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.

River of Stars by Guy Gavriel Kay

Kitai, during the Twelfth Dynasty. Several centuries after a devastating civil war that left half the population of the empire dead and its armies disbanded, the empire has still not fully recovered. Soldiers and generals are mistrusted, the fear of another rebellion overwhelming. When Kitai is drawn into a civil war amongst the barbarians of the steppes to the north, their lack of military preparation will lead to disaster. For Ren Daiyan, a young outlaw-turned soldier who hungers to reclaim the Fourteen Prefectures lost to the barbarians decades ago, the chaos will be an opportunity to rise far.

  
River of Stars is Guy Gavriel Kay's twelfth novel and the second set in a lightly fantasised version of China. The setting being reflected this time is 12th Century China during the Song Dynasty, and specifically the events surrounding the Jurchen/Liao civil war and China's unfortunate intervention in that conflict (motivated by China's desire to reclaim its sixteen lost prefectures) which backfired quite spectacularly.

River of Stars is a self-contained novel but a few oblique references to the events of Under Heaven will resonate more for people familiar with the earlier book. Indeed, whilst being stand-alone in terms of plot and character, River of Stars's themes resonate more strongly when contrasted against the earlier book. Under Heaven was about an empire at the height of its power and River is about the same nation in what some might term decline. The excesses and dangers of the former empire that resulted in over thirty million deaths are also made clear, and make the current nation cautious as a result. If wars and conflicts (real and fictional) stem from often forgetting the lessons of history, River of Stars is about learning from those lessons, perhaps to the point of over-caution.

With Ren Daiyan (loosely based on the real General Yue Fei) Kay has created what initially appears to be a standard heroic protagonist. He is a young, callow youth with a supreme talent for archery and military strategy who grows up to become a leader of men and a national hero when he wins an important, morale-boosting victory in an otherwise disastrous campaign. Yet Kay is not interested in regurgitating Joseph Campbell. Daiyan is more complex than he first appears, his own belief in his own destiny (bolstered by a confrontation with a fox-spirit entity in the novel's only notable magical/supernatural episode) having to be tempered with what is best for Kitai, as Daiyan is - oddly for a former outlaw - a true patriot. The reaction of the Imperial Court to Daiyan's military adventurism is something that I think a lot of readers will find frustrating or even infuriating, but it's also fascinating to see how the court has learned from the lessons of the past and fears anything to prolong war and thus increase the power of the military (and again, it is based on real history; Yue Fei faced much the same opposition after he won a series of significant victories). Ultimately this conflict, between war and peace and between soldiers and governors, lies at the heart of the novel and though our sympathies may be best-won by Daiyan, the point-of-view of the emperor and his advisers is also presented with conviction.

Daiyan's story is only one part of the story. On the other lies Lin Shan, a female poet and writer (loosely based on Li Qingzhao) during a period when women are not expected to pursue such tasks. This wins her a certain notoriety at court and a difficulty in winning female friends, but brings her to the attention of the emperor. Refreshingly, this story sets up a cliche (a woman cutting her own path in a sexist world) which the author then refuses to indulge in. Shan's deportment is unusual for her culture, but she is not persecuted for it and ultimately wins respect and appreciation. However, Kay does use her to reflect on some of the less progressive elements of the period for Chinese women (such as being forced to wear hobbled footware) and muse on how this period was less free and open for women than the preceding one in Under Heaven. Kay also uses Shan's storyline to explore issues such as sexuality and the power of myth and story versus the reality of history.

River of Stars (*****), like so much of Kay's work, is a novel that moves between being bittersweet, triumphant, tragic and reflective. It engages with a variety of themes against a backdrop informed by real history and is told with flair, passion and elegant prose. The novel is available now in the UK and USA.

Cover art and blurb for Guy Gavriel Kay's RIVER OF STARS

Via Risingshadow, the cover art and blurb for Guy Gavriel Kay's River of Stars, his sort-of successor to 2010's excellent Under Heaven.

In his critically acclaimed novel Under Heaven, Guy Gavriel Kay told a vivid and powerful story inspired by China’s Tang Dynasty. Now, the international bestselling and multiple award-winning author revisits that invented setting four centuries later with an epic of prideful emperors, battling courtiers, bandits and soldiers, nomadic invasions, and a woman battling in her own way, to find a new place for women in the world – a world inspired this time by the glittering, decadent Song Dynasty.

Ren Daiyan was still just a boy when he took the lives of seven men while guarding an imperial magistrate of Kitai. That moment on a lonely road changed his life — in entirely unexpected ways, sending him into the forests of Kitai among the outlaws. From there he emerges years later — and his life changes again, dramatically, as he circles towards the court and emperor, while war approaches Kitai from the north.

Lin Shan is the daughter of a scholar, his beloved only child. Educated by him in ways young women never are, gifted as a songwriter and calligrapher, she finds herself living a life suspended between two worlds. Her intelligence captivates an emperor — and alienates women at the court. But when her father’s life is endangered by the savage politics of the day, Shan must act in ways no woman ever has.

In an empire divided by bitter factions circling an exquisitely cultured emperor who loves his gardens and his art far more than the burdens of governing, dramatic events on the northern steppe alter the balance of power in the world, leading to events no one could have foretold, under the river of stars.

River of Stars will be published in April 2013.

Info on Guy Gavriel Kay's new novel

Guy Gavriel Kay has released some info on his next novel, following up on 2010's well-received Under Heaven. His new novel will retain the Chinese-style setting of his previous book, but will this time be based around the Song Dynasty. It sounds like the book will be set in the same world as Under Heaven, but four centuries later.

From Kay's website, Brightweavings.com:

Guy Gavriel Kay's new novel is once more inspired by Chinese history, this time during the Song Dynasty, almost four centuries after the story told in his bestselling Under Heaven. The dazzling elements of the Song - cultural brilliance, vicious political rivalries, warfare against nomadic peoples, court mandarins versus the military - are rich ground for Kay's unique blending of fantasy and themes of history. Vivid among a large cast, a young man with a dream of regaining the empire's lost 'rivers and mountains' and a brilliant woman trying to shape a space for herself outside the 'inner quarters', where women are expected to live out their lives, confront the challenges and dangers of a world in turmoil. The Song Dynasty's legacy is prominent in the way Westerners imagine Chinese history to this day and Kay weaves a story that captivates on both an epic scale and within the intimate lives of his characters.

The new novel will be published in 2013 by Roc in the United States.

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.

Under Heaven by Guy Gavriel Kay

Kitai, during the Ninth Dynasty. The Emperor has given the nation many years of peace and prosperity. Far to the west, in a valley where the last great battle between Kitai and Tagur was fought, a dutiful son pays homage to his dead father by burying the bones of the fallen. His honourable task is noted by the Tagurans who give him a princely gift: two hundred and fifty Sardian horses. You give a man one Sardian horse to honour him greatly, four or five to elevate him above all others. Two hundred and fifty is an overwhelming gift, a gift that instantly elevates Shen Tai into a player in Kitan politics.


These are perilous times. The First Minister and the empire's greatest general are feuding, the Emperor is distracted by his most favoured concubine and there is tribal dissent among the Bogu people beyond the Long Wall. Shen Tai and his family are thrust into the midst of great events, and find they and their horses may determine the balance of power, and of life and death, for many.

Under Heaven is Guy Gavriel Kay's eleventh novel, and marks a return to his favoured alternate-history setting and genre after the World Fantasy Award-winning Ysabel, which was a departure from his normal work. The setting this time is 8th Century China during the Tang Dynasty, during the lead-up to the colossal An Shi Rebellion (the most devastating war in human history until World War II, if the casualty figures are to be believed), although as normal the setting is lightly fictionalised, with characters and events hewing close to the originals but not quite replicating them.

Kay's China - Kitai - is a place of scheming nobles, courtly poise and etiquette and labyrinth conspiracies, all of which are depicted impressively. As normal, Kay is less interested in war and battles than in the human characters of the story, from Shen Tai and his ambitious brother Shen Liu to First Minister Wen Zhou, the poet Sima Zian and the women of the story (the Beloved Companion Wen Jian, Tai's sister Shen Li-Mei and the Kanlin warrior Wei Song), whose roles are crucial. Kay's grasp of character is as assured as ever, and he brings these people to life to the extent where the reader finds it impossible not to care about what happens to them next. Kay's grasp of emotion is as also finely-judged as ever, with moments of genuinely raw emotional power which never overreach into mawkishness.


The pacing is also well-handled, and the plot unfolds in a gripping manner. Kay shows greater confidence here as a writer than he has in some time, and his weaving of events, conspiracies and characters into a greater whole is impressive. This is easily his most assured and well-executed book since The Lions of Al-Rassan, if not ever. The only possible criticism I could find is that the ending is slightly abrupt, although the main storyline and character arcs are satisfyingly resolved.

Under Heaven (*****) is a superb book from one of our best writers working at the top of his game, and will likely be judged one of the strongest books of this year, in fantasy or otherwise. It is available now in the UK and USA.