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3.81 AVERAGE
3.81 AVERAGE
I've tried and failed a couple of times with other GGK books that ended up having to go back to the library almost untouched, but this was on special offer, on my book club challenge list and only 300 pages or so with good reviews from people I trust. Should be a quick hopefully not painful read and hey-presto another one ticked off the list, where's the harm in that, I thought.
Well was I in for a surprise! Once I'd got used to the language of epic fantasy once more and relaxed into the wonderful world and storytelling I found a poetic, moving, gentle and exhilarating, thoughtful and exciting epic saga; yet as wholly relatable too as any multi-world sword and sorcery tale could be. Wonderful, Lord of the Rings meets Zelazny's Princes of Amber but also very much it's own creature.
So, wheres the harm in that? Only that I now must, absolutely must, read the other 2 books of the series, and that is not going to help me tick any more books off of that ever growing book club challenge list!
Ps. Afraid I couldn't help comparing this with the huge emotional impact of reading Lord of The Rings for the first time, hence only 4 stars just to show a differentiation using this clumsy star rating system.
Well was I in for a surprise! Once I'd got used to the language of epic fantasy once more and relaxed into the wonderful world and storytelling I found a poetic, moving, gentle and exhilarating, thoughtful and exciting epic saga; yet as wholly relatable too as any multi-world sword and sorcery tale could be. Wonderful, Lord of the Rings meets Zelazny's Princes of Amber but also very much it's own creature.
So, wheres the harm in that? Only that I now must, absolutely must, read the other 2 books of the series, and that is not going to help me tick any more books off of that ever growing book club challenge list!
Ps. Afraid I couldn't help comparing this with the huge emotional impact of reading Lord of The Rings for the first time, hence only 4 stars just to show a differentiation using this clumsy star rating system.
In this Lord of the Rings, college students from contemporary times are pulled unwittingly into the terrible battle against Sauron by a Gandalf named Loren who is familiar enough with the workings of our world to become a respected, published academic but for some reason doesn't bother to bring back telephones to old-timey fantasy land even though that would solve like half of the problems they seem to have while fighting evil. Angsty Frodo college student/Jesus analog, sacrificial hottie, girl who always thought she was a witch in the back of her mind you know like when she was a teenager, and the strong, impulsive protagonist who is "fair haired" but Jewish? and... a lawyer? all must reckon with this crazy new world they have found themselves in, but it's cool because they guess how everything works correctly right off the bat every time and then say it out loud so that the author doesn't have to explain it. The world is fun and the reading is easy and enjoyable but, oh, the author. How he writes. Sentences. Sentences like these, these.
Wow. With so much heart, great urgency at a furious pace so much can entangle and go wrong and right and brutal. Better than Tigana. I'll keep reading the series.
adventurous
challenging
emotional
hopeful
mysterious
tense
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
Content Warnings
Graphic: Rape
adventurous
mysterious
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
A very slow start. I almost put it down, but I'm glad I didn't. It has real excitement and beauty in it.
dark
mysterious
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
Content Warnings
Moderate: Rape
I enjoyed this fantasy which started in this world and continued in the world of Fionavar. I especially liked how each character had his or her own skills to learn and challenges to overcome. I look forward to learning what happens next in the Fionavar Tapestry in The Wandering Fire.
Let’s start by saying this is straight up Tolkien plagiarism, through and through. The author famously spent time assisting Christopher Tolkien in his work on the Silmarillion, and this novel reads just as if it had been written by an author who had famously spent time assisting Christopher Tolkien in his work on the Silmarillion.
The geography and races have just been stolen straight out of Tolkien with no shame, except they have stupid names which are harder to remember: Elves are Lios Alfar. Orcs are Svart Alfar (though I suppose the similarity in the names here does hint that Orcs are perverted Elves, which is a plus--another idea nicked from Tolkien). Dwarves are just Dwarves, for some reason. There is even a paradise land of the gods over the Western sea, for crying out loud.
The twist, which drew me to this book initially, along with it being on some lists of the Greatest Fantasy Novels Ever lists and my list of fantasy debuts of famous authors which I am trying to read in order to become a famous debut fantasy author, is this: five twentysomethings from our real world (Toronto, to be specific) have stumbled into the fantasy word--which by the way is called Fionavar, the first of all worlds. (Cf. Narnia).
This does make for some good fun around the interplay between the mindsets of the real world characters and the fantasy world characters and this, along with some crisp, compelling writing in some scenes, is what earned this book its three stars from me (really it is more like two and a half stars).
However, it also results in some other oddities. Chiefly, the characters talk about and are preoccupied a lot with sex. This means that along with elves, orcs and dwarves there is also mention of erections, ‘lovemaking habits’ and the relative attractiveness of different breasts. I suppose there is nothing wrong with this in itself, but it just felt tonally off. I note this is Mr Kay’s first published novel, and sometimes he does seem a bit too preoccupied with sex himself here. In these multiple senses it is an immature male’s fantasy novel.
Then there’s the writing. Mr Kay has read more books than I have, and he has a very wide vocabulary. This meant that I often had to look up what certain words that he dropped into the narrative meant. Despite this, while others have called his prose poetic, I often found it highly imprecise, preferring the superficially pleasing flourish of a phrase or a low-frequency word to a clear revelation of what is actually happening. The voice sounds to be deliberately aiming at “high fantasy” and the Tolkienian, but doesn’t quite pull this off, in the end sounding quite self-conscious, awkward and pretentious. These elements contrasted with the aforementioned sexual references and the colloquial language of the real-world adventurers make for some heavy clashes and comedic counterpoints.
(As a quick aside, I think it’s interesting that Tolkien’s own source material was genuine ancient myth and legend. Most modern fantasy’s source material is Tolkien (along with other modern fantasy, without the original myths), which it is the worse for. Perhaps if modern fantasists went back to the original sources of Tolkien’s inspiration they would write better fantasy. Perhaps Kay has actually done this in going back to Celtic myths and legends. But he has not succeeded, in my view, in creating a strong primary work, but rather a secondary one, ironically enough given that Fionavar is meant to be the primary world and ours a kind of secondary world. It still reads too much like a poor Tolkien-imitation, even if it was attempting to take its inspiration from ancient Celtic myth and legend.)
Back to the book. The plot, like this review, hops about all over the place, like the at times omniscient, at times head-hopping limited POV narrator, and the transitions of neither are very clear. The characters were not very distinct from one another at all--although they grew moreso as the book went on.
I am sure Kay’s writing has got better as he has published many books since these ones, which are not so well known or readily available in bookshops, however the newer books look less to my taste as they are more “historical fantasies”. I have thus far only read the prologue to “Tigana”, recommended by a friend and by Mr Brandon Sanderson on the Writing Excuses podcast. It was excellent, but did not whet my appetite for further reading (at least yet).
Read this if you like: Tolkien rip-offs, Earthlings venturing into fantasy worlds, style over substance.
The geography and races have just been stolen straight out of Tolkien with no shame, except they have stupid names which are harder to remember: Elves are Lios Alfar. Orcs are Svart Alfar (though I suppose the similarity in the names here does hint that Orcs are perverted Elves, which is a plus--another idea nicked from Tolkien). Dwarves are just Dwarves, for some reason. There is even a paradise land of the gods over the Western sea, for crying out loud.
The twist, which drew me to this book initially, along with it being on some lists of the Greatest Fantasy Novels Ever lists and my list of fantasy debuts of famous authors which I am trying to read in order to become a famous debut fantasy author, is this: five twentysomethings from our real world (Toronto, to be specific) have stumbled into the fantasy word--which by the way is called Fionavar, the first of all worlds. (Cf. Narnia).
This does make for some good fun around the interplay between the mindsets of the real world characters and the fantasy world characters and this, along with some crisp, compelling writing in some scenes, is what earned this book its three stars from me (really it is more like two and a half stars).
However, it also results in some other oddities. Chiefly, the characters talk about and are preoccupied a lot with sex. This means that along with elves, orcs and dwarves there is also mention of erections, ‘lovemaking habits’ and the relative attractiveness of different breasts. I suppose there is nothing wrong with this in itself, but it just felt tonally off. I note this is Mr Kay’s first published novel, and sometimes he does seem a bit too preoccupied with sex himself here. In these multiple senses it is an immature male’s fantasy novel.
Then there’s the writing. Mr Kay has read more books than I have, and he has a very wide vocabulary. This meant that I often had to look up what certain words that he dropped into the narrative meant. Despite this, while others have called his prose poetic, I often found it highly imprecise, preferring the superficially pleasing flourish of a phrase or a low-frequency word to a clear revelation of what is actually happening. The voice sounds to be deliberately aiming at “high fantasy” and the Tolkienian, but doesn’t quite pull this off, in the end sounding quite self-conscious, awkward and pretentious. These elements contrasted with the aforementioned sexual references and the colloquial language of the real-world adventurers make for some heavy clashes and comedic counterpoints.
(As a quick aside, I think it’s interesting that Tolkien’s own source material was genuine ancient myth and legend. Most modern fantasy’s source material is Tolkien (along with other modern fantasy, without the original myths), which it is the worse for. Perhaps if modern fantasists went back to the original sources of Tolkien’s inspiration they would write better fantasy. Perhaps Kay has actually done this in going back to Celtic myths and legends. But he has not succeeded, in my view, in creating a strong primary work, but rather a secondary one, ironically enough given that Fionavar is meant to be the primary world and ours a kind of secondary world. It still reads too much like a poor Tolkien-imitation, even if it was attempting to take its inspiration from ancient Celtic myth and legend.)
Back to the book. The plot, like this review, hops about all over the place, like the at times omniscient, at times head-hopping limited POV narrator, and the transitions of neither are very clear. The characters were not very distinct from one another at all--although they grew moreso as the book went on.
I am sure Kay’s writing has got better as he has published many books since these ones, which are not so well known or readily available in bookshops, however the newer books look less to my taste as they are more “historical fantasies”. I have thus far only read the prologue to “Tigana”, recommended by a friend and by Mr Brandon Sanderson on the Writing Excuses podcast. It was excellent, but did not whet my appetite for further reading (at least yet).
Read this if you like: Tolkien rip-offs, Earthlings venturing into fantasy worlds, style over substance.
adventurous
medium-paced