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3.81 AVERAGE
3.81 AVERAGE
adventurous
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
Definitely 4.5 stars!
Hard to get into at first but once you do it is magical!
Hard to get into at first but once you do it is magical!
I know tons of people love this author. I hadn't read any until now. I got about 60 pages in, but I'm just SO FREAKING BORED. Other than using world-specific words that aren't elaborated on, the world-building seems to be nil. I'm sure it's got to get better if so many people love these books, but I just am not having the patience to stick with it. None of the characters are being fleshed out in even the tiniest of ways. I give up.
I was pleasantly surprised by this book. I am not usually a big fan of the "modern people take a trip through time and space to medieval-esque place" genre. And the beginning of the book was a little stilted and hard to get into (a classic sci-fi fault, imo).
The plot and the language of this book are by far the strong points. The characters are intriguing... but not quite real. They seem to fall just one step short of being completely believable. Specifically the younger prince and the wizard are my least favorite characters so far with David and the plains-people being, by far, my favorite.
But regardless, this is definitely a book worth reading and I'll be checking out the rest of the series shortly :)
The plot and the language of this book are by far the strong points. The characters are intriguing... but not quite real. They seem to fall just one step short of being completely believable. Specifically the younger prince and the wizard are my least favorite characters so far with David and the plains-people being, by far, my favorite.
But regardless, this is definitely a book worth reading and I'll be checking out the rest of the series shortly :)
I read The Summer Tree way back in 2002, and after discussing it with a friend recently, I wanted to do a reread to see how it held up. Simon Vance does a terrific job, as always, narrating this high fantasy. Five college students find themselves transported to Fionavar, a land of magic and myth. The mage Loren Silvercloak has lured them there with the promise of a couple of weeks of fun, but of course it turns out that they are needed in an epic battle of good versus evil. I don't know if this just didn't work on audiobook for me, or if I just don't love high fantasy as much as I used to, but I found myself somewhat bored. The characters felt very flat for most of the book, and I just wasn't that interested in the events until the last 20% or so. I have the next two books on audio as well, but I'm not sure whether or not I'll continue with the reread.
It is pretty clear reading this book that this is Guy Gavriel Kay's first book. He wrote one of my favorite fantasy series the two book 'The Sarantine Mosaic'. I re-read that a few years ago and it really holds up for me. I like him enough as a fantasy author (even if one of his other books disappointed me) that I figured I'd read all his books. I figured I'd start at the beginning so I could probably get the worst out of the way.
I'm hoping this is the worst of the lot.
The writing is very awkward. He enjoys writing sentences like 'He would know soon enough. Soon enough'. Over and over he writes sentences where he tries to share the majesty or deep meaning of what he just wrote by repeating a phrase. I found this incredibly annoying. It distanced me from the book and put the author in the middle between me in the story in a glaring way. It also made the narrator omniscient even though there wasn't really a narrator. I can't describe it better.
Also the premise is a little 'eh'. Fionavar is the prime world among all worlds so 5 people are taken from our world to that world where they all become avatars of sorts within this world (powerful seer; rider & horn carrier among the plains; etc). Before those characters become something special I could not, for the life of me, tell them apart or remember anything interesting about any of them. Not all of the characters get anything interesting in this story either. One of the females basically stands around being pretty and having to say no to men propositioning her for sex. The women in this novel are not written well and the sexual innuendos are a male fantasy.
The premise of the prime world means that all kinds of myths and other fantasy stories can be told in this one: this feels like a lord of the rings rip-off at times (it is an homage; Kay did work with Tolkein's son on 'The Silmarillion') and of course Odin and his tree are in it, and eventually King Arthur, etc. I don't know why this bugs me in this book when I loved American Gods which clearly uses the Norse myths. Probably mostly because the writing is clunky.
On the whole I enjoyed it. It is not great. I'd recommend other books by Kay first. ... and then you get to the last chapter.
I'm hoping this is the worst of the lot.
The writing is very awkward. He enjoys writing sentences like 'He would know soon enough. Soon enough'. Over and over he writes sentences where he tries to share the majesty or deep meaning of what he just wrote by repeating a phrase. I found this incredibly annoying. It distanced me from the book and put the author in the middle between me in the story in a glaring way. It also made the narrator omniscient even though there wasn't really a narrator. I can't describe it better.
Also the premise is a little 'eh'. Fionavar is the prime world among all worlds so 5 people are taken from our world to that world where they all become avatars of sorts within this world (powerful seer; rider & horn carrier among the plains; etc). Before those characters become something special I could not, for the life of me, tell them apart or remember anything interesting about any of them. Not all of the characters get anything interesting in this story either. One of the females basically stands around being pretty and having to say no to men propositioning her for sex. The women in this novel are not written well and the sexual innuendos are a male fantasy.
The premise of the prime world means that all kinds of myths and other fantasy stories can be told in this one: this feels like a lord of the rings rip-off at times (it is an homage; Kay did work with Tolkein's son on 'The Silmarillion') and of course Odin and his tree are in it, and eventually King Arthur, etc. I don't know why this bugs me in this book when I loved American Gods which clearly uses the Norse myths. Probably mostly because the writing is clunky.
On the whole I enjoyed it. It is not great. I'd recommend other books by Kay first. ... and then you get to the last chapter.
Spoiler
Why they fuck is there a gratuitous and horrific rape scene suddenly in the book?! It is awful and twisted and of course happens to the female character who has had no purpose so far. From a book that didn't have much emotional depth, the be raped by the evil bad god who can read your mind and therefore make the rape as awful as possible... I just didn't need that in this book. I had just finished watching the first season of 'Jessica Jones' (which is fantastic!) where they treat rape/ptsd with the respect it deserves, so this callous disregard for it made it feel even worse. And then the book just ends. The next book picks up and tells you that the rape had to happen for plot reasons. Ugh. The only good thing I can say about it is that so often the evil bad is never actually that evil. Well, you succeeded at fixing that problem.
Loved this as my first GGK, just as my love of fantasy epic trilogies were winding down.
I am so mad at myself right now. Guy Gavriel Kay is an author that many people in my life have recommended I read. I always put it off because I always had other books to read that seemed more interesting and so this book kept being pushed back farther and farther. That was such a mistake.
I think you can probably tell how this review is going, but just to clarify: I LOVED THIS BOOK SO MUCH. On the surface it doesn't seem that interesting. It involves Five men and women find themselves flung into a magical land and (of course) they all have a role to play in the upcoming drama and conflict. On the surface this seems so cliche and boring. It is far from that. The writing is fantastic. Guy Gavriel Kay pulled me into each of the characters lives and inner conflicts so easily that I was concerned and sad and apprehensive as the overarching plot started to pull them all in and change their lives. Kay's writing is basically magical. The story starts out slow but soon enough it crystallizes into something hauntingly beautiful.
Beware though, this is a FANTASY story with all the tropes and trappings that this kind of story usually entails. This is a very Tolkien style story, with a band of people from different areas and cultures working together to defeat ultimate evil. Perhaps when the book was first published in 1984 this sort of thing wasn't totally played out. It is Kay's writing that elevates it from Tolkien rip-off to a beautiful story of an adventure.
This is only the first book in the series (of three) and I am so excited to read further.
I actually finished this book a while ago but couldn't find the words to articulate how much i liked this book. Just saying, " It's amazing, go read it!" doesn't really do it justice. but:
It's amazing, go read it!
I think you can probably tell how this review is going, but just to clarify: I LOVED THIS BOOK SO MUCH. On the surface it doesn't seem that interesting. It involves Five men and women find themselves flung into a magical land and (of course) they all have a role to play in the upcoming drama and conflict. On the surface this seems so cliche and boring. It is far from that. The writing is fantastic. Guy Gavriel Kay pulled me into each of the characters lives and inner conflicts so easily that I was concerned and sad and apprehensive as the overarching plot started to pull them all in and change their lives. Kay's writing is basically magical. The story starts out slow but soon enough it crystallizes into something hauntingly beautiful.
Beware though, this is a FANTASY story with all the tropes and trappings that this kind of story usually entails. This is a very Tolkien style story, with a band of people from different areas and cultures working together to defeat ultimate evil. Perhaps when the book was first published in 1984 this sort of thing wasn't totally played out. It is Kay's writing that elevates it from Tolkien rip-off to a beautiful story of an adventure.
This is only the first book in the series (of three) and I am so excited to read further.
I actually finished this book a while ago but couldn't find the words to articulate how much i liked this book. Just saying, " It's amazing, go read it!" doesn't really do it justice. but:
It's amazing, go read it!
This is definitely one of the best Fantasy books ever written... It is a beautiful homage to [a:J.R.R. Tolkien|656983|J.R.R. Tolkien|http://d.gr-assets.com/authors/1329870573p2/656983.jpg]'s [b:The Lord Of The Rings|15369|The Lord Of The Rings (Radio Collection)|J.R.R. Tolkien|http://d.gr-assets.com/books/1166672332s/15369.jpg|3462456], showing how amazing and powerful is the Guy Kay's knowledge on Mythology, Fantasy and Tolkien's works. [b:The Summer Tree|104086|The Summer Tree (The Fionavar Tapestry, #1)|Guy Gavriel Kay|http://d.gr-assets.com/books/1348810485s/104086.jpg|3238632] has not the same flowery prose as seen in [b:Tigana|104089|Tigana|Guy Gavriel Kay|http://d.gr-assets.com/books/1348738842s/104089.jpg|1907200], but Guy Kay certainly knows how to write in a beautiful way.
I confess that it took a while to be hooked. At the beginning it's a little bit hard to believe in the five main characters, the university students Paul, Kevin, Dave, Kimberly and Jennifer. But as soon as we see the narrative being brightly woven, we can also observe the amazing growth of these characters. Guy Kay knows how to touch the reader who wants, for a while, to be a fantasy hero in a different world. Well done, well done, Guy Kay... now I'm getting ready for the next book, [b:The Wandering Fire|104088|The Wandering Fire (The Fionavar Tapestry, #2)|Guy Gavriel Kay|http://d.gr-assets.com/books/1348816263s/104088.jpg|1136221].
I confess that it took a while to be hooked. At the beginning it's a little bit hard to believe in the five main characters, the university students Paul, Kevin, Dave, Kimberly and Jennifer. But as soon as we see the narrative being brightly woven, we can also observe the amazing growth of these characters. Guy Kay knows how to touch the reader who wants, for a while, to be a fantasy hero in a different world. Well done, well done, Guy Kay... now I'm getting ready for the next book, [b:The Wandering Fire|104088|The Wandering Fire (The Fionavar Tapestry, #2)|Guy Gavriel Kay|http://d.gr-assets.com/books/1348816263s/104088.jpg|1136221].
