Where to Start? - Guy Gavriel Kay (updated)

This is an updated version of an article previously published in 2010.

All of Kay's novels - ten to date - take place in the same universe, but are divided into two broad sub-worlds. However, they are published out of chronological order and are almost entirely made up of stand-alone books. The sole exceptions are his two series, The Fionavar Tapestry trilogy and The Sarantine Mosaic duology. Everything else is stand-alone.


The Fionavar Universe


Kay's first published work was The Fionavar Tapestry, a trilogy in which a group of Canadian university students are transported to the world of Fionavar where a traditional battle between good and evil is underway. The trilogy is noted for an interesting magic system (in which sorcerers use other living beings as sources of magic) but is probably Kay's most 'standard' work.

The core trilogy consists of The Summer Tree (1984), The Wandering Fire (1986) and The Darkest Road (1986). Ysabel (2007) is a stand-alone follow-up to the trilogy set on Earth and focusing on different characters in Provence, but several trilogy characters show up in supporting roles.


Stand-alone works in the Fionavar Universe


Kay's next two novels are stand-alone titles, entitled Tigana (1990) and A Song for Arbonne (1992). They are set in the Fionavar universe but some very minor references and allusions aside such connections are purely cosmetic. Indeed, Tigana is oftern referenced as the best book to start with Kay with.


The Alternate Earth books


Kay's remaining books are all set on the same planet, a lightly fantasised version of our Earth in several different time periods and locations. Technically this alt-Earth is also located in the Fionavar universe, but again some minor references aside this is again completely irrelevant. The alt-Earth books are all independent of one another and do not require knowledge of the others to enjoy one, with the sole exception that the two books of the Sarantine Mosaic duology need to be read in order.

In publication order with a note on their historical inspirations, these books are as follows:

• The Lions of Al-Rassan (1995) - Andalusian Spain during the time of El Cid (11th Century).
• The Sarantine Mosaic: Sailing to Sarantium (1998) & Lord of Emperors (2000) - Byzantium at the time of Justinian I (6th Century).
• The Last Light of the Sun (2004) - Saxon England at the time of Alfred the Great (9th Century).
• Under Heaven (2010) - Tang Dynasty China during the An Shi Rebellion (8th Century).
• River of Stars (2013) - Song Dynasty China during the Jin-Song Wars (12th Century).
• Children of Earth and Sky (2016) - Dubrovnik and the Balkans (late 15th Century).
• A Brightness Long Ago (2019) - Renaissance Italy (mid-15th Century).

Conclusion

Kay's work can be approached from several entry points. The first book in The Fionavar Tapestry, The Summer Tree is an obvious choice, although Tigana is often cited as a stronger first book. The Lions of Al-Rassan, The Last Light of the Sun, Sailing to Sarantium and Under Heaven can all be approached as other first books as well. In conclusion Kay is an author whose body of work can appear tricky to get into due to the inter-connectedness of the books, but in practice most of these connections are so slight as to be invisible, and with the obvious exception of the multi-volume works his books can be read in any order.

Note
There are some anomalous elements in Under Heaven with regards to the other books. It still appears to take place in the alternate Earth setting, and its China analogue (Khitai) is mentioned in the other alternate history books. However, at one point a character mentions how there is only one moon when he talks about having a dream of a world with three. The Alt-Earth seen in The Lions of Al-Rassan and The Last Light of the Sun is noted as having three moons. This seems to place Under Heaven in a sort of parallel universe to the Alt-Earth, whilst still retaining much of its layout. This is odd, but, that one reference aside, it can be read and enjoyed either as a complete stand-alone or as part of the Alt-Earth books with no problem.

Idea: why not adapt Guy Gavriel Kay's novels for the screen?

Fantasy is big right now. We've heard lots of news about Amazon's new Lord of the Rings TV project, Game of Thrones is wrapping up but will have spin-offs, Netflix is producing a Witcher TV show, Showtime are doing a Name of the Wind prequel show, Starz have American Gods and even Spike TV is still trying to make Shannara happen. There are signs that the fantasy bubble may be cresting - Sony's Wheel of Time project still hasn't found a home despite it being a slam dunk - but I think there's still room for a few different projects out there.

One author whose work has not hit the screens yet is Guy Gavriel Kay. It's easy to see why: Kay's novels tend to be too long to make for comfortable two-hour movies, but too short and too self-contained for long-running TV shows that can be exploited for years on end. His books are also based closely on real history with (relatively) little traditional magic, which used to make them a tough sell. However, it could be a point in its favour with some of the other upcoming projects having a lot more magic and the need for high budgets, whilst Kay's work could be adapted a bit more easily and could tap into the Game of Thrones fanbase looking for more work that emphasises politics and characters over flashy effects.

One interesting solution would be to do Kay's novels as a Fargo-style anthology series, where each season has its own storyline, characters and actors but take place in the same universe, with events earlier in the setting informing events set centuries later. It would be an unorthodox approach, but could be interesting.

I'd see this series unfolding as follows, with each season corresponding to a novel (or series) with the setting and time period that roughly influenced the book following:

Season 1: The Sarantine Mosaic, 6th Century Byzantium, Justinian's wars
Season 2: Under Heaven, 8th Century China, An Lushan Rebellion
Season 3: The Last Light of the Sun, 9th Century England, Alfred the Great
Season 4: The Lions of Al-Rassan, 11th Century Spain, El Cid
Season 5: River of Stars, 12 Century China, Jin-Song Wars
Season 6: Children of Earth and Sky, 15th Century Dubrovnik, after the fall of Constantinople

It might also be possible to incorporate A Song for Arbonne, which takes place in a different world but is heavily influenced by the Albigensian Crusade in 12th Century France, into this scheme.

Tigana, although influenced by Renaissance Italy, features a very different world background with much more overt magic. It would probably be better served by a separate movie adaptation. The Fionavar Tapestry trilogy and its stand-alone sequel, Ysabel, could form another, separate TV series.

To date, the only interest in Kay's work has been from director Edward Zwick (Glory, Legends of the Fall, The Last Samurai, Blood Diamond), who held the rights to The Lions of Al-Rassan for a while. Hopefully someone will pick up the rights to Kay's work and bring it to a wider audience. One of the finest living fantasists, his work deserves to be better-known.

A History of Epic Fantasy - Part 16

Despite being part of the genre of the fantastical and the weird, epic fantasy is often rooted in the real. It riffs off real history, real events and real people, sometimes to the point of being set in Europe with just a few names changed, a dragon dropping by and magic being used to blow up Versailles. Other fantasies employ mythologies from real-life sources as their main influences and inspirations
 

Lyonesse

Back in 1950 Jack Vance published The Dying Earth, creating the entire Dying Earth subgenre of fiction (which later gave us The Book of the New Sun and Mark Charan Newton's recent Legends of the Red Sun, amongst others) and the Dungeons and Dragons magic system in one fell swoop. For an encore he wrote many of the greatest science fiction and fantasy novels of all time, such as the Demon Princes series and Big Planet.

Despite both a prolific and greatly accomplished career, Vance had avoided the epic fantasy subgenre. He wasn't one for writing huge battle scenes, or massive doorstop novels, and his sometimes whimsical humour and astonishingly accomplished dialogue seemed better deployed in science fiction. But then he got a good idea for a fantasy series, and ran with it.

The Lyonesse Trilogy was published in three volumes: Suldrun's Garden (1982), The Green Pearl (1985) and Madouc (1990). They are among Vance's longer novels, but still short by modern standards and the entire trilogy is available in omnibus. The trilogy may represent, as a completed work, one of the most accomplished works of fantasy since The Lord of the Rings.

The trilogy is set in the Elder Isles, an archipelago located in what is now the Bay of Biscay, off the west coast of France, the north coast of Spain and the south coast of Ireland. Much of the action takes place on Hybras, the largest of the islands (about the size of Ireland itself), which is falling into war due to the hostile actions of Casmir, King of Lyonesse, who desires to rule the entire island. Casmir's imprisonment of Aillas, one of the heirs to the throne of Troicinet, sets in motion a sequence of events as the young, canny Aillas seeks revenge both for his own part and also to bring justice to the isles.

So far, so standard. But Vance layers in some interesting elements to the story. He disdains violence and instead prefers depicting his characters engaging in formidable battles of wits. He also mirrors the struggle between Casmir and Aillas with the battle between their respective wizardly allies, Tamurello and Shimrod, arbitrated by Murgen, who seeks to preserve the magical balance of power over the isles. The multiple kingdoms of the Elder Isles are depicted well, and in the Ska, violent raiders from the northern isles who consider themselves a breed apart, George R.R. Martin (a huge fan of Vance) may have found the inspiration for his ironborn.

The most notable thing about the series is its clash between the weird and whimsical (fairies, magic, erudite magicians battling with wits and cunning) and the mundane and ordinary (court politics, assassinations), a clash that epic fantasy is uniquely positioned to explore but rarely does so, and certainly not as entertainingly and intelligently as in this trilogy, one of fantasy's masterworks.

Daggerspell

Katharine Kerr began writing Daggerspell, which she envisaged as a short story, in 1982. She completed that same story in 2009 with the publication of the fifteenth novel in the series. The complete saga, The Deverry Cycle, tells the story of a group of people who are reincarnated again and again several times across centuries in the fictional kingdom of Deverry.

Whilst Deverry and its neighbours are fictional, Kerr deeply rooted the story in Celtic history and mythology: Deverry was in fact founded by refugees from our world trying to escape the Roman invasion of Gaul and were transported to the fantasy world by a sorcerer. Whilst the series proceeds in a different direction afterwards, the Celtic roots of the story remain prominent and explored in greater depth by Kerr, who was frustrated with any Western European-leaning fantasy being labelled "Celtic" even when it had nothing to do with that period of history or group of people.

The history of Deverry unfolded over four distinct sub-series: The Deverry Saga (1984-90), The Westlands Saga (1991-94), The Dragon Mage Trilogy (1997-2000) and The Silver Wyrm (2006-09). These moved backwards and forwards in time through the history of Deverry and its neighbours, but Kerr used the conceit of characters who are born and reborn in different bodies and times to explore events of historical interest, as well as the destinies of characters who interact with each other again and again as different people. Combined with some interesting uses of linguistics, these factors make the Deverry Cycle arguably the most significant work of modern epic fantasy to employ Celtic tropes and motifs.

The Lions of Al-Rassan

Guy Gavriel Kay's fantasy career got off to a pretty amazing start: in 1974 he was asked by Christopher Tolkien to assist in the editing of The Silmarillion for publication. In fact, Kay's writing skills were called upon to finesse a couple of chapters that J.R.R. Tolkien had not touched in decades, making him the only person other a Tolkien to work on an officially-published Middle-earth book in a writing capacity (if only of a very minor nature).

After that heady start, Kay worked on his first fantasy trilogy, The Fionavar Tapestry, which was published in 1984-86. This concerned a group of students from the University of Toronto who are drawn into Fionavar, the First of All Worlds, which is under threat from dark forces. The experiences they have there are profound and shape who they are, with ripples which extend into the quasi-sequel Ysabel (2007). Although rooted in mythology, the trilogy is more overtly an original fantasy creation.

With his next novel, Tigana (1990), Kay established what would be his more familiar writing style of taking a real location and place in history and writing a novel (not a long series) about how it is changed and influenced by the addition of fantastical elements. Tigana is heavily influenced by Italian history but the fantastical conceit is that the name, history and indeed soul of the country have been magically removed from the mind of its inhabitants. Only a band of rebels led by those who remember the country before its occupation by an enemy power can remember the Tigana that was, and therefore are fighting for the very existence of their nation in a more literal fashion than is normal in fantasy. Kay interlaces themes of love, redemption and tragedy into his story, disdaining (as he usually does) war and violence as the primary means of solving dilemmas.

These themes continued into A Song for Arbonne (1993), a novel which does a similar thing for Renaissance Provence. But it was his 1995 novel, The Lions of Al-Rassan, which solidified things. Kay's works now took place on a world pretty much identical to our own, with each novel mirroring real events more explicitly than previously. The Lions of Al-Rassan, perhaps Kay's greatest masterpiece, expertly combines the stories of El Cid, ibn Ammar and the Reconquista of medieval Spain. Two great warriors, their love for the same woman, their loyalties and their passion for the land of Al-Rassan (also called Esperana) vividly play out across a beautifully-described backdrop.

Kay would continue to explore similar themes in later works: the Sarantine Mosaic duology (1998-2000) is based on Byzantium under Justinian I; The Last Light of the Sun (2004) is centred on England at the time of King Alfred the Great; Under Heaven (2010) is based on the Tang Dynasty of China and its end in the bloody An Shi Rebellion; and River of Stars (2013) is based on Song Dynasty of several centuries later and its transformation in the Jin-Song Wars. His next novel, Children of Earth and Sky, will be published in 2016.

Kay is, arguably, the greatest fantasy writer at taking a real time and place, repurposing it for the purposes of fantasy and doing so whilst still saying something of importance.

The Roof of Voyaging

Published in 1996, The Roof of Voyaging is an unusual fantasy novel. It's the first volume of a trilogy, The Navigator Kings, but Garry Kilworth throws a lot of the normal epic fantasy rules out of the window and moves the action to the other side of the planet (culturally and literally). The action takes place in the Pacific Ocean, deeply rooted in Polynesian mythology and history. This is an epic fantasy which riffs off the legends and past of the myriad peoples of Polynesia, in many ways completely alien to European sensibilities, with scores of gods and a richly-described culture threatened by the invasion of Celts from the south: in a bizarre twist, New Zealand has been swapped out for Britain.

The result is an often barmy and irreverent fantasy trilogy which has huge amounts of fun in doing things completely different to the conventional and tells a hugely entertaining story whilst doing so.

Ash: A Secret History

Published in 2000, Ash: A Secret History is a colossal novel that is part historical novel, part fantasy, part science fiction, part modern thriller and completely bizarre. It's set in France in 1476 and starts off chronicling the misadventures of the Lion Azure, a mercenary company led by Ash. Ash is mired in a political attempt to remove her from command of the mercenaries (a female warrior captain setting uncomfortable precedents) but this is soon superseded when the armies of Carthage invade Europe en mass from the south. In another storyline set in the present, bemused historians are trying to decipher the text of Ash and are constantly bewildered about references to things that never happened.

The result is a novel deeply mired in the traditions of historical and epic fantasy - battles, sieges, political skullduggery - but which brings on board influences from science fiction, alternate history and weird fantasy in an unusual but highly compelling blend.

Kushiel's Dart

Published in 2001, Kushiel's Dart was the debut novel by Jacqueline Carey. It's an interesting blend of genres, mixing some epic fantasy tropes with different cultural groups and religions battling over a continent, with alternate history: the continent is Europe, although the country names and history are different. The books also employ a lot of eroticism, with politics and warfare often assisted (or negated) by seduction or desire on the part of the players involved.

There are nine books in the series (collectively called Kushiel's Legacy), divided into three trilogies (the Phedre, Imriel and Moirin series), spanning over a hundred years in the history of Terre D'Ange (a fantasised version of France) and its neighbours.

The Cardinal's Blades/His Majesty's Dragon

More recently, fantasy has played around with much more straightforward and dramatic variations to real-world history to create something interesting. Two prominent recent fantasy series used much more recent historical periods as their base setting, but with some dragons thrown in to spice things up.

French author Pierre Pevel's Les Lames du Cardinal (Cardinal's Blades) trilogy (2007-10) is set in 1633 Paris and sees an irregular group of soldiers and investigators re-constituted as an elite, deniable group working directly for the formidable Cardinal Richelieu of France. Historical events such as the Thirty Years' War play a role, but the series deviates from history due to the presence and existence of dragons, formidably dangerous (if rare) creatures. The books mix fantasy tropes deriving from the existence of the dragons with swashbuckling derring-do, sword fights in the back alleys of Paris and political intrigue between Richelieu and his enemies.

Far better known is Naomi Novik's Temeraire series, which spans nine novels (2006-16), starting with His Majesty's Dragon. The series has a fairly straightforward premise - it's the Napoleonic Wars "BUT WITH DRAGONS" - which the author initially seems to treat simplistically, but then engages with in more depth as the series continues. The books feature both Britain and France deploying dragon mounts as weapons of war and means of transportation during the war, but their mutual use of dragons creates a stalemate with the war more or less proceeding as it did in real life. Variations from established history occur when African dragons are used to end the slave trade (with devastating effects) and it is discovered that the Chinese employ dragons as equals and even superiors. The use of dragons in this setting is initially absorbed into the historical status quo but is later used to spin history off in different directions.

The use of real history and mythology in fantasy would continue, and one author would take those inspirations to create the longest and most successful, outright epic fantasy since J.R.R. Tolkien.

New Guy Gavriel Kay UK covers

Much of Guy Gavriel Kay's backlist is being reprinted by HarperCollins Voyager in the UK on 3 February 2011, with new cover artwork. New to the UK, anyway, as the covers seem to be more or less the same as the new Canadian covers put out by Penguin Books.

The five released covers so far:


(I assume that that the covers for the two books of The Sarantine Mosaic are supposed to link up, so the final cover design may be slightly different)

In addition to these five books, The Lions of Al-Rassan and The Last Light of the Sun are also being reissued. Their covers have not been released yet.

The covers in more detail (courtesy of the superefficient Jussi at Westeros.org):

Tigana
A Song for Arbonne
Sailing to Sarantium
Lord of Emperors
Under Heaven

Also, Ysabel, which was given the same treatment a while back.

Wertzone Classics: The Lions of Al-Rassan by Guy Gavriel Kay

Al-Rassan was the stronghold of the western Asharite faith until Ammar ibn Khairan killed the last khalif, splintering the land into feuding city-states. In the north the Jaddite kingdom of Esperana similarly splintered into three smaller nations, each harbouring a desire to conquer the others and unify the entire peninsular in the worship of the sun-god. King Ramiro of Valledo appears to be the most likely to succeed, due to the skills of his infamous general Rodrigo Belmonte and his elite company of soldiers. Political intrigue and expediency soon see both Rodrigo and Ammar exiled to Ragosa, the beautiful Asharite city by the lake, where their destinies become entwined with that of Jehane, a Kindath physician, and where the fate of Al-Rassan and Esperana will be decided.


When it comes to epic fantasy, Guy Gavriel Kay is one of the more interesting writers around. For someone toiling in the genre of vast armies and immense battles, the depiction of war and combat seems to mildly bore him. That's not to say that Kay can't handle those elements, but he is far more interested in his characters, in their motivations and what role they play in the political world around them. A possible weakness of Kay's work is that his fascination with his character's internal struggles sometimes displaces his interest in the wider plot (as in The Sarantine Mosaic, the languid pace of which detracts from a strong central premise), but in his strongest works - this book, Tigana and A Song for Arbonne - he combines this element with a mastery of storytelling to produce something truly compelling.

This is the story of El Cid and the Reconquista of Spain given a thorough make-over, with historical elements mixing with original material throughout. On one level, Kay's light remixing of history occasionally makes the reader wonder what the point of 'fantasising' the story was in the first place. It's pretty clear throughout that the Kindath are the Jews, the Asharites are Muslims and the Jaddites are Christians (even though their individual belief systems are very different to the 'real' religions, everything else is practically identical, down to their naming conventions). In fact, one of the reasons for the delay of the long-gestating movie version of the novel appears to be writer and director uncertainty whether the film should reflect the book or be set in 'proper' Al-Andalus. However, these factors do allow Kay to tell his own story, using history where he wants but retaining the freedom to create his own material elsewhere. Most notably, he manages to compress the latter four centuries of the Reconquista into a much smaller period of time to better suit the action. The result is a story which feels familiar and new at the same time.


The book studies several themes and ideas: faith and tolerance, friendship and love, family and camaraderie, war and idealism. Kay illuminates these ideas through his characters, and whilst Kay has always been a gifted creator of fascinating protagonists, arguably he has never bettered the cast of this book: Ammar and Rodrigo, whose rivalry and friendship forms the core of the novel; the gifted physician Jehane; the imprudent soldier Alvar; even minor characters like the merchant Husari and the outlaw Tarif, all seem to leap off the page as fully-formed individuals, whose actions and reactions will determine the fate of the peninsular. Events culminate in the book's inevitable final showdown, and whilst some readers may find the skipping of much of the war and the major battles to focus on one key event in particular to be a bit of a cop-out, those familiar with Kay will recognise that for him, war is nothing to be glorified in its depiction, but only to be used as an event to mould his characters and reflect on them, and in that endeavour he succeeds impressively.

The Lions of Al-Rassan (*****) is a book that has improved since I first read it thirteen years ago. Thoughtful but never boring, dramatic but never over-the-top, it is a beautifully-written and thought-provoking novel from one of fantasy's more underrated authors. The novel is shamefully out-of-print in the UK, but the Voyager paperback edition can still be found on Amazon. The US edition is published by Eos.