Fionavar Tapestry: Should I Read That?

[Vinyadan]

As in the title, I heard for the first time of the Fionavar Tapestry trilogy. Is it good? Worth reading?

[Grey_Wolf_c]

As in the title, I heard for the first time of the Fionavar Tapestry trilogy. Is it good? Worth reading?

Take it as a single point of reference, but it bored me to tears. I believe I managed to force myself to read the first two, but I gave up somewhere in the last one - first time I ever dropped a fantasy trilogy, in fact.

GW

[Knaight]

If you really like the writings of Guy Gavriel Kay, and you've already read every other book he's ever written (or at least every other book that made it to your local library), then sure. Otherwise read The Lions of Al-Rasan, or The Last Light of the Sun, or River of Stars, or Tigana.

Heck, GGK himself basically described it as him purging the Tolkien influence after being heavily involved with The Silmarillion, so that he could go on to write other works. It reads like that, and his later works are much better.

[factotum]

Fionavar Tapestry is OK, but I found the defeat of the Big Bad at the end incredibly unsatisfying and the Tolkien influences lie heavy on it. If you want to read a GGK novel, I would recommend Tigana instead, it's a much better read and uses a more Italian mythical background than the usual Northern European one.

[Knaight]

Fionavar Tapestry is OK, but I found the defeat of the Big Bad at the end incredibly unsatisfying and the Tolkien influences lie heavy on it. If you want to read a GGK novel, I would recommend Tigana instead, it's a much better read and uses a more Italian mythical background than the usual Northern European one.

GGK in general shies away from the sort of generic Northern European mythical backgrounds. There are some specific ones, with A Song for Arbonne being basically 13th-14th century France and The Last Light of the Sun being 11th centuryish Scandinavia, but the specific cultures really shine through without the generic medieval background.