A review by captainfez
Tigana by Guy Gavriel Kay

adventurous hopeful mysterious fast-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? No

4.0

When I was a kid, I got onto the Tolkien trip and read The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings.

Pretty cool, I thought.

Then I tried The Silmarillion and man, did those emergency brakes slam on. I haven’t tried that one since, and that was… about 35 years ago, now.

“Language. The process of sharing with words seemed such a futile exercise sometimes.”

This is a circuitous way to say that I was a bit dubious about Kay’s writing – he assisted in the assembly of The Silmarillion – before I began reading Tigana. Thankfully, the recommendation (and loan!) by Elizabeth (who reads a lot more fantasy than I do and is well versed in these matters) was solid: Tigana is a snappy, standalone fantasy novel that I practically inhaled.

To be a bit reductionist, the best approach to this novel is to imagine that Kay is translocating city-state medieval Italy the same way that George R.R. Martin translocates War of the Roses-era England. The settings aren’t meant to be those places, not really, but they use them as a template from which to proceed.

To read more of this review, please visit: https://captainfez.com/2023/01/05/book-review-tigana/