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The Summer Tree Fionavar Tapestry Guy Gavriel Kay 9780451458223 Books

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The Summer Tree Fionavar Tapestry Guy Gavriel Kay 9780451458223 Books

I believe this series was much celebrated when it came out in the 1980s. Thing is, Kay's books have gotten MUCH better since this series.He writes unique fantasy historical novels, each set in an analogue of a very crucial and interesting period of real history. An example is the Courts of Love of southern France just before the Abigensian crusade screwed everything up. Another is the decline and fall of the southern Sung Dynasty in China. A third is Constantinople just before the fourth "crusade" destroyed it. A fourth is the war between moors and Christians in Spain, before the reconquest. These are well-written, rather romantic, novels with convincing, three-dimensional characters (at least to me.) But in these worlds gods are real and magic works. They are among the best fantasy novels I've ever read. So skip this series and read the later novels.


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The Summer Tree Fionavar Tapestry Guy Gavriel Kay 9780451458223 Books Reviews

I was overjoyed to find this trilogy had finally made it's way to . Firmly in the traditional fantasy genre, this is a clever weaving together (pun intended) of Arthurian legends and Celtic myth. There will be little of genuine surprise to fantasy readers, but a great deal of satisfied pleasure.

This is a genre trilogy done wonderfully well. Yes, it ticks the boxes, a group of friends who just so happen to arrive in a foreign place of the eve of catastrophe. Who just so happen to have the skills/knowledge/missing piece of the puzzle to help fight the good fight. Same old story right? Not at all. The clever interweaving of plot lines and character development have the reader properly drawn into the various battles. Invested in hoping everyone 'makes it'.

Highly enjoyable for fantasy readers, more so if you have even the foggiest ideas of who the Goddesses of War are, or The Green Man, or Arthur, Genevieve, and Lancelot - with a bit of knowledge, the fore-shadowing simply adds to the joys and tragedies.

Fantasy readers should definitely give this trilogy a good look.
Guy Gavriel Kay's Fionavar Tapestry is often compared to Tolkien's Lord of the Rings, but in language, tone, theme and in fact general setup, it has always struck me as more like Steven Donaldson's first Thomas Covenant trilogy. Ultimately, there is much here to like and enjoy, though it is not a patch on Kay's later works which often approach genuine artistry. Worth reading, nevertheless, these books boast a rather unique and fun setting, a pseudo-Celtic approach to its myth, and a generally fairly original approach to '80s fantasy. The down side is the current price; at $12.99 per novel in the trilogy, they are overpriced for my taste (particularly when they are readily available in mass market paperpack at $4.00 each, including shipping).

On the negative side, as I mentioned the language does not approach the artistry of Kay's later works. Kay was still learning his craft here, and his beautifully lyric language in his later pseudo-historical pseudo-fantasies is not in evidence here. While not being truly clumsy, the "high fantasy" language stretches are less than stellar. They border on clunky without often transcending the limitations of the style, and that may be why some reviewers compare this book to the Lord of the Rings (they may also be aware that Kay was of great assistance to Christopher Tolkien in preparing J. R. R. Tolkien's manuscripts for publication as The Silmarillion). The more modern English, on the other hand (such as the chapters set on Earth, or the parts when our five travelers are speaking, for example), is clear and simple, a kind of effortless prose which does not get in the way of the story.

Characterization is deft without being particularly deep, though there are some highly memorable characters with believable flaws and quirks. Many, if not most, of the characters resonate as being real, if not always likeable or approachable in every respect. For me, many of the characters motivations and responses are a bit over the top, but this is heroic fantasy, and heroes require larger-than-life motivations and actions. Few of these characters will live on in your imagination forever, but Kay's work with them gets the job done.

The overall world is very nicely drawn. While some complain about things being too much like Tolkien ("the lios alfar are just elves"), and others that things are different ("the dwarves shouldn't be like that"), I found that Kay put a unique spin on most of concepts in the book, and explained them well. While the nature of the primary evil things is left very vague, I think that actually works to let the reader ascribe characteristics to them which make them more frightening, anyway. In general, the world is a startling original take on some fairly hoary old concepts and fantasy chestnuts; the nature of Kay's gods and godesses, in particular, is intriguing.

It is worth knowing, going into this book, that it is rather dark for "high fantasy." The world is often described as a tapestry, with the creator known only as the Weaver, the antagonist is the Unraveller. The unraveller's goal, like many if not all primary sources of evil in modern fantasy, is rulership over the entire world, whether it likes it or not. The antagonist is pretty evil, and at least one of his actions in the first novel is perhaps offensive (though necessary, from a narrative standpoint, given his immortal and invulnerable status). You can't write about evil without contemplating evil, though, and in this case the evil is a lot less bloodless and distant than it sometimes appears in other high fantasy, and bad things happen to our heroes.

The antagonist, Rakoth Maugrim, is called the Unraveller.That leads to my chief critique of the concepts and plotting of the story. Kay often creates expectations through the use of language which are not met, a flaw which becomes more apparent as the trilogy progresses and therefore may not be a completely accurate complaint about this book. The "unraveller" designation is one such thing;it creates a strong impression that the goal of the antagonist is the destruction of the world (the tapestry), when in point of fact he has no intention of destroying when he can rule instead. The overwhelmingly similarly named "darkest road" and "longest road" which figure heavily in the climax is another (two very different things for two very different characters) is another such example.

The price point on the book is a bit high, given that this book has been out since 1983. I nearly knocked off a star for that alone, but since, in general, the editing was very good, I elected not to do so. I did notice a few things here and there a king "reins" instead of "reigns," for example, and a character named Colan was unfortunately changed to Colon in one instance (a particularly unpleasant sort of mistake), but the number of things I noticed was certainly less than ten and probably only five.

All in all, if you enjoy 1980s fantasy, this is a particularly unique example of it and worth a read. If you do not enjoy that particular kind of fantasy, you may want to give it a miss.I have been reading fantasy and science fiction since the early '70s, and as I have aged my tolerance for run-of-the-mill works and the ordinary, tried and true style of concept generally leaves me cold these days. Even in the '80s, I remember being singularly unimpressed with the "five ordinary people from our world travel to a world of high fantasy, and meet their Destiny there" style plotting. But if you give it a chance, Fionavar will repay a visit with some joy. You just need to decide if the investment in what amounts to $36.00 when the books are readily available for $12.00 in mass market paperback is worth it.
The Summer Tree is part one of the Fionavar Tapestry trilogy. I had picked it up after watching a Booktuber gush over Kay’s writing.

The Summer Tree follows 5 Canadian college students who, following a university lecture, are transported to another world.

Now, I’m a sucker for portal fantasies, but this one was a bit different. Usually, protagonists are a little younger, and, well, maybe a little smarter.

It wasn’t until 22% into the book that any of them thought to remark on the strange world they found themselves in, where magic is real, the king of dwarves chills in the castle with a human mage, and vile, dark creatures are following and attempting to kill them. Yet it takes around 80 pages for any of them to remark on this and express concern, even though some have been having casual sex with the castle-dwellers.

So, umm, yeah.

This took me three weeks to read, which is obscene for a book less than 400 pages. I really struggled to believe the characters would react the way they did in the situations in which they found themselves, and that effort to suspend disbelief kept me from ever really connecting with any of the main characters, which is a major problem if you expect someone to invest their time in a trilogy, assuming it follows the same characters.

The book also ended on a cliffhanger, which I hate beyond almost everything in the known universe, as it seems a cheesy way to attempt to goad readers into coming back.

I don’t think this reader will.

While I didn’t loathe the book—Kay actually had some really good thoughts and various assorted passages that were relatable—it was too uneven to make me want to continue the series.

3 out of 5 stars.
I believe this series was much celebrated when it came out in the 1980s. Thing is, Kay's books have gotten MUCH better since this series.He writes unique fantasy historical novels, each set in an analogue of a very crucial and interesting period of real history. An example is the Courts of Love of southern France just before the Abigensian crusade screwed everything up. Another is the decline and fall of the southern Sung Dynasty in China. A third is Constantinople just before the fourth "crusade" destroyed it. A fourth is the war between moors and Christians in Spain, before the reconquest. These are well-written, rather romantic, novels with convincing, three-dimensional characters (at least to me.) But in these worlds gods are real and magic works. They are among the best fantasy novels I've ever read. So skip this series and read the later novels.