This review is by Suzanne Tindal/Wohlthat, an Australian journalist and writer who can be found on Twitter as @engochick.

Under Heaven is a fantasy using the Chinese Tang Dynasty as a framework. Author Guy Gavriel Kay does not, therefore, have to create a world as such, but conduct research into the one which had once existed.

He took his inspiration to write about this period of Chinese history from famed poets, so it’s not so strange that the mood he sets from the very beginning in this book is pensive and philosophic. The main character Tai is introspective, given to doing the opposite of what many of the other, stereotypically materialistic, inhabitants of his world are wont to do.

Tai, the second son of a celebrated general, decides to use a mourning period for his father to bury the dead at a battlefield which his father fought at forty years earlier. Because of the many angry and sorrowing ghosts inhabiting the field, which men can actually hear, he is thought of as crazy. But he spends two years digging graves, and is rewarded with a lavish gift from the princess of the people across the border – a careless gift which men would kill for and which will endanger his life.

The gift takes him away from the battlefield as he decides to deliver it to the imperial court before someone kills him over it. However, having been so long away from the court, he’s lost the subtlety necessary to survive in the political currents, resulting in games which Kay portrays in detail.

Unfortunately, the closed nature of these political games has not aided Kay in his characterisation. I did not become attached to Tai, who I felt was a walking stereotype of the “different” man who acts according to his heart. It was also difficult to get a glimpse into the other characters’ motives or emotions because we as the reader were only able to see the glimpses which their court poker faces allowed us. Only two characters gained my approval, one being a drunken poet, and another being an emperor’s concubine, who I think Kay drew well.

In general, I’m not sure where Kay was aiming this novel. I don’t feel that the story had enough intricacies to draw in those who love highly political Chinese-themed fantasy, and at the same time didn’t have enough sword fighting for those who love Chinese martial arts tales. For those who like romances, Kay has not tread the traditional route with his protagonists, leaving me (as one who enjoys a good love story) not satisfied. He has some supernatural elements in the novel, however, they’re not a main feature, which left me wondering why they were there at all.

In conclusion, he tried to pack too many elements into a story without doing a good job on any of them. The book was, however, written in a poetic manner and those looking for a bit of diversion may enjoy it.

Rating: 2.5/5

UK Under Heaven cover

Canadian fantasy author Guy Gavriel Kay has revealed the new US/Canada and UK draft covers of his new book, Under Heaven, which is due to be published in April 2010.

The book will take place in a world inspired by the Chinese T’ang Dynasty of the 8th century, focusing on Shen Tai, the son of a general who led the forces of imperial Kitai in a war twenty years before, in which forty thousand men were slain alongside a mountain lake. More details are available from a Penguin press release.

“This is a next-to-final version, minor tweaks will be done before release in April,” wrote Kay on his Bright Weavings site. “… it [has also] been confirmed that the Under Heaven cover will be the front cover for Penguin Canada’s catalogue this spring. Really nice news, to my mind as much a tribute to the look and design as to anything else. (They did this for Ysabel, too, actually.)”

Kay has published eleven fantasy novels, commencing with his applauded trilogy The Fionavar Tapestry. He has won a number of major awards and been nominated for many more. All of his works have a link to the world of Fionavar, the first of all the worlds, of which the rest are merely echoes.

US/Canada Under Heaven cover

Note: This review of The Darkest Road, the third book in Guy Gavriel Kay’s trilogy The Fionavar Tapestry, contains spoilers about the first and second books. You probably don’t want to read this review or The Darkest Road itself unless you’ve read The Summer Tree and The Wandering Fire first.

The Darkest Road represents a satisfying conclusion to Guy Gavriel Kay‘s debut fantasy series, The Fionavar Tapestry. All loose ends in the world of Fionavar are tied off neatly, and some dramatic character development and plot threads in the book mean many readers will be hanging on until the final pages. If you enjoyed reading the first book in the trilogy, The Summer Tree, keep on reading until this worthy end.

Having said that, many discerning readers will feel disappointed with The Darkest Road. On its own merits, it’s a fine read, but the book can’t help but showcase the fact that The Fionavar Tapestry as a whole did not live up to the promise displayed in The Summer Tree.

As we noted in our review of the second book in the series, The Wandering Fire, after The Summer Tree, Kay likely introduced too many characters into his world, making it hard to match the tight focus of the first book.

Both plot focus and character development suffer as a result of this problem. In The Darkest Road, Kay obviously struggles (and arguably fails) to deliver a meaningful narrative about each of the many characters he has created. We catch glimpses of each, but the major characters receive far too little focus as Kay wrestles with what appears to be a self-imposed limit to keep The Fionavar Tapestry to three books.

At the end of the previous book, The Wandering Fire, several major blows were dealt to the forces of the dark god, the Unraveller, Rakoth Maugrim. One of his most powerful lieutenants, the mage Metran, is vanquished and a powerful source of magic used for evil, the Cauldron of Khath Meigol, is destroyed. A powerful sea-beast that was its guardian is also put out of its misery.

Yet the forces of good also lost several of their soldiers. The mage Loren lost his power, one of the original five characters from Earth, Kevin, sacrificed his life to the Goddess Dana to beat back the unnatural Winter, and perhaps most ominously, the legendary knight Lancelot of the Lake has been resurrected, casting doubt on the future of Jennifer (in whose body resides the soul of Queen Guinevere) and her husband Arthur Pendragon.

There is also the random factor in the tapestry … the child of Maugrim’s rape of Jennifer. Not good or evil, Darien must at some stage choose his side in the massive conflict to come.

And so The Darkest Road begins with the forces of good and evil more or less even in power, with a long journey ahead of those under Brennin’s High King Aileron to bring the war to Starkadh, Maugrim’s fortress. In time-honoured fantasy tradition (think Lord of the Rings, The Wheel of Time), The Fionavar Tapestry will end with a climactic battle between the humans and the orcs svart alfar.

And now the criticism.

The main problem with The Darkest Road is that its character development feels rushed. In The Summer Tree, Kay showed us the fascinating clay from which he moulded his characters. A hint of rebelliousness and father trouble here and there, anguish over the untimely death of a loved one at one’s own hands (if ultimately accidental) and so on.

Guy Gavriel Kay

However Kay didn’t really do much to advance the admittedly well-shaped raw outlines of his initial characters in The Wandering Fire, and he doesn’t do enough in The Darkest Road.

The central conceit of a series such as The Fionavar Tapestry is that it allows us to view a fantastic world very different from our own through the eyes of characters from our own world who are transported away from Earth.

However I feel Kay lost sight of this idea in the latter stages of The Fionavar Tapestry. In The Darkest Road the characters from earth are very much acclimatised to Fionavar – alien though it seemed in The Summer Tree. Gods, monsters, transforming wolves … it’s just par for the course for Jennifer, Paul, Kim and Dave. And of course, Kevin’s character development was cut short through his death.

Instead Kay spends much of The Darkest Road focusing on a trio of characters who weren’t even really in The Summer Tree; Guinevere, Lancelot and Arthur Pendragon.

You can make an argument that Jennifer/Guinevere was of course one of the original characters from Earth … but like Lancelot and Arthur, in The Darkest Road she is very much a cardboard cut-out character … infinitely wise, beautiful, sad, tragic … but not really human. More like an ideal of a woman than a real one.

Yes, we see a lot of Kim and Paul grappling with the gifts that Fionavar has given (dealt?) them. But we don’t see anything near the level of emotion that we saw in The Summer Tree when Paul hung himself on the tree of Mornir as an act of sacrifice and more than anything, a way to escape his personal grief. And really, in a triumphal end of series book, these guys should have advanced a bit more than being angsty because they can’t precisely control their world-shaking power. Just a little.

Other characters are also skipped over … Darien particularly had the potential to become something quite unique in the Fionavar universe, but his character is never really explored beyond basic adolescent emotions.

Perhaps the greatest tragedy of The Darkest Road is that we still don’t know much about Rakoth Maugrim. He’s a mysterious, dark lord who seems so, for want of a better word, faceless. What is he really afraid of? Is he just an elemental force? Why is he so twisted? Not much about him is explained.

One of the main problems with The Darkest Road‘s plot is that it is all just too easy. In The Summer Tree, Paul hung on a tree for three days and came to the bring of death. Since that time, he just seems to be able to pull some Mornir goodness out of his ass whenever he’s in a pickle and “hey presto”, with the magic words, all the badness disappears. It’s not quite as bad with Kim, but it’s close.

No sooner does Maugrim pull out his biggest, badass lieutenant, than the forces of light take him down in a heroic scene. No sooner does he unleash his ultimate weapon that he’s been hoarding for a hundred years, than it gets taken down like a fluffy kitten.

I guess I wanted to see the forces of light go through a bit more in this The Darkest Road. I guess I wanted things to get well … dark. Frodo on Mount Doom dark. Brandon Sanderson’s The Hero of Ages knee-deep in ashes dark. Instead we got pixie-dust and fairies and romance.

The Fionavar Tapestry kicked off with a bang and could have gone on to be one of the greatest fantasy series of all time. Instead, The Darkest Road makes it clear that it reached ever so close to the top tier, grazed its fingers, but fell short. Its last book is still a must-read for fantasy fans, and will remain a classic of the genre. But it’s not a masterwork.

Guy Gavriel Kay

Canadian fantasy author Guy Gavriel Kay has stuck the boot into one of the judges of this year’s Man Booker Prize, declaring his attitude towards science fiction to be “hall of fame-quality idiocy”.

The prize is awarded to the best novel each year written by a citizen of the British Commonwealth and has a 50,000 pound prize. Earlier last month, the shortlist for the prize was announced, but no science fiction books were to be found on it, spurring American sci-fi author Kim Stanley Robinson to lambast the judges of the award for what he said was a misguided focus on historical fiction.

In an article published by UK newspaper The Guardian, Booker judge and University College London professor of English John Mullan, made some rather disparaging comments about sci-fi literature.

“One of this year’s Booker judges, John Mullan, replied to Robinson’s comments with an almost definitively asinine comment,” wrote Kay in a column published in Canada’s Globe and Mail last week:

“”It was Hall of Fame-quality idiocy. After first noting that he was “not aware of science fiction” (which might normally preclude going on to comment), he proceeded to declare, through the foot in his mouth, that it was “bought by a special kind of person who has special weird things they go to and meet each other.” I do admit to wondering what size shoe Professor Mullan wears, and how it fits between his teeth, and whether he teaches grammar.”

Kay has published eleven fantasy novels, commencing with his applauded trilogy The Fionavar Tapestry. He has won a number of major awards and been nominated for many more. His next novel, Under Heaven, is slated to be published in April 2010.

Kay’s comments come as part of a wider debate within the sci-fi and fantasy community about whether the broad genre is being discriminated against by the literary establishment.

American fantasy author Janny Wurts recently argued in a podcast that the fantasy genre was chronically marginalised by its immature image by book critics and readers, a theme she expanded on in a recent interview with Keeping the Door.

And Canadian author Margaret Atwood, considered to be a ‘mainstream’ novelist, has taken a stance that her latest novel The Year of the Flood is not to be classified as science fiction, despite the book containing a dystopian vision of the future including mutated versions of humanity. American sci-fi and fantasy author Ursula K. Le Guin has criticised Atwood’s stance.

Ultimately, Kay is optimistic about the future of the sci-fi genre, concluding his Globe and Mail column by noting that speculative fiction themes are embedded in many younger writers, a theme that is eroding prejudice and genre assumptions on the part of the literary mainstream.

The Wandering Fire is a worthy and satisfying follow-up to the first book in The Fionavar Tapestry trilogy that Canadian author Guy Gavriel Kay (his website here) launched with a bang with his 1984 fantasy novel The Summer Tree. Readers who loved the first book (and we presume there are many) will want to proceed straight on to the next.

Having said that, The Wandering Fire suffers in a small way many of the common problems that so-called “middle books” in trilogies tend to fall prey to. It’s possible to argue that Kay introduces too many actors into his narrative, deviating from the tightly woven character examinations of The Summer Tree.

And plot threads – possibly too many of them – start to spread out from the main story. Some problems too, can be found in the unconstrained magic power sometimes granted to characters.

But these are perhaps only minor quibbles.

The Wandering Fire starts six months after the end of The Summer Tree. The five heroes from twentieth century Earth are back home, albeit with some quite large differences in some of their lives.

Jennifer, for instance, is pregnant with the child of the dark lord, Rakoth Maugrim (which she is determined to give birth to), and Kim has been transformed from a normal medical intern into a seer with bleached white hair and a penchant for seeing the future, or distant present.

Then there’s Paul, who has been led out of his depression by the transformational experience of surviving three days and nights hanging on the Summer Tree of the god Mornir, but is now grappling with what it means to be the chosen of the god.

As might be guessed, it’s not long before our heroes are drawn back into the world of Fionavar, and to once again walk with gods and unearthly creatures, and of course to do battle with the servants of the Unraveller Maugrim.

As the book moves forward, several major characters are introduced to its pages who were not in The Summer Tree, and others, who had previously remained quiescent in the background, move more to the front of the narrative.

This, in my opinion, creates a bit of difficulty for the reader, who is mainly, after all, interested in viewing the struggle of the light and dark forces of Fionavar through the eyes of those who are new to the world and its magical nature; in other words, the five protagonists who have journeyed there from Earth.

Guy Gavriel Kay

These characters shouldn’t be static, and their interactions and struggles should change them and help them to grow. But at times it can seem as though they have become fixed models after The Summer Tree.

There is also a slight lack of believability to some of the magic acts accomplished in the book … at times it can seem like whenever the characters are in true danger, they can call upon the gods or their own (sometimes hidden) personal resources for a universal panacea.

To create dramatic tension in fantasy books, the magic system needs to be fairly carefully built. When heroes are too powerful, they can too easily remove obstacles from their path. When they’re too weak, they get bogged down and are unable to escape their struggle towards safety. In The Wandering Fire, Kay perhaps erred too far on the side of power.

The book also, in my opinion, doesn’t build so much towards its own conclusion as it does towards a presumably more climactic ending at the end of the third book in the series. It’s hard to create a middle book in a series that stands on its own right, and Kay has obviously aimed towards this goal, but more probably could have been done.

The prose in the book remains excellent. As we’ve previously noted, Kay’s deceptively simple style hides hidden depths. At times the painstaking delicacy with which he places his words seems an art form. So many meanings, explicit or implicit, colour his words. Yet there are so few of those words.

With some minor quibbles typical of “middle book syndrome” aside, Guy Gavriel Kay’s The Wandering Fire belongs on any fantasy fan’s bookshelf. We’re looking forward to the conclusion of The Fionavar Tapestry, The Darkest Road.

The Summer Tree, the first book by Canadian author Guy Gavriel Kay, is a delightful little gem of fantasy literature that promises big things for the other two books that round out The Fionavar Tapestry trilogy.

Readers who love Ursula K. Le Guin‘s deceptively simple style — which surprises due to the complexity of meaning and expression of human emotions beneath the surface — will find much to like in Kay’s prose. Rarely have I read a novel which packs so much character and plot development and world-building into its pages with so little wasted exposition.

The Summer Tree embodies the phrase “small, but perfectly formed”.

The book, first published back in 1984, was Kay’s first venture as a novelist under his own steam, although he had previously worked with Christopher Tolkien to assist in the editing of The Silmarillion, a collection of unpublished work by his father, the fantasy master J. R. R. Tolkien.

It chronicles the journeys of five Canadian university students who are drawn into another world after attending a lecture by the reclusive Professor Lorenzo Marcus. Marcus, it turns out, is in fact Loren Silvercloak, a mage from Fionavar, first of all the worlds, and he needs five adventurers from another world to spend a few days in his own to celebrate the 50th year of the rein of High King Ailell of the country Brennin.

Of course, playing tourist for a few days on another world where dealing with gods, magic and bitchy priestesses who think they’re top dog is all in a day’s work doesn’t prove that easy … but then what kind of plot would it be if our five protagonists just had a few days off in sunny Fionavar before calmly heading back in time for end of term exams?

As expected, things go pear-shaped in the first of all the worlds, and the University of Toronto five find themselves playing star roles in the pending apocalypse led by the big bad, the ominously named Rakoth Maugrim.

Much in the The Summer Tree could have been dragged straight from Tolkien or any other stereotypical fantasy epic. You’ve got the inevitable Dark Lord and his twisted minions, mysterious and well-aged sorcerors, elves, dwarves, a dying king and his squabbling prince children, and of course, the voyagers from another land.

But the book doesn’t feel like a stock treatment of such tropes.

Instead, Kay wisely recognises that it’s our past experiences and our existing characters that will shape the future. He lets his characters naturally guide the story, rather than trying to force plot development artificially.

Thus, one character’s guilt over the death of a loved one becomes the motivation to sacrifice themselves for the greater good. Thus, a reticent, almost societal outcast from one world finds companionship and understanding with a similar character from another.

“Real human emotion and insight” might be Kay’s watchword with The Fionavar Tapestry.

Having said that, the plot in The Summer Tree is fascinating; filled with events that will uplift, inspire, or traumatise you, either way.

Kay’s writing shares with that of Le Guin an ability to touch and embrace the tragic comedy that forms human endeavour, with all of its bathos, while not either grasping and focusing on it too tightly, or denying or judging it. Such writers simply facilitate a situation where the reader can accept the contradictions inherent in life.

You’ll likely find shadows of your own toils and worries in those of Kay’s characters. The triumphs and lusts of young adulthood, tso far distant from the games of being a teenager. Everything is for keeps when you’re out from under your parent’s wings. Every action has a consequence.

This wise insight, matched with a Tolkienesque fantasy world, with all of its glory and despair, makes for a heady mix, and one I won’t forget any time soon. If you’re a fantasy fan, make plenty of room on your shelf under “K”. This is one author who should be watched closely.

Canadian fantasy author Guy Gavriel Kay has launched a new internet journal to share his thoughts in the lead-up to the April 2010 publication of his new book, Under Heaven.

The book will take place in a world inspired by the Chinese T’ang Dynasty of the 8th century, focusing on Shen Tai, the son of a general who led the forces of imperial Kitai in a war twenty years before, in which forty thousand men were slain alongside a mountain lake. More details are available from the Penguin press release.

Kay has published eleven fantasy novels, commencing with his applauded trilogy The Fionavar Tapestry. He has won a number of major awards and been nominated for many more. All of his works have a link to the world of Fionavar, the first of all the worlds, of which the rest are merely echoes.

On the first entry in the journal, Kay writes that one of things he attempts to achieve with such journals (he conducted a similar exercise for his 2007 novel Ysabel) is to give readers a glimpe into the publishing world, and how a manuscript becomes a book. But it appears as if the author will apply a sense of humour as well:

“I remember, in the first of these journals, for Last Light, describing one editor as ‘doughty’ and then musing on the awesome importance of the letter ‘t’ in that adjective. I still like that one. He’s decent enough to pretend to do so, even though we no longer work together, so he doesn’t have to!”

As for the book itself, Kay is currently working on what he says is the “final” pass-through of Under Heaven. “I use the quote marks because it really isn’t final,” he writes. That process is likely to be done by early to mid-October. After that, the book goes to his copy editor, and then on-wards through the publishing process.

Commentary
After reading many, many recommendations for Guy Gavriel Kay’s work, I picked up The Summer Tree, the first volume in The Fionavar Tapestry, several weeks ago, and I’m almost finished.

While I haven’t yet written a review of the book (look out for that soon), suffice it to say that I’ve already ordered the next couple of books in the series and will probably end up with Guy Gavriel Kay’s entire collected works on my shelves. He’s that good.

The author reminds me of Ursula K. Le Guin. His writing goes to the heart of what it really means to be human; using fantasy tropes to illustrate the deepest ideas about our lives. His writing isn’t hard, or complicated; it’s easy to pick up and easy to keep reading, but that simplicity is deceptive. I would commend Guy Gavriel Kay to anyone. And I suspect there will be a lot of people out there who will be anticipating his next work with pleasure and bated breath.