If you have any serious intention of reading Guy Gavriel Kay’s Tigana, please don’t read any farther. It’s a wonderful book with an interesting surprise at the end, and Kay himself once refused to spoil it for the class he was discussing it with.
That said:
I’ve just finished reading Tigana for the nth time, and still haven’t quite resolved how I feel about Scelto’s decision at the end, not to tell Alessan that the Fool was Valentin. On the one hand, Dianora felt it was important, and knew everyone involved. He should have obeyed her request. Alessan might have liked knowing it was his father who killed Brandin. OTOH, Alessan might have felt guilty for letting his father remain like that for decades while he toured with performers.
So was Scelto’s decision good or bad? Would you have wanted to know?
Okay, that does it. After reading your post for the nth time, this book is going on my to-read list. I love stories that leave the reader with something to think about.
(No problem with the spoiler either – I’m old, and I’ll have forgotten it.)
Can you help me with a question about the ending of the Hyperion series?
I dunno, I thought it was a pretty good decision for the reason you mentioned above: Alessan would probably have felt extremely guilty about not having tried to rescue his father earlier. Not a happy ending, you know? It’s cliche, but in this case, he probably is off better not knowing.
Anyway:
Kyla, while in general I agree with you, one line has always bothered me (and bear in mind that this is my favorite book): what Scelto thinks when he finds out who Alessan is:
“His own revenge was here then”.
Revenge against who - Alessan? Brandin? Or, most intriguingly, Dianora herself? I really don’t know. I’d have started a thread about it before myself, but until now, I thought I was the only one who’s ever read this book (Hey, I’ve been here for 3 months, and no-body’s ever mentioned my namesake!).
P.S. - Pam, what’s your question? And may I say how odd it is to read my favorite fantasy novel and favorite science-fiction novel mentioned in the same thread.
Alessan, I’d’ve brought your name up earlier but I’ve only ever noticed you in GD, where it would be highly inappropriate. I was wondering if you’d check in here.
I hadn’t thought about that revenge line before. I really don’t know what it means. I’m not even sure who’s revenge it is. If it’s Scelto’s, then I don’t think he means revenge against Dianora, because he loved her. Perhaps revenge against Alessan for Brandin’s death which indirectly caused Dianora’s. But he could have meant Rhun’s revenge against Brandin.
You know, this is why I love all his books. There are no pat endings, except maybe in The Lions of Al-Rassan, which is great in other ways.
Last time I checked, GGK’s phone number was listed in the Toronto directory. Maybe I should call him up and ask him.
(And spoilers below for anyone who hasn’t read this wonderful series.)
I got stuck in a time loop.
At the end, Raul has discovered that the missing period in Aenea’s life, when she fell in love and got married, was actually the time that they were about to spend together. It hadn’t happened yet, at least to him. Then she was going to die – again.
???
I wrote to Simmons, and here’s what he said (I suppose he was working on “Crook Factory”, so I didn’t get the three-page in depth analysis I was hoping for):
> Aenea had the one year, 11 months, etc., and then she returned to the “past” to live out the rest of her life and death. The time with Raul was the missing period from her earlier life.
>
> DS
Well, I knew that much! Where is Raul going to “be” when she goes back to the past? When does time travel affect just you, and not everyone around you?
Pam, the easiest way to think about it was like this: the only person traveling through time was Aenea. While Raul was was on his interstellar journey, she leaped forward a few years, spent the two years with him, and the jumped back to meet him as he arrived.
After she returned to her own time, Raul was left alone.
No problem, although I have to say - I wasn’t crazy about the ending, if only because I saw it coming a mile away (unlike the Moneta twist at the end of Fall of Hyperion, which took me completely by surprise).
Yeah, it only took a month for me to finish the book. (But it was my bedtime-half hour a night book.)
Thanks again to Suo Na for starting the OP. I did remember the spoiler, but it didn’t spoil anything. It was still a shock, when Rhun’s identity was revealed.
I would have told Alessan. He would have felt incredible pain, knowing how his father had been “living” for the past 20 years, but that would have been mitigated somewhat by Valentin’s revenge.
And wasn’t he sure his father was dead? So there shouldn’t be any guilt about not trying to rescue him.
But I’m okay with Scelto not telling too – it felt like I took on some of Alessan’s pain, instead of him, and that’s okay.
As for the “revenge is here” line, I think it was Rhun’s revenge, but like you said, it could have been Alessan’s too.
What a great book. I had the 10th anniversary edition, with a special afterword by Kay. He describes one of the events that gave him the idea for the story – the erasing of a Communist functionary from a group photo, as if he’d never existed.
Thanks again for mentioning this book. I’d probably never have read it otherwise.
I have to suggest that you do, Do, DO check out Kay’s other works, especially the Fionavar Tapestry trilogy and A Song for Arbonne. The quality follows through.
I’m glad you enjoyed, it, AuntiePam. Kay is one of my favourite authors, and as jayjay said, his quality is always high. My favourite of the rest of his books would have to be The Lions of Al-Rassan.
The version I read that started this thread was the tenth anniversary edition, that I got from the library just for the afterword. That anecdote about the photo interested me; ever since I heard about the Czech town that was made to not-ever-have-existed (I can’t even remember the name right now) during (I think) WWII I wondered if that’s what inspired Kay. Now I know that it was something along the same lines.
