Read a book originally published in the decade you were born.

3.5*

Good, but not what I quite expected. As I'd mentioned in the review for #2, Arthur and Lancelot seems redundant to the story. They're just there for the author's sake I guess. That could've been and should've been avoided. It adds nothing to the story. The ending with Rakoth and Darien seemed rushed. All these antagonists who are gods seem to die just like that. I've not yet read a book I've enjoyed where this has been well thought out. It's sad because the series has such excellent characters and some of the space has been wasted on redundant story lines or characters (The Hunt for example. The dragon is another such wasted few pages). Matt and the dwarves is an example of a well written and necessary completion to the story orc of a well liked character. Kevin's is another. I still don't know what to make of Paul and Jaelle.

If someone wants to see what the author can do with a small set of characters, the first book (The Summer Tree) and Tigana are good examples.

Other than these, the writing and the rest of the story lines are good. Diarmuid's

Spoiler

death

was quite unexpected, but only served to enhance his persona. So overall, a slightly less than satisfying end to what started out in The Summer Tree as a fantastic series. I still enjoyed it in spite of its shortcomings. So 4*.

I have finished Fionavar, and unfortunately GGK's chance at having a perfect all 5 star run comes to and end.

I do think GGK has noticeably improved as a writer since the Summer Tree, and the dialogue and prose is better, and close to how amazing it is in Tigana. Seriously his ability to make uncomplicated language beautiful in this book is amazing.

There are a couple reasons I enjoyed this less.

1. It leans in to Arthurian legends to an extent that I do not prefer. It felt like my lacking knowledge of those legends hindered my enjoyment of this book.

2. It expands the cast of characters a lot from The Summer Tree, and I feel like for a not super long trilogy it just didn't have the pages to do that justice.

3. It had some romances that just kinda.....remind me of Wheel of Time romances. Those things do be coming out of nowhere.

I still continue to mostly love it, very few people can hit tragic and inspiring to the same degree as GGK.

Also I love how this world is mostly soft magic, and the tiny bits of hard magic tend to have incredibly clever payoffs.

He is fantastic and balancing that with the pure wonder of soft magic.

I would recommend this series to any fans of Arthurian Legends, classic fantasy, or massive GGK fans.

If you aren't any of those things, I would stay away.

8.2/10

This series was really excellent, much better than I expected. It's the closest adult equivalent to "The Chronicles of Narnia" that I've come across. I really enjoyed it and would highly recommend it to fantasy fans.

The latter 40% is very good, but I found the beginning to be a slog. All the trials and tribulations of the end-all battle 1000 years ago was rehashed over and over, and for the stuff of legends, the characters were oddly keenly emotional about it all. (Guinevere, Arthur, Lancelot, and the anduin are excused since they at least have a connection to that past.)

Epic adventure, romance, and a world between Middle Earth and Narnia. I was surprised that many of my favourite moments were the personal ones between characters. Some events fall flat, or seem cliched, but I think that's part of its mastery, as these events are already woven as part of the tapesty and seem to be woven whether or not action is taken.

I wish I wasn't a completionist. I should have stopped reading this series after the first book. It just wasn't good at all. The writing was clunky, and the plot was super forced and awkward. The characters were all extremely thin, except for where the author told us they had character rather than really showing us that character. There was almost no point in the book where a character actually did anything of their own choice. Most of the time fate or magic made them do something. Hell, one of the main things that happened towards the end of the series

Spoiler

was with the character that had the magic ring that was only a fate/plot device. She refused to do what it wanted and so the magic stopped working for her. For the rest of the book, she literally had no agency and had no point to being in the story anymore. ?!

The King Arthur/Guinevere/Lancelot love triangle was just annoying. It seemed they just loved each other enough that ... oh whatever. It was just dumb and again with the fate and no character choices. The whole book was aligned around Guinevere's rape child being able to make the choice between good and bad and and that choice is as cheesy as you'd expect it to be. Also, completely obvious what'll happen considering the object he's been carrying around the entire book.

The fact that some of the characters come from our world never made sense and amounted to nothing of much interest except more clunkiness.

I cannot 'not recommend' this series enough. I went back and lowered the rating of the first book.

Which, again, is odd, because 'The Sarantine Mosaic' series by this author is one of my favorite stories ever!

It was an interesting reading, but I was struggling to reach the end. I don't know, but after more than 1000 pages, I was becoming quite exhausted with Kay's style, lengthy, lengthy... I was gladly hooked again at the end, a fine conclusion for the saga. It's a must read for those interested not just in epic fantasy genre, but because it is a beautiful homage to Tolkien legacy.

Link to larger series review: http://www.scrivler.com/reviews/book-reviews/the-fionavar-tapestry/.