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curgoth 's review for:
The Summer Tree
by Guy Gavriel Kay
Audio book re-read.
I know Toronto so much more than when I read this in paper years ago. So I can now picture all the Toronto locations in sharp detail. I had also not really internalized the age of the book - the characters are my parents' age.
The time shows through at this stage - the women's part feels a little underwritten in 2017, though it was pretty progressive for it's era.
On this read, it struck me how swiftly and completely our Canadians buy into the world of Fionavar. They have 24 hours warning that they're going to spend two weeks in a medieval fantasy world, but no one takes the recipe for gunpowder, stainless steel or penicillin. If there's occasional travel between worlds, why hasn't Loren Silvercloak done any of these things? I mean, clearly, because it's not that kind of story - more grown up Dark Is Rising than Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court - but it bugged my gamer's brain a little. Where's Fionavar's Corwin?
Still, relatively minor nitpicks. This is a classic for a reason, and that it's starting to show its age at around 40 years old is not unreasonable.
The audiobook production has one glaring problem - the reader, Simon Vance, doesn't know what Torontonians sound like. They all have this odd, gruff, clipped accent that sounds more Minnesotan than the mushed consonants of Hogtown.
I know Toronto so much more than when I read this in paper years ago. So I can now picture all the Toronto locations in sharp detail. I had also not really internalized the age of the book - the characters are my parents' age.
The time shows through at this stage - the women's part feels a little underwritten in 2017, though it was pretty progressive for it's era.
On this read, it struck me how swiftly and completely our Canadians buy into the world of Fionavar. They have 24 hours warning that they're going to spend two weeks in a medieval fantasy world, but no one takes the recipe for gunpowder, stainless steel or penicillin. If there's occasional travel between worlds, why hasn't Loren Silvercloak done any of these things? I mean, clearly, because it's not that kind of story - more grown up Dark Is Rising than Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court - but it bugged my gamer's brain a little. Where's Fionavar's Corwin?
Still, relatively minor nitpicks. This is a classic for a reason, and that it's starting to show its age at around 40 years old is not unreasonable.
The audiobook production has one glaring problem - the reader, Simon Vance, doesn't know what Torontonians sound like. They all have this odd, gruff, clipped accent that sounds more Minnesotan than the mushed consonants of Hogtown.