The only reason, the only reason, I’m finishing The Summer Tree is because Guy Gavriel Kay correctly quoted Cool Hand Luke. I thought only Neil Armstrong could do that. Transit TV couldn’t. Even Terri Prachett couldn’t.
Misquoting Luke is like misquoting Jesus.
You’ld know that if you’d actually seen the movie.
Well, okay that and that fact that Guy, at times, borders on poetry.
One of the best series I have ever read, from my favorite author.
When you’ve finished, pick up Tigana. Then work your way through the rest…
Teenage angst that drove me nuts. I couldn’t even complete the first book without getting supremely irritated at how whiny everyone was.
Terri Prachett? Who’s she?
Guy, in Fionavar, bordered on plagiarism, IMHO.
Who? Seriously, I never heard that.
Tolkien.
Guy helped Christopher Tolkien edit JRRT’s The Silmarillion manuscripts. The entire Fionavar tapestry reads like Middle-Earth 2.
It’s not as bad a ripoff as Brooks’ Sword of Shannara by any stretch of the imagination, but to me (and thousands of others) the influence was obvious enough to be off-putting.
That names only a few borrowings. I finished the series, but stopped in annoyance literally every 2nd or 3rd page as I recognized something plucked out of JRRT’s mythos. I’ve never been able to read it again as a result.
I bought the first one off a number of doper reccomendations, and was pretty disappointed. I’m not a big fan of real world/fantasy land crossovers, and although there were bits I liked, I on’t be picking up the next two.
Is his other stuff any better?
It does have its admittedly gorgeous moments, but even if it’s a highest quality Tolkien ripoff, it’s still a Tolkien ripoff.
Which is a shame, because he can write; Tigana, A Song for Arbonne, and The Lions of Al-Rassan are all superb fantasy. I seriously recommend them.
I LOVE everything else of his I’ve read, but book one of this trilogy is one of only, I think, three books I’ve ever failed to finish, and it was entirely due to this exact reaction:
Go read his Sarantine (sp?) Mosaic instead - the pair of books based on the Byzantine Empire. Those are probably my favorite of his. Hmm…come to think of it, I haven’t heard any Kay news in a while. Has he written anything since, um, that one based on medieval England that I can’t remember the name of?
The Fionavar Tapestry has a special place in my heart, mostly because I was sitting on a bench on Philosopher’s Walk (University of Toronto campus) reading the book, in which the characters go up Philosopher’s Walk after a lecture at Hart House.
I’d argue that much of the similarity between Tolkein’s work and the Tapestry series is superficial, and given that both were heavily influenced by Celtic and Germanic mythology (with a slightly heavier dose of Norse folklore in Kay’s stories, Rohan notwithstanding), those are not surprising.
On the other hand, I’d say it’s naive to suggest that some details weren’t inspired by his work with Christopher Tolkein on JRRT’s accumulated notes.
I’ll also add my voice to the chorus in support of Kay’s later works as being much better than the Fionavar Tapestry.
I quite enjoyed the trilogy and Tiganna. His other stuff worked less well for me.
I was underwhelmed by Tigana (patriotism, Yay!), and after hearing about the LOTR similarities Qadgop posted above, I’m beginning to wonder where the Emporer’s clothes are. :dubious:
Good God, yes. Tigana is wonderful. I also recommend The Lions of Al-Rassan, A Song for Arbonne & Sailing to Sarantium. I haven’t gotten to Lord of Emperors yet, because I have been stuck (in a good way) in the middle of the Aubrey/Maturin series! 
I think I read the Fionavar Tapestry soon after I finished the Silmarillion and the similarities really stood out. There’s also a Kay version of Gandalf and Beren and Luthien, as well as a country that’s famous for their horses. I realize that Tolkien also drew from myth, but he did a much, much better job at making them his own, instead of just cut and pasting what he liked about each myth into his world, which is what the Fionavar Tapestry seemed like to me. He even squeezed in some Camelot mythology in there by having one of the main characters be the reincarnation of Guinevere. Arthur and Lancelot also show up rather abruptly.
He tries to explain the similarities by having the world of Fionavar be the original world and all the others are spin-offs, but that doesn’t work because Fionavar is the world that feels like a cheap spin-off of a real one. What also bothered me is that all the characters acted the way they did because that’s what the plot (or “destiny”) required of them.
I also read Tigana and it was much more original than Fionavar, but it was very angsty, sometimes hilariously so. There was this one scene where the main character has rough sex with some woman, and there was this sentence about how that’s the only way it could be because of all the wars and stuff going on.
Or something like that anyway.
I gotta say, the first book is fantastic. The second book is pretty good. I can’t remember what happens in the third book, even though I think I’ve read it three times. I really enjoy this series until it gets
all Arthurian. Did he just give up on all his ideas or what? What a cop-out!
I think I’ve commented on this topic before here, but I’ll do so again. My problem with The Fionavar Tapestry series is that each chapter contains at least one segment that reads like it’s supposed to be the emotional climax of the entire book. Here’s a helpful comparison in case you haven’t read the novels.
Normal author: “Dave looked at the reflection of the stars on the sea and was overwhelmed by the beauty.”
Guy Gavriel Kay: "Dave looked at the reflection of the stars on the sea and beheld something that was like beauty in its natural state, unsullied by the minds and words of mortals. Here, at the cold and churning heart of the sea and beneath the celestial axis to which the infinity of stars are chained, during the height of the conjunction between all Universes past and future, a beauty was made visible, if only for the briefest of moments, a beauty that shamed even that of the Goddess herself and burned its immutable image, eternally and irrevocably, into the soul of David Alexander Martinyuik.
Normal author: “While the pair walked through the woods, Kevin turned to Beth and said ‘I love you.’”
Guy Gavriel Kay: "While the pair walked through the woods, Beth’s silence caused Kevin to feel that his footfalls were louder than the thunderbolts of Mörnir. The air around them was charged with sunlight and shadow and a force stronger still. They both could feel the surge of an invisible tide around them as Kevin turned to Beth. Thoughts flooded his mind, thoughts that were both his own and not his own, spoken and unspoken, infinite and transinfinite. Yet when Kevin, in the Forest of Anavolhaiaven, facing the woman he loved more than life itself, finally spoke, it was little more than a whisper that escaped his lips.
‘I . . .’
And Beth, acting crueller than she ever would again, cast her gaze to the ground."
I can get past the Tolkien rip-off, and I can even get past the logic-abusing ending of the third book, but I cannot get past the Kay’s over-the-top emotionalism that drips from every single page of this work.