this is a wonderful novel. it is hard to love at first. sometimes you get to know people who seem automatically awkward, whose social style is stilted, composed of quotes from movies or off-putting attempts to be clever, insisting on repeating tired tales, who seem eager to please yet incapable of easy connection. but you get to know them over time and those trappings fall away, the awkwardness fades and they become real, three-dimensional, a friend even. and so it is with The Summer Tree first, [...]

The first thought I had when I read the description was, "Gawd, not again *groaning moaning*". I've read attempted to read enough Tolkien wannabes with elves, orcs, and swords, and had enough. Then, I read extremely favorable reviews on GR about this book. It piqued my curiosity. Wait, what? This is how Tolkien should be written??What theFrankly, upon finishing this book, I'm inclined to agree with the favorable critics. This is very much like LotR, so much that I can see many fans either loving [...]

*** 4.35 ***A buddy read with the awesome Kay Squad @ Fantasy Buddy Reads Group! Every time I pick up a book by GGK I am filled with anticipation almost equal to that of children opening presents on Christmas Day morning. The first night of Hanukkah!!! A time of celebration of the soul, despite not being sure if it will live up to the expectations at the end. I have been very lucky for now and everything I have had the pleasure of reading by him has brought me much more pleasure than disappointm [...]

(This will serve as my review of the entire Fionovar Tapestry- Spoiler pearl clutchers beware- there be dragons of plot and theme reveals here!)Confession: I am a bit of a Requiem fanatic- I own several versions of the Verdi, the Mozart, the Brahms, and copies of the Cherubini, Berlioz, Dvorak, and Benjamin Britten Requiems and I am always looking for more. I am fascinated with each and every one of them personally, but when it comes time to try and explain my obsession to someone else, I always [...]

”But above all he could wait: wait as the cycles of men turned like the wheel of stars, as the very stars shifted pattern under the press of years. There would come a time when the watch slackened, when one of the five guardians would falter. Then could he, in darkest secrecy, exert his strength to summon aid, and there would come a day when Rakoth Maugrim would be free in Fionavar.And a thousand years passed under the sun and stars of the first of all the worlds…”In the midst of a strange [...]

“There are kinds of action, for good or ill, that lie so far outside the boundaries of normal behaviour that they force us, in acknowledging that they have occurred, to restructure our own understanding of reality.”If you missed Gandalf and the Fellowship of the Ring, miss them no more. The Fionavar Tapestry will provide you with the much needed Tolkienesque fix, perhaps a shade darker and a touch more sensual than the original. It is a five star, compulsory read for the lovers of this style [...]

Five Canadian college students are transported to a magical kingdom, and all of them are pretty blasé about it. Their lack of reaction cued me in pretty early on that I wasn’t going to like this book. None of these characters felt like real people to me; the students are pretty interchangeable (one’s a bit crankier! one has guilt! two possess vaginas!) and they all completely lack one of the most important things, in my opinion, for a successful fantasy novel: a sense of wonder. Nothing abo [...]

4.5 stars**Buddy Read with the awesome Kay Squad at Fantasy Buddy Reads**"There are many worlds," he said, "caught in the loops and whorls of time. Seldom do they intersect, and so for the most part they are unknown to each other. Only in Fionavar, the prime creation, which all the others imperfectly reflect, is the lore gathered and preserved that tells of how to bridge the worlds - and even there the years have not dealt kindly with ancient wisdom."This is the tale of five twenty-somethings - [...]

I'm of two minds with this work. I think I'd rather give this one a 3.5 on sheer enjoyability, having the reaction that I'd read this all before, and it's pacing was slow, slow, slow, but after having read it and having some thoughts as to what Kay was trying to accomplish, I'm revising it up to a solid 4.There is a lot to love in this novel, but unfortunately, it takes a long time for it to develop and ripen. Right off the bat, I noticed that this was taking an old trick that so much Fantasy (a [...]

Buddy read with the fabulous Kay Squad at FBRAn amazing masterpiece by a brilliant writer!Whit this book, Kay manages to give you a story in which you can get lost and forget yourself reading for hours on end. Five university students embark on a journey of self-discovery when they enter a realm of wizards and warriors, gods and mythical creatures--and good and evil…It all began with a lecture that introduced five university students to a man who would change their lives, a wizard who would ta [...]

Part I of this story is in many ways a grown-up The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe. I read the Narnia stories when I was little, and to be honest, I think C.S. Lewis will always have a place in my heart. To me, he’s a sort of philosophical grandpa, whom I ignore when he’s spouting cultural faux pas, but who brings out something lovely and profound at least as often as he says something unfortunate. Anyway, this book is not about C.S. Lewis, but I think the affection I feel for Narnia made a [...]

This review is from my reread of this series in 2015/16.The Fionavar Tapestry was a formative work for me in many ways, with my first read from soon after they came out in the 80s and with multiple rereads since. I mention this to explain why I'm not completely objective on them, as there are several issues from the lens of a 21st century reader including the way some of the women are portrayed here and the lack diversity in a book set across multiple countries and peoples that is meant to be th [...]

The ReviewI generally don't write a review for a book unless I finish it. I don't think it's fair to the author or to others interested in the book. I didn't finish this book. However, I did spend a significant amount of time on this book, so I think I do have the right to say something.Wow. This book beat me. I don't know if was the method in which I read the book or if I just didn't have the mindset to do so, but I just didn't like it. Reading became a chore and something that I didn't look fo [...]

5.0 stars. I just finished re-reading this book and was blown away by it. This is intelligent High Fantasy at its best. Gay Gavriel Kay is an incredible writer and his world building as fantastic. It is hard to be original in this well-worn genre, but Kay pulls it off and makes his characters and the world-setting unique and fresh. Highly recommended!!!

I'm going to start my review of this book with some, at least slightly negative comments, so I do so let me say that I liked the book pretty well and am giving it 4 stars (I'd probably go 3.5+ if I had that option, but I don't).I tried to read this book (these books as it's a trilogy) some years ago and was, shall we say, far from enamored with them. I put The Summer Tree down as not worth my time and didn't go back to it. Recently I've seen some reviews by people whom I've agreed with on other [...]

Fresh from reading most of Tolkien's work, and writing a gigantic essay on it too, I have a different perspective on Kay's work. Especially when reminded that Kay worked on The Silmarillion with Christopher Tolkien. He has a lot in common with Tolkien, really: the synthesis of a new mythology (though not done as history, and therefore lacking all the little authenticating details that Tolkien put in) using elements of an old one (though Kay used Celtic and Norse mythology, and goodness knows wha [...]

I love Guy Gavriel Kay. I love Portal Fantasy. Then why didn't I love this book you ask? A couple of different reasons. First, you can tell that Kay is cutting his teeth as a writer in this first book of his first series. The characters are a bit stereotypical in the way they act and their personalities. The plot is all too reminiscent of most of the standard fantasies that came before this one. The dialogue is also a bit clunky at times. I just felt that a writer of Kay's obvious talents was tr [...]

Είναι για 4,5/5 γιατί στην αρχή είναι λίγο περίεργο πως πείθονται 5 άτομα ξαφνικά τόσο εύκολα να κάνουν την μεταφορά σε έναν άλλο κόσμο. Αν παραβλέψουμε αυτό, είναι ένα πολύ καλό βιβλίο φαντασίας που σε κάνει να θες να διαβάσεις το επόμενο αμέσως. Η γραφή του είναι ωραία, όπου π� [...]

This book has been on my to-read list for a long time. I've read other Kay (and loved it all), but for some reason I just kept putting this one off. Every time I decided it was time to jump in, I'd read the blurb and decide to go with something else. "Five men and women find themselves flung into the magical land of Fionavar, First of all Worlds." Yeah About that The whole magically transported into a fantasy world thing? Thanks but no thanks. It just doesn't do it for me.So needless to say, I w [...]

I am so glad I came to Kay's The Fionavar Tapestry late because I doubt I ever would have read his great books if I had read these first. I was acting in a play with my great friend Jefferson when he suggested I read A Song For Arbonne. I was blown away. He told me to read Tigana. I loved Brandon and was in love with Kay. He told me to read The Lions of Al-Rassan, which I've read numerous times since, and I had found my favourite Kay. He told me to avoid the trilogy, though, because he knew I wo [...]

ORIGINALLY POSTED AT Fantasy Literature.I absolutely loved everything about Guy Gavriel Kay’s stand-alone novels Tigana and A Song for Arbonne, so it was with great excitement that I downloaded the newly released audio version of The Summer Tree, the first novel in his famous The Fionavar Tapestry.In The Summer Tree we meet Loren Silvercloak, a wizard who has traveled from the world of Fionavar to Toronto to fetch five university students (three guys and two girls) who are needed to help fight [...]

This is Guy Gavriel Kay’s earliest published novel. I’m sure there were previous books that didn’t get published, because you don’t become such a skilled writer without plenty of practice. To be fair, I have previously read two of his more recent novels (set in Ancient China) which are masterful and The Summer Tree is very obviously an early entry in his oeuvre. It is very complex, there are many characters, and there is a LOT going on. A very ambitious novel.Okay, up front I have to say [...]

Predestinati a Fionavar"Il miracolo non è avvenuto. Adesso capisco il prezzo da pagare, da tanti giorni a questa parte.A lui non erano permesse le lacrime: quando uccidi l'amore, non hai il permesso di piangerlo. Sideve pagare.Fine della lezione.Non sono venuto qui per salvarvi tutti.Non sono venuto qui per mostrarvi la via.Sono qui per morire."Emozionante discesa nei miti e nella magia di un regno incantato, Fionavar, minacciato dall'obsoleto cattivone di tolkeniana memoria - qua si chiama Rak [...]

I will review the three books as one, because that is how I am reading them. But there is a hint in the five stars

I was 16 when I first read the Fionavar Tapestry. My boyfriend and I had just gone through what would be the first of many breakups. I'd argued with my family about the breakup. My three best friends were all leaving, and I would only see one of them again in the decade to come. While on holiday with them in the Netherlands I was thrown from my seat on a bus and injured my spine, which left me bedridden and unable to attend the goodbyes. I was, in short, as miserable as only a heartbroken 16-yea [...]

Μετά τον Tolkien υπήρξαν πάρα πολλοί συγγραφείς που προσπάθησαν (πολλοί από αυτούς τα κατάφεραν) να δημιουργήσουν ένα κόσμο εφάμιλλο του Άρχοντα των Δαχτυλιδιών. Ο Guy Gavriel Kay είναι μεταξύ αυτών που τα κατάφεραν και με το παραπάνω!Το Δέντρο του Καλοκαιριού δεν αργεί να σε βάλει μ� [...]

Nostalgia read, sparked by a bookclub desire to read the series. What can I say?I first read this not long after the series came out (1984 for the first one). I was in my early teens, and there wasn’t much fantasy that felt inclusive of females, stories told in a lush world of sweeping scope. You know how desperate my thirteen year-old self was? Two words: Thomas Covenant. Kay was a refreshing summer breeze, and the writing–oh, the writing! It remained shiny in my memory, musical and strong [...]

This is the kind of high fantasy that I can easily see re-reading, and rather wish I had come to earlier in life. (It's definitely not a kid's book, but I'd almost rather my fictional progeny read this than Narnia.) Kay takes touchstones from mythology and weaves them together in a haunting opener to this trilogy about the first world and the impact five people from our own world have on it, in the midst of an epic struggle between good and evil. It's not without it's issues, but they're easily [...]

I really enjoyed this story. I did have a few quibbles, mainly that the way that the story had people from our world transported into this fantasy world was quite jarring. I can see where this is his first novel but it's a novel of an author finding his sea legs and I'm looking forward to how the rest of the series develops.

My first introduction to Kay was the stand-alone novel, Tigana. It took me a while to really get into Tigana, but I really started to appreciate Kay's eloquent style, fleshed out characters and whit in dialogue and plot development. I decided that before going on to read the rest of his works, I had better read Fianovar. I didn't quite find the same reading experience here. While the characters in Tigana are well thought and believable, those in the Summer Tree are quite the opposite. The reader [...]