The Fionavar Tapestry
I've been reading a bit more lately, pretty much solely because I've set-up a bedside lamp. Weird how bedtime is almost the only time I'll read.
So a while ago I know I mentioned I had read Tigana, by Guy Gavriel Kay, and I was really impressed with it. Right up until around 90% of the way into the book I was expecting it to end on a cliffhanger and have to finish the story in the next 2 books of the trilogy, and I was very pleasantly surprised to find that the book was a stand-alone, and it managed to tie everything up perfectly by the end of the story.
This made me a bit of a Guy Gavriel Kay fan, and I was all set to read his entire range of books. Apparently though he's only really know in Canada (where Lauri bought me Tigana), and it's really hard to find anything by him in Ireland. Even the libraries here hadn't heard of him.
Recently though Lauri was able to put her hands on The Fionavar Tapestry, which is GGK's earliest work, and more predictably: a trilogy.
Lauri had mentioned that "Kay has gotten steadily better as a writer", which of course for me means that going from his more recent work to his first; he will be steadily worse.
I was prepared for that.
I was not however prepared for what I got.
The story starts off as clichéd as all hell.
Five friends from real world Toronto (haha Canada) are summoned to a magical world by a wizard, because they, and only they (for some reason) are instrumental in defeating a great evil force who, by the way, was IMPRISONED in a battle years ago, but not destroyed.
I was okay with this though, it's only his first book, the plot is clichéd sure, but maybe he'll tell it right.
Fionovar was periodically referenced in Tigana as "the first world", so I presumed if I was going to read a lot of this guy's stuff, reading the foundation of his universe was going to help in my understanding of the canon.
So the first book itself was okay, there was a lot of hinting at stuff to come:
A mysterious grey dog follows our protangonists around unseen, and tears the throats out of anything that might be threatening them. Later in the book one of the group is bound and helpless, and an evil demi-god in Wolf form (established as the most powerful of all the demi-gods) comes to kill him, but the grey dog interveens, kicks the demi-god's ass and sends him packing. I was like "Shit that's a cool dog. I wonder what his story is?"
There's also a great "Warrior" hinted at, who's sleeping somewhere and might be handy for the coming great battle.
Gods pop in and out, and the group assemble a couple of magical macguffins, some of which are mysterious in their purpose.
The first book ends with the group being beamed back to the real world, and prepping to return for the giant battle to decide the fate of Fionavar.
As I said, it was clichéd, but it had potential, and I was looking forward to seeing how all the dangling plot threads were to be resolved.
Book two is where it all went horribly wrong for me.
They revive the sleeping "warrior" of awesomeness, and do you know who it turned out to be?
Arthur.
King Arthur.
King Arthur goddamn Pendragon of Camelot!
Why Guy Gavriel Kay?
Did you really think your book wasn't good enough to stand on your own original characters and (not terribly) original story?
"Oh well" I think "Hopefully Arthur won't be a big focus of the book."
......
Arthur contributes basically nothing to the story, he just stands around and seems to be generally unhappy. But there is an ridiculous amount of focus on him. Everyone keeps talking about how awesome a warrior he is (even though he never fights), and EVERYONE in goddamn Fionovar seems to have Arthurian legend memorised, and brings it up whenever they can.
"Alright" I think "This kind of sucks, but hopefully we'll focus a bit more on our protagonists from the real world, and the few key Fionovarian characters."
AND THEN, one of our 5 characters from Toronto, as it happens, remembers that she is actually Guinvere reincarnate.
Now we have Arthur and Guinvere, and there's a bit of angst about that whole fall of Camelot business.
One of the 5 Canadians is a bit of a charming ladies man, and slips off one night because of the call of destiny.
"If he turns out to be secretly Lancelot" I said to myself "I'm fucking leaving."
BUT he didn't, and I breathed a sigh of relief.
Later though, for no reason, there was Lancelot anyway.
And that was pretty much it for me.
I kept reading, because Lancelot entered into the picture around the end of book 2, and I still wanted to know what happened.
Arthurian Legend continued to leak into the story like internal bleeding:
Arthur may be the most awesome person who ever lived, but Lancelot is even more awesomer still!! Also there's Guinvere and that's like a love TRIANGLE! OMG!
One of the demi-gods, who reminds me of Tom Bombadill, turns out to be the BARD from Camelot.
One of the more important elves (and the basis for Lauri's LJ name) turns out to be the Lady of Shalot, and basically retells that poem in story form. Forest, forest, frolics, hot guy, sadness, boat.
The real kick in the teeth for me was the awesome grey dog of throatrippingdom.
His story?
Arthur's dog.
Yup. That's it. No explaination for his almost supernatural understanding of the plot, his guardianship over the Canadians, or the fact he can beat the most powerful of ALL the Demi-gods in Kanine Kombat.
He's just Arthur's dog.
The story eventually ends as you expect. The great evil is defeated (not imprisoned, they don't make evil like they used to), the Canadian characters are okay and alive for the most part, some decide to stay and some return home.
Tom Bombadill takes Arthur, Guinvere and Lancelot to Heaven on a boat, and also maybe the dog, I forget.
I can't help but feel that was kind of the whole point of the story from the beginning: Guy Gavriel Kay was totally bummed that the story of Camelot had an unhappy ending, so he wrote what essentially felt like Fan-Fiction to me, in order to tie up his perceived loose-ends in the legend.
I realise I might not have had such a problem with it if it had been presented
to me as Fan-fiction dressed up as an original story. But as it happened
I felt tricked. There was no hint of anything Camelot in the first book,
and that book made me okay with reading the rest of the trilogy.
Book 2 and 3 degenerated into "All-Arthurian All-The-Time".
I'm still going to go on and read more of Kay's stuff, because as I said, Tigana was brilliant; but if I get even a whiff of Camelot in ANY of the books between now and then, I am done.
Incidentally I'm open to book recommendations in the meantime, if anyone has any.
So a while ago I know I mentioned I had read Tigana, by Guy Gavriel Kay, and I was really impressed with it. Right up until around 90% of the way into the book I was expecting it to end on a cliffhanger and have to finish the story in the next 2 books of the trilogy, and I was very pleasantly surprised to find that the book was a stand-alone, and it managed to tie everything up perfectly by the end of the story.
This made me a bit of a Guy Gavriel Kay fan, and I was all set to read his entire range of books. Apparently though he's only really know in Canada (where Lauri bought me Tigana), and it's really hard to find anything by him in Ireland. Even the libraries here hadn't heard of him.
Recently though Lauri was able to put her hands on The Fionavar Tapestry, which is GGK's earliest work, and more predictably: a trilogy.
Lauri had mentioned that "Kay has gotten steadily better as a writer", which of course for me means that going from his more recent work to his first; he will be steadily worse.
I was prepared for that.
I was not however prepared for what I got.
The story starts off as clichéd as all hell.
Five friends from real world Toronto (haha Canada) are summoned to a magical world by a wizard, because they, and only they (for some reason) are instrumental in defeating a great evil force who, by the way, was IMPRISONED in a battle years ago, but not destroyed.
I was okay with this though, it's only his first book, the plot is clichéd sure, but maybe he'll tell it right.
Fionovar was periodically referenced in Tigana as "the first world", so I presumed if I was going to read a lot of this guy's stuff, reading the foundation of his universe was going to help in my understanding of the canon.
So the first book itself was okay, there was a lot of hinting at stuff to come:
A mysterious grey dog follows our protangonists around unseen, and tears the throats out of anything that might be threatening them. Later in the book one of the group is bound and helpless, and an evil demi-god in Wolf form (established as the most powerful of all the demi-gods) comes to kill him, but the grey dog interveens, kicks the demi-god's ass and sends him packing. I was like "Shit that's a cool dog. I wonder what his story is?"
There's also a great "Warrior" hinted at, who's sleeping somewhere and might be handy for the coming great battle.
Gods pop in and out, and the group assemble a couple of magical macguffins, some of which are mysterious in their purpose.
The first book ends with the group being beamed back to the real world, and prepping to return for the giant battle to decide the fate of Fionavar.
As I said, it was clichéd, but it had potential, and I was looking forward to seeing how all the dangling plot threads were to be resolved.
Book two is where it all went horribly wrong for me.
They revive the sleeping "warrior" of awesomeness, and do you know who it turned out to be?
Arthur.
King Arthur.
King Arthur goddamn Pendragon of Camelot!
Why Guy Gavriel Kay?
Did you really think your book wasn't good enough to stand on your own original characters and (not terribly) original story?
"Oh well" I think "Hopefully Arthur won't be a big focus of the book."
......
Arthur contributes basically nothing to the story, he just stands around and seems to be generally unhappy. But there is an ridiculous amount of focus on him. Everyone keeps talking about how awesome a warrior he is (even though he never fights), and EVERYONE in goddamn Fionovar seems to have Arthurian legend memorised, and brings it up whenever they can.
"Alright" I think "This kind of sucks, but hopefully we'll focus a bit more on our protagonists from the real world, and the few key Fionovarian characters."
AND THEN, one of our 5 characters from Toronto, as it happens, remembers that she is actually Guinvere reincarnate.
Now we have Arthur and Guinvere, and there's a bit of angst about that whole fall of Camelot business.
One of the 5 Canadians is a bit of a charming ladies man, and slips off one night because of the call of destiny.
"If he turns out to be secretly Lancelot" I said to myself "I'm fucking leaving."
BUT he didn't, and I breathed a sigh of relief.
Later though, for no reason, there was Lancelot anyway.
And that was pretty much it for me.
I kept reading, because Lancelot entered into the picture around the end of book 2, and I still wanted to know what happened.
Arthurian Legend continued to leak into the story like internal bleeding:
Arthur may be the most awesome person who ever lived, but Lancelot is even more awesomer still!! Also there's Guinvere and that's like a love TRIANGLE! OMG!
One of the demi-gods, who reminds me of Tom Bombadill, turns out to be the BARD from Camelot.
One of the more important elves (and the basis for Lauri's LJ name) turns out to be the Lady of Shalot, and basically retells that poem in story form. Forest, forest, frolics, hot guy, sadness, boat.
The real kick in the teeth for me was the awesome grey dog of throatrippingdom.
His story?
Arthur's dog.
Yup. That's it. No explaination for his almost supernatural understanding of the plot, his guardianship over the Canadians, or the fact he can beat the most powerful of ALL the Demi-gods in Kanine Kombat.
He's just Arthur's dog.
The story eventually ends as you expect. The great evil is defeated (not imprisoned, they don't make evil like they used to), the Canadian characters are okay and alive for the most part, some decide to stay and some return home.
Tom Bombadill takes Arthur, Guinvere and Lancelot to Heaven on a boat, and also maybe the dog, I forget.
I can't help but feel that was kind of the whole point of the story from the beginning: Guy Gavriel Kay was totally bummed that the story of Camelot had an unhappy ending, so he wrote what essentially felt like Fan-Fiction to me, in order to tie up his perceived loose-ends in the legend.
I realise I might not have had such a problem with it if it had been presented
to me as Fan-fiction dressed up as an original story. But as it happened
I felt tricked. There was no hint of anything Camelot in the first book,
and that book made me okay with reading the rest of the trilogy.
Book 2 and 3 degenerated into "All-Arthurian All-The-Time".
I'm still going to go on and read more of Kay's stuff, because as I said, Tigana was brilliant; but if I get even a whiff of Camelot in ANY of the books between now and then, I am done.
Incidentally I'm open to book recommendations in the meantime, if anyone has any.