Ysabel will be the book for December!

Please remember to tag all spoilers and note where in the book (such as chapter number, page number, or percentage) the spoilers are located.

Happy reading!

I've been really interested in GGK's books for a while now (...the writing style especially sounds like exactly my thing, and let's just say the Silmarillion is my favourite book so there's another) element of recommendation... but the things I have heard about the handling of romance and related subjects so far have worried me.

In short, I do not read erotica or books with erotica-adjacent elements and I do not wish to have any contact with explicit sex scenes. Are they of the variety where you can tell it's coming a mile away, or rare enough that one can say "skip chapters [7] and [13] and you're good", or is impossible to avoid them?

A specific book (or two) that you all study in depth? (and if so, which one?!)

Or themes throughout all of his work? Obviously it's not feasible to read all of his novels in a semester or year, but let's throw feasibility out the window for the sake of discussion.....

It's obviously not an English word. I googled it and strada comes from Italian, meaning street. But sometimes the word doesn't make sense in that context.

What does the word mean in the book?

We will finish the Fionavar Tapestry for November!

Please remember to tag all spoilers and note where in the book (such as chapter number, page number, or percentage) the spoilers are located.

Happy reading!

We will continue with The Fionavar Tapestry for October!

Please remember to tag all spoilers and note where in the book (such as chapter number, page number, or percentage) the spoilers are located.

Happy reading!

I recently finished reading "A Brightness Long Ago", really enjoyed it, though I liked all Kay's books I've read so far. What puzzled me a bit after finishing the book was its structure. It has a few connected storylines, and for the second time in Kay's books I had a feeling that the "main" one does not feel like the most important one.

I had a similar feeling after Sarantium duology. Though it has an obvious protagonist, at the end I had a feeling that the key character in the book was not him but Valerius, and Crispin's story and character (though very well developed) were used basically as a point-of-view for the events happening around (and caused by) the emperor. In fact, the most dramatic and emotional scene in Sarantium (keyword "underground") does not include Crispin at all. Valerius, though having much less "screen time", eventually feels to me like a much more important character (and more interesting one, I would say) for the story than anyone else.

And in "Brightness" rivalry between Cino and Monticola, despite all the scale and drama, really feels like a background story. So does in fact Danio's adventure, even with him being the narrator. And when I think about the most dramatic and emotional scene in "Brightness", for me it was definitely the horse race. Though it occurs long before the book finale, and lacks the epicness and tension of Cino vs Teobaldo interactions, but still it somehow feels like the defining moment in the book. It was funny that it was specifically a horse race, because even before it Adria reminded me of Eowyn. Princess who is resisting the gilded cage and the limitations imposed on her by her background and past. Big people play their big chess game, and in the middle of it a brave soul is trying to play the game by her own rules and seize her moment in the wind. And it was she, not Cino or Teobaldo, who in the end had the greatest impact on Danio's life. And subsequently, as Danio himself admits, on Leonora's life. After thinking about all of this I came to conclusion that, whether Kay intended it or not, "A Brightness Long Ago" seems to me to be in essence Adria's story.

I just looked on Edelweiss and there is a "summary" that the novel follows a "roguish poet".

"Roguish Poet" immediately made me think of Francois Villon. Villon has appeared in fiction relatively frequently and tends to be shown interacting with the cunning and unscrupulous Louis XI, the so-called "Spider King".

Villon lived at the tail end of the Hundred Years War and even though he didn't fight in it AFAIK, I could definitely see that being used as a backdrop.

Like you could have the equivalent of Joan of Arc in the recent past (or even fudge things a bit so she appears in the story). And there's this interesting parallelism of how the war started with French troops being slaughtered by the new invention of the longbow and ended with English troops being slaughtered with the new invention of firearms.

Also, if you go from the French perspective rather than the English (Shakespeare) one, the ending of the Hundred Years War is a somewhat optimistic story of a country regaining political stability and driving out foreign invaders/reclaiming vast swaths of territory.

Thought of starting something new on this sub! Each month, a new Guy Gavriel Kay will be highlighted for discussion. It will be a good opportunity for those who have not read the book to read it and discuss it here. And it may be a good opportunity for others to re-read it as well.

For the first book club, I decided to go from the very beginning and start with The Summer Tree. I have the rest of the books picked out for the rest of 2024, but I will do polls once 2025 hits to see what the community wants.

Please remember to tag all spoilers and note where in the book (such as chapter number, page number, or percentage) the spoilers are located.

Happy reading!

Hey everyone. I just got the summer tree and was very much surprised that one of the main characters is called Dave Martyniuk which is clearly a Ukrainian surname. Does anyone know why Guy picked this particular surname to give to a character? Now I want to start reading it even more.

P.S. I'm also Ukrainian, that's why this particular bit got my attention.

The setting will be medevial France so I am definitely excited when it comes out.

Perhaps he is setting up a potential French revolution setting in a future novel?

Hi all. So I started reading Kay’s books about a year ago now. I read a lot and I have spaced his books out quite a bit so that I’m not burning through them too quickly. I’m at the tail end of Sailing to Sarantium now and I’m finding this approach has come back to bite me a little. I can’t for the life of me remember which of his other books references the story of the one eyed hermit Jaddite in the desert on his “needle like crag in the sands” who pilgrims would come and pay tribute to. It turns out to be the courier Pronobius Tilliticus. An excerpt from the book:

”He was, of course, correct in large measure, achieving his immortality by being the first holy man slain by the heathen fanatics of the sands when they swept out of the south into Soriyya following their own star-enraptured visionary and his ascetic new teachings.”

Reading this gave me that vaguely familiar feeling, I knew I had read of it before in another of his books. I’ve been wracking my brain and even combing through my books trying to find reference to it but I’m coming up short. I had a feeling it might be from Lions but I can’t place it. Can anyone help point me to where I’ve read this before, before I lose my mind?

So far of his works I’ve read Tigana, Lions of Al-Rassan, and A Brightness Long Ago so that should help narrow it down! Thank you for any help!

I guess I am a mod of this community now.

I added basic user and post flairs. Feel free to edit your user flair to your favorite GGK book, or whatever other critrea you have!

I also added post flairs to make sorting through different topics easier.

I am also open to any questions or suggestions, so feel free to let me know if you have any.

And would you suggest it? The description gives me some Sarantine Mosaic vibes

I’m currently on chapter 18 of Tigana, and have just run into the second instance of a female character with a single red glove. The first being the bride making her red glove earlier in the novel. Besides the symbolism of love and passion that red evokes, is there any specific tradition, culture, or deeper meaning behind a single red glove? I can not find anything through google and ChatGPT simply failed to be accurate about the details of the book. If any of you know something deeper, please let me know!

(This post and discussion will contain spoilers for all of Kay's books set in his Jaddite world)

These books contain very little 'magic' as one would normally see in a Fantasy novel. They are very grounded and mostly read like historical fiction. However, each novel has one or two little skills or moments that are unexplained -

• Rodrigo's son (in Lions of al-Rassan) can 'sense' where his family members are and whether or not they are okay. It is also implied that this ability is passed on through the bloodline.
• In the Sarantine Mosaic, Crispin is given Linon the mechanical bird that can speak in his mind. Later, Crispin sees the Zubir in the forest.
• The Faerie in Last Light of the Sun
• The voice in Lenia's head in All the Seas of the World. Later in this book, we have a group of hunters that witness a massive, unearthly creature in the forest. Possibly also the zubir.

I may be missing others as well, but you get the idea. So many of the plots, faiths, and characters of these books are based on real history, I was just curious if perhaps these elements were based on folklore as well.

We all know Kay has a wonderful way with words, and his novel titles are no exception.

Which is your favorite?

I think mine might actually be The Last Light of the Sun - even though it is not my favorite Kay novel by any means, I love what the title references within the novel itself.

A close second would probably be Sailing to Sarantium

I know it's a pleasure when the reader realises they've met someone before, but a reference guide would be handy.

A few years ago I tried reading "Tigana" and unfortunately I had to put it down because I was extremely confused about everything that was going on. I'm not sure if it was the writing or the actual story structure.

Someone recently recommended me "The Lions of Al-Rassan" and from the sinopsis it seems like something I could enjoy, but I'm afraid I'll end up not being able to finish it like Tigana.

So, could anyone very familiar with these works could tell me if "The Lions of Al-Rassan" is easier to read than "Tigana" or if it's about the same?