Favorite fantasy authors: Guy Gavriel Kay

Canadian native Guy Gavriel Kay is a relative newcomer to fantasy, but I'm very taken with his work. Like R.A. MacAvoy, he doesn't hit you over the head with magical pyrotechnics---the people and their changes are the center of the story.

The supernatural elements in his work are generally very subtle when they show up at all, considerably less than the average Stephen King novel. So why is Kay banned to the F&SF ghetto?

Kay's first notable achievement was working on the posthumous publication of J.R.R. Tolkien's Silmarillion in collaboration with Tolkien's son Christopher. Despite this deep immersion in the Tolkien mythos, I give Kay a very low ``Tolkien Number'' of 2. Kay's work resembles Tolkien's work very little in atmosphere. The style is not the ponderous, mythic style of Tolkien but a very natural, unobtrusive modern fiction style. The scenery is well-painted, and his characters really breathe (and sweat).

Here is his entire output as of this writing, with the most recent works first.

• Sailing to Sarantium and Lord of Emperors comprise the “Sarantine Mosaic” series. This is some of the best writing I've seen in decades in any genre. Historical fiction set in a slightly parallel world: the locale is very much like medieval Byzantium, and the maps in the endpapers of the second book strongly resemble the Mediterranean, but the planet has two moons, and the city is called Sarantium. This one has it all: deeply real and deeply realized characters, truly Byzantine plotting, and so many moments that made me just sigh with pleasure at the subtlety and multi-layered resonances of the writing. Many reflections on the interactions among love, politics, religion, and war, and some thrilling depictions of chariot racing.
• With Lions of Al-Rassan, Kay continues his astonishing growth as a writer of immense power and finesse. The setting is a thinly fictionalized Iberia during the Middle Ages, and it doesn't take long to decode the three major religions (Christendom, Islam, and Judaism). For all that those factions are officially opposed, there are certainly a lot of people who find themselves working in the camp of the enemies of their native faith. This situation makes for some useful reflections on the nature of loyalty and faith versus emotional ties, not to mention contractual obligations. An incredibly engaging story, difficult to put down. Now I'm keen to read more of the real history of the time when the Moors dwelt in Iberia.
• A song for Arbonne is another work with a combination of a fascinating atmosphere with a tangled skein of gut-wrenching human stories. The setting is the heyday of the troubadour and courtly love, with a nice evocation of the interaction between high art and politics, and those rare characters who are at home with both. Not just escapism, I think it has something to tell us about the best ways to live. By the way, this is not a book for children. The scene introducing the king of the bad guys, for example, features some pretty decadent behavior. Overall, I liked the book even better than Tigana: more gripping, stronger and more memorable characters.
• Tigana was the first Kay I read and it immediately made a convert of me. The feel reminds me a bit of E.R. Eddings or Lord Dunsany---drafty, uncomfortable old castles, strife on the battlefield. One of the things I like most about this book and Kay in general is the lack of a Manichean world view: instead of characters that belong pretty clearly to the camps of Good and Evil, the characters in Tigana are more like rats in a flood---there are lots of malign influences around, and a few friends and allies, but it's not so much of a moral struggle as just a struggle to say alive. Still, the actions of some characters are inspiring as they rise above the muck.
• The Fionavar Tapestry trilogy is published in three volumes: The summer tree, The wandering fire, and The darkest road. I haven't read them. My many friends who like Kay's writing say this is his weakest and most derivative work, but still much better than most writers' freshman efforts.

Last updated: 2005/10/14 05:00:20
URL: http://www.nmt.edu/~shipman/reading/kay.html