern books can prose better and smoother, mind you. Most modern fiction is fit for a bin. I've never read a full fledged decades-old book before, I think. Ah! That reminds me!

Are his women underclassed to men?

 

I've had a couple of recommendations like that too . . .

In the ones I've read, I'd say not. The protagonists tend to be guys, insofar as any of Kay's books has one easily namable protagonist (I did mention that he likes big casts, didn't I?), but the women of his various worlds are anything but underclassed. Jehane bet Ishak (The Lions of Al-Rassan) is a fantastic example, as are nearly all the women in A Song for Arbonne.

In fact, if women in fantasy is a subject that interests you at all, I'd recommend starting with Arbonne, where the differing attitudes to women of Arbonne and Gorhaut are pretty much the bedrock of the story.

 

No male superiority over females, or young adult reading, then this is a book I cannot afford to miss. There are so few I can read.

 

Definitely check out some of his work. I wouldn't say it's life-changing, but there's some very good stuff in GGK's worlds. I haven't read all of them, but I'm trying to make the set.

 

What about Jonny Strange and Norrell. When I think of Raven, I think of Kay and Clarke, amongst a few other mental imagery. What does Amazon mean when they say, "The chock-full, old-fashioned narrative (supplemented with deft footnotes to fill in the ignorant reader on incidents in magical history) may seem a bit stiff and mannered at first." ?

I know now where you got your name from!

 

I think they probably mean that his style is a little old-fashioned, and that because of the depth of background he uses, he has to occasionally explain bits and pieces that the characters know but the reader doesn't. Stiff and mannered . . . hmm. Maybe, a bit, but it's not hard to get used to. And I'd rather have over-mannered style than slapdash lousiness.

There is a book called Jedi Nemesis, I think, but that's not where I got my name from. I'd been rather fond of the appellation Nemesis for a while before I joined the JC, but it was taken, so I had to stick the "Jedi-" on the front. Then I found out that there was a SW novel called the same thing.

 

I just saw some preview pages. Interesting . . . it's written just like Bram Stoker's 1897's Dracula! Is Strange and Norrell action packed for a 800 pager? The size doesn't faze me; Erikson's average is far larger and somehow feels lighter. But if its format is as close to those past century books as possible, I would need to know how exciting a read it is, and not an easy one by the looks of it. And with . . . endnotes too? Reminds me of my project days!

Kay or Clarke . . . which do I choose?