A review by murrblet
The Summer Tree by Guy Gavriel Kay

4.0

At the beginning this book reads like a weird adult version of The Chronicles of Narnia; a group of mundane Earthlings are transported to a world where magic is real EXCEPT! The Earthlings are Canadian. They are adults. And they have names like "Kevin". I've never once in my life seen a character named Kevin in a fantasy novel. However, if you can get past the absolute triviality of 20th century names then you should just keep plodding on because it gets worth it. I've heard Brandon Sanderson say that there is a spectrum of world building in fantasy; at one end is a massive amount of information and at the other is nothing. Gavriel Kay is a fan of the latter, and elaboration is given very very slowly despite the plot moving pretty quickly. This should come as no surprise given his relationship with Tolkien, who was also closer to the "No Information" end of the spectrum. Given all of this Fionavar is an intriguing world, I just wish I knew more about it!