Product Description

The concluding volume in Guy Gavriel Kay's stunning fantasy masterwork The young heroes from our own world have gained power and maturity from their sufferings and adventures in Fionavar. Now they must bring all the strength and wisdom they possess to the aid of the armies of Light in the ultimate battle against the evil of Rakoth Maugrim and the hordes of the Dark. On a ghost-ship the legendary Warrior, Arthur Pendragon, and Pwyll Twiceborn, Lord of the Summer Tree, sail to confront the Unraveller at last. Meanwhile, Darien, the child within whom Light and Dark vie for supremacy, must walk the darkest road of any child of earth or stars. Guy Gavriel Kay's classic epic fantasy plays out on a truly grand scale, and has already been delighting fans of imaginative fiction for twenty years.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #60315 in Books
• Published on: 1992-07-09
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 448 pages

Customer Reviews

Good, complex but also slightly disappointing
The Fionavar Tapestry - the trilogy of which this book forms the last part - is clearly sub-Tolkien, and it's also in my opinion journeyman work. That sounds like a very bad beginning for a review - indeed it is - but this trilogy (and this book) is very far from poor work. It's close to the best fantasy available, and that, I think is why I'm inclined to judge it harshly. It just falls short of real greatness.

Why does it fall short? Well, for me there are a number of reasons.

Firstly, the homage to Tolkien is just too strong. It isn't surprising - Kay was the joint editor of the Silmarillion in preparing it for publication - but in my opinion it stunts these books.

Secondly, I find the 'Holiday from America' framing narrative just too corny. If you want to write a work of fantasy, fine, do so. If you want to introduce a group of characters who are foreign to the environment of the narrative (which is a useful device because it solves a lot of exposition problems) do so. But why, for heaven's sake, do they have to be dragged out of contemporary North America? It's presumably intended to add credibility to the story, but for me it does exactly the opposite.

Finally, what utterly sticks in my throat is that - as with Tolkien, as with so many other works of fantasy - the outcome for which our heroes strive, the ultimate triumph of 'good' over 'evil', is the restoration of an absolute, hereditary, pure-blood, patriarchal, male monarchy.

Yee-uch!

And yet despite all that it's good. Despite all that and less than perfectly rounded characters. The reason that it's good is Kay's extraordinary depth of knowledge of European (and North American) folklore, and his ability to borrow and integrate folklore elements from many traditions into a cohesive and compelling narrative. That, and the fact that he can write.

This is nothing like as good as Kay's later work, which for me is the finest fantasy available today. But it is still very good.

While Engaging Lacks the Focus of Kay's Later Work
While the three books that form the "Fionavar Tapestry" are engaging, they all suffer, to varying degrees, from a loosely scripted, and at times, implausible plot, as well as the inclusion of Arthurian elements that remain contrived and unnecessary except as a "hook" pandering to the appeal the Camelot legend holds for many readers, and that has already elsewhere been overworked. Further, I question the plot device of characters that are transported by varying means from "our" world into parallel fantasy realms that appear popular with many fantasy writers: Effectively used to inform the story in Donaldson's "Covenant" series, other writers turn to its use solely as a clever artifice by which to move characters around.

While better than most of the fantasy fiction about, this trilogy lacks the focus of Kay's later, more mature and individual works, such as "Tigana" or "Song for Arbonne." Read these if you are seeking serious and original fantasy tales. Save the "Fionavar Trilogy" for moments of simple, unexamined diversion.

Amazing
Read the trilogy out loud, it has all the quality of a saga. The Arthurian sub-plot was the most inovative take on the legends this century. GGK has learnt all the right lessons from his work on Tolkiens papers. I cannot recommend this book too much (It's the most 'borrowed' series in my collection). Also The Fionvar Tapestry is the best starting point for his later, more difficult, books; which are themselves equally gripping. One of the very top writers of modern Fantasy.