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