Guy Gavriel Kay, Ranked

Most fantasy readers are familiar with Guy Gavriel Kay. He practically invented the sub-genre of historical fantasy, that mixed tricky ground which models alternate worlds on historical reality, and only sparsely invokes magic. He's chosen tasty figures from juicy times: Bertran de Born in 12th-century France, the troubadour Dante famously put in Hell; El Cid in 11th-century Spain, Christian hero of the Reconquista, but also mercenary for Islam; Justinian the Great in 6th-century Byzantium, and Alfred the Great in 9th-century England; An Lushan in 8th-century China, and Yue Fei in 12th-century China. By shifting all these to fantasy settings, Kay is able to neutralize historical nitpicking. What inaccuracies can we complain about in worlds that never existed? A writer of historical fiction would be pounced on -- scorned as incompetent, and rightly so -- for making the reconquest of Toledo (1085) coincide with the First Crusade (1096), but in a historical fantasy like The Lions of Al-Rassan, it works fine. Or for having Justinian the Great assassinated and his general succeed him as Byzantine Emperor, a final act that cuts like a razor in The Sarantine Mosaic. Kay's worlds take inspiration from ours, simplified or altered to serve plotting interests or heighten drama. It's time to size up, assess, and rank his work.

What inspired me to do this -- to reread all of Kay's books before this month's release of River of Stars -- was the realization that it had been so long since the early ones and I could only vaguely remember what I liked about them or why. I wanted to see how they hold up. But also this: while Kay is a good writer, he's often praised uncritically. He leans on foreshadowing devices and cliffhangers when he should just spit things out. He can also be overly sentimental, especially in the early novels. As he's matured, he's become more gritty and realistic, yet also prone to extraneous narrative. Ranking his work thus turns out an interesting exercise. Here's how they line up, in descending order. My star ratings are per usual: 5 = excellent, 4 = very good, 3 = good (decent), 2 = mediocre (dud), 1 = bad. There are no bad novels here (Guy Kay is incapable of writing a bad book), but neither are they all 4's and 5's.

1. The Lions of Al-Rassan. 1995. 5 stars. This is the book Kay was born to write, and it's as perfect today as it was two decades ago. Every character is compelling, every chapter a page-turner. Whether through court politics, introspective drama, or bloody devastation, Kay puts us on 11th-century soil as the Umayyad dynasty in Spain was collapsing and Islam on its way out the door. Few realize that the Christian reconquest was effectively a crusade, predating Urban's famous sermon which launched the "First Crusade" to the Holy Lands, though Kay telescopes the two events. In this alternate world, Asharites stand for Muslims (worshiping the stars), Jaddites for Christians (the sun), and Kindath for Jews (the two moons). They co-exist by the tensions of real Spanish history, and the social dynamics are handled brilliantly, though with certain license. For all their sophistication, I doubt the Umayyads were quite as libertine as implied by the Carnival of Ragosa. At heart, The Lions of Al-Rassan is about the pain of cross-cultural friendship in time of war. I found myself torn and hurt like the lead characters -- Jehane, Ammar, Rodrigo (the El Cid analog), and Alvar -- this unlikely group of mercenaries who know their friendship is doomed. Unlike Tigana, Al-Rassan is a place we grieve for, not only because we experience it before it's crushed -- the fountains, gardens, ivories, advanced medicine, and decadent festivals -- but because it compels by all its tensions. It's enlightened for its time, but not in a romantic or propagandist way. Muslim Spain was Europe's paradise, but a paradise with a ruthless enough infrastructure, and Kay captures that dichotomy wonderfully. Not only is this his best work, it's one of the best fantasies of all time.

Favorite scene: "A camel herder in the Majriti or a shepherd in Esperana." Either prospect is appalling, but in the end Ammar chooses the former. It's an interesting choice. The desert fanatics of his own faith are more hostile to Umayyad civilization than even the Christians, but for Ammar these jihadists are the lesser of two evils, and his explanation to Rodrigo rings true. For my part, I would reluctantly choose the Christian crusaders; but I respect Ammar's reasoning. Close second: The Carnival in Ragosa. The entire chapter of the night of masks -- Alvar dragged on a leash into a wild sexual liaison, Ammar confronted by the king who exiled him, the three-story fall of Rodrigo, the death of Velaz -- ranks among the most powerful sequences I've read in any novel. Third: King Ramiro banishing Rodrigo, and King Almalik banishing Ammar. The twin exiles of the Christian warrior and Muslim assassin are each unfair and perfectly just, and the court sentences ring with suspense.

2. The Sarantine Mosaic. 1998, 2000. 4 ½ stars. Set in the alternate Earth of Lions of Al-Rassan, and almost just as good, this duology contains some of the best writing Kay has ever put down. Superficially, it's about Justinian the Great's ambitions to reclaim Rome and accommodate religious heresies. Profoundly, it's about leaving a legacy. Whether in politics, art, or sport -- even the gourmet cooking of a fascist chef -- the characters of this story want desperately to leave their mark on the world. They all lack children, intensifying that drive. True to life, they're ultimately thwarted: the emperor is killed before his fleets can sail for Rome; Crispin's mosaic in the Sanctuary is torn down, deemed blasphemous by the new emperor; Scortius' outrageous chariot victories are subject to the instantaneous distortions and hyperboles of oral memory. This last offers a brilliant meditation on entertainment in a world devoid of videocam, as the tumultuous maneuvers (and lethal crashes) of chariot racing, like gladiatorial combat, can never be replayed: "Could the fragility, the defining impermanence actually intensify the glory? The thing lost as soon as made?" Perhaps modern DVDs dilute a film's magic even as they immortalize the artistry. (I'll always be moved to tears by Peter Jackson's Grey Havens, but never on the same emotional level as the first time I saw it in the theater.) This is surely Kay's most thoughtful work, spiritual as it is dramatically intense, and I love his stand-in for the Monophysite heresy, which claimed that Christ had only one nature (divine) against the orthodox belief in a "fully human and fully divine" Jesus. Kay cleverly inverts things so that the heresy insists on a mortal savior: Helladikos the Charioteer, Son of Jad, who died bringing the gift of fire to humanity. This upsets the orthodox Jaddites who believe that an offspring (mortal or otherwise) diminishes the ineffability of the god behind the sun. For all the theology, The Sarantine Mosaic is suspenseful in the extreme, and Byzantium ("Sarantium") a place you thrill to never feeling safe. The scenes at court are infused with backbiting and two-faced interplay, the races at the Hippodrome a massive adrenaline rush. To match excitement like this with the introspective wonder of a man literally floored by a stern monotheistic approbation of the divine, after a harrowing pagan encounter, is no mean feat. It's worth citing this passage:

"Crispin saw that the eyes were the same. The world's sorrow he'd seen in the forest was here in the sun god above him... This work of mortal men in a domed chapel was as much a manifestation of the holy as the bison with its blood-smeared horns in the wood, and as appalling. The fierce wild power of Ludan, accepting sacrifice in his grove, set against the immensity of craft and comprehension on this dome, rendering in glass and stone a deity as purely humbling. How did one move from one of these poles to the other? How did mankind live between such extremes?"

This gives you an idea as to how ambitious Kay is in these books, taking risks on par with his metaphor of "Sailing to Sarantium", which goes beyond geographical travel -- "when someone throws himself at an obvious and extreme hazard, risking all, changing everything one way or another, like a desperate gambler at dice putting his whole stake on the table". That's what Crispin does, and returns home deflated: his art destroyed, his lover's eyes torn out, his hope small; yet strangely empowered by his losses.

Favorite scenes: Listed chronologically. First: The sacrifice of Linon. The alchemy of glass birds with human souls are the only fantasy element in these books, and they work brilliantly. Linon's (second) death is incredibly affecting. Second favorite: Crispin floored by the chapel mosaic (see above). Third: Crispin received by the Emperor. Making enemies with blunt opinions about mosaic techniques, shaming a lady of the court with a gift after exposing her presumptive one-upmanship of the empress, then guessing how Scortius won the chariot race, is some of the most dynamic court intrigue I've read in any work of fiction. Fourth: Scortius' suicidal ride. Bleeding from a knife wound, the charioteer pulls outrageous maneuvers -- swerving wide, up, then back down into the path of his oncoming colleague; causing his rival to crash into the chariot that's actually moving out of his way to assist. Fifth: Valerius' assassination. Liquid fire from old enemies, a knife in the back from a malicious historian, impossible to stop reading. Sixth: Leontes orders Crispin's mosaic destroyed. It's stunning how this tragedy outdoes even the horrors of the assassination plot and city riot right before. And the new emperor is no cheap villain; he respects Crispin despite his artistic heresies; for Crispin, of course, the death of his six-month labor cuts as deeply as the loss of his family to plague.

3. The Fionavar Tapestry. 1984, 1986, 1987. 4 stars. Before the historical textures came this trilogy of high fantasy, and it's an odd duck. I think of it as a Reader's Digest version of a classic, and was half-expecting to rank it at the bottom. But it holds up astonishingly well. It's full of fantasy cliches, underdeveloped characters, and myths which have no business marching together... and yet it all comes together like fireworks. Think Homer and Tolkien, and throw in King Arthur. Take a ring of wild magic, and giants who grieve through fire; that's Donaldson. Then, in that open-minded space you've carved out, let in five college students from our world who become heroes of this one. Two of them die, one is raped; only two return home in the end. For all its triumphs and euchatastrophes, the The Fionavar Tapestry is dark and painful, and still a damn good story after all these years, with complexities simmering beneath the blunt prose. The theme is sacrifice, which is on constant demand. Paul's in The Summer Tree and Kevin's in The Wandering Fire evoke redemptive myths, the former reenacting Odin, Jesus, and the Fisher King, the latter blending Osiris, Adonis, and Attis, neither feeling syncretically artificial. Paul is crucified and made to replay his worst guilt on the Summer Tree for three whole days; his death and resurrection by the sky god end drought and starvation. Kevin dies not in torment but sexual ecstasy, mating with the earth goddess, and stays dead; his sacrifice ends a year-long crippling winter. (I'm not sure whether I'd prefer life after divine torture, or death after divine sex.) There are other sacrifices: Ysanne's suicide; the child Finn's assumption into the Wild Hunt and later death on a battlefield; Loren's un-maging after he destroys the evil Cauldron; Diarmud's hopeless duel against Uathach; the unicorn's hopeless clash with the dragon; and, of course, Jennifer's child Darien, who takes the Darkest Road to the blackest hell, and lets Rakoth kill him in order to enable the deity's destruction. For '80s fantasy this was bold stuff, and frankly it still is; even in the wake of George Martin, few authors kill off so many heroes, especially children. More proactive than Paul and Kevin are Kim and Dave, but their actions cost too. Kim is able to save the giants from extinction only by destroying their essential nature. And when she refuses to copy this nasty strategy in the dwarven kingdom, the wild magic shuts down on her, rendering her powerless. Dave, for his part, becomes a plains warrior and adopted into the Dalrei tribes; when he summons the Wild Hunt to save them from invaders, the undead kings slaughter his friends as much as the forces of evil, to his helpless fury. The Wild Hunt is a fascinating explanation for free will: "The Hunt was placed in the Tapestry to be wild in the truest sense, to lay down an uncontrolled thread for the freedom of those who came after. People have at least some freedom to shape their destines because of the Hunt cutting across the Weaver's measured will." There are heavy shades of Donaldson's white gold in the wild magic of Kim's ring and the wild hunt of Dave's horn, either of which can "save or damn the earth". No surprise that they relinquish their talismans in the end, and are the ones who return to our real world. As for Jennifer, she's the most curious of the five, a victim like Paul and Kevin, and hero like Kim and Dave. Her violation at the hands of Rakoth and Blod is probably the most harrowing gang-rape I've read in any work of literature, and almost ruins her mind. The grace comes by her child Darien, who alone has the potential to destroy Rakoth. But when we learn in book 2 that she also happens to be Guinevere reincarnated, things get...odd. This "insignificant" woman broken in the worst way turns out to be a legendary adulterer, with more fortitude than we (or she) ever guessed, and I'm not sure what Kay was trying to do here, or if one was the punishing consequence of the other. Once we adjust to this identity shift, and to the arrival of Arthur and then (yes) Lancelot, Jennifer takes on a heartless role herself, turning away her terrified child and pushing him to the side of evil precisely so he can reject it. In the end, she leaves her friends and does what she couldn't before, sailing into the west (to Avalon) with both Arthur and Lance, whom she loves equally. I can't say I begrudge this trio a bittersweet ending given their repeated cycles of tragedy suffered across so many worlds, and it plays well. Speaking of sailing west, it should rankle, but doesn't, that Kay models his elves (the lios alfar) so closely on Tolkien's, to the extent that they even have a Valinor equivalent. But if Tolkien's elves suffered the doom of time and fading, Kay's suffer slaughter: those who have been supposedly sailing to paradise have been killed, everyone of them, for the past thousand years, by the Soulmonger sea-serpent before getting halfway there. The victory over this serpent in book 2 is as much a victory for elves as for wizards. Which brings me, finally, to Loren and Matt. The mage and dwarf are the only Fionavar natives with American names, which is truly bizarre, but whatever Kay was thinking, I'm not complaining. They make this story resonate on a personal level for me, given that my name is Loren and my best friend Matt; it's like reading about us in an alternate world, where I get to be a wizard and he my source. Even the concept of magic in this world involves sacrifice: a "source" is needed for a mage to work magic, someone bound by rituals and oaths, and whose lifeforce is drained to provide energy for spells. In extreme cases, the source can be killed, which of course is what happens to poor Matt... and which I enjoy fantasizing doing to my own friend. It's odd, because The Fionavar Tapestry feels today like it did so many years ago: like it was written just for me, and doing all the right things high fantasy seldom does. If it has a Reader's Digest feel, that works for rather than against it given Kay's particular ambitions.

Favorite scenes: Listed in chronological order, though the first does happen to be my very favorite. First: Paul on the Summer Tree. I feel crucified myself when reading this. Second: Jennifer raped by Rakoth and Blod. Still pulverizing after all these years. Third: Kevin at Maidaladan. When I die, I want to go out having a transcendent orgasm like this. Fourth: Dave summons the Wild Hunt. The undead kings massacre the forces of evil -- and then turn right around and do the same to the forces of good. Fifth: The last kanior. Kim rescues the giants from an obscene holocaust, but also brings them down, destroying their gentle nature to make them useful in war. Sixth: Lancelot in Daniloth. Fionavar's version of Lothlorien is a bit distressing; non-elves who enter are frozen in time throughout various parts of the forest -- some visually frozen, others unseen but audible as they yell in blind terror. Seventh: Matt kills Blod. An exhilarating Indiana Jones moment; we have every reason to believe the fight between these two dwarves will be a long drawn out melee, but Matt -- driven by a year's worth of fury over Blod's rape of Jennifer -- kills instantly without fanfare, throwing his huge battle-axe with murderous force straight into Blod's brain.

4. The Last Light of the Sun. 2004. 4 stars. I doubt Kay intended this as a dramatic inversion of The Lions of Al-Rassan, but in many ways it is. Lions is about the clash of three faiths in Europe's most civilized region; Last Light intersects three cultures -- Viking, Anglo-Saxon, Welsh -- in its darkest backwaters. Lions is a brutal tragedy, or downfall; Last Light is a long defeat in the vein of Tolkien and the old sagas, where everything is already fallen, and the best virtue is a noble courage without any real hope. Thus King Aeldred's daughter: "Courage is without meaning or impact, though perhaps resounds with having done something." (She could have been raised in Rohan.) Or Prince Alun: "I don't believe it is possible to do what I intend. I expect to die." (Like Frodo and Sam on the way to Mount Doom.) Then there are the Vikings, for whom raping and looting are as virtuous as sea-raid slaughter: "You don't ponder things. You drink, pray to Odin and Thor, and then fight and kill -- and take home what you find in the fury and ruin you shape." They do a good share of "blood-eagling", the battle tactic that involves carving open the back of an enemy, breaking the ribs so they resemble blood-stained wings, and spreading the lungs on the back, all while trying to keep the victim alive as long as possible. This is Kay's bleakest work, with none of the usual court intrigue, and another curious inversion: usually he uses culture to magnify the story, but here the story is more incidental and an excuse to spotlight culture, and some of the best parts are actually descriptions of everyday northern life filtered through the misanthropic viewpoints of inconsequential characters. Kay always disciplines his prose to square with the time period, and here his writing is curt and rhythmic in the manner of the old sagas. The story? A Welsh, Anglo-Saxon, and Viking race to stop a nasty Viking (by even Viking standards) from taking vengeance on a Welsh farm. All have their reasons, none terribly altruistic. A depressing novel, and refreshingly honest, probably Kay's most underrated.

Favorite scene: Ivarr's death. Brand slaying him for his perfidious lies, then commanding the Viking ships to go exactly where Ivarr had been manipulating them, is a George Martinesque moment I never saw coming. Second favorite: All of chapter 5, which is as honest a canvass of the Viking world-view portrayed in any work of fiction -- the stoning of the six women ("bony and slackbreasted, hags fit for no man"), Bern's evasion of the Jormsvik mercenaries and his sanctuary with a whore; finally, his death-challenge, victory, and acceptance into the mercenary ranks.

5. River of Stars. 2013. 4 stars. The sequel to Under Heaven stands cultural heroism on its head. Where Shen Tai was a solider suddenly gifted (cursed) by impossible fortune, Ren Daiyan is a peasant outlaw climbing military ranks by sweat and tears and endless deception. He's Kay's analog for Yue Fei, who could have easily preserved the Song Dynasty against the invading Jin, but instead was executed for treason so that the new emperor could keep the throne to which he had no right. The Song represents a shamed and diminished nation, struggling in the shadow of a lost glory, and Kay is at home in these Al-Rassan worlds which seem to go out of their way to bury themselves. He paints a convincing portrait of an imperial court that nurtures military impotence out of rebellion paranoia, fearing the 400-year old ghosts of power-hungry generals like An-Lushan more than real-life enemies over the border. He also shows how literature and art flowered at this time, around increased misogyny and oppression. Lin Shan is despised as a rare educated woman, and the emperor kills thousands to build his colossal rock garden. River of Stars compels by its dualities, and is an improvement over Under Heaven, certainly more polished, though the canvass is too crowded in the first half. The lead characters of Ren Daiyan and Lin Shan get far too little space in favor of auxiliary characters who disappear as soon as they're introduced, and it's hard to get hooked by the narrative. The second part moves like a juggernaut and brings Daiyan and Shan into sharp focus, with the right levels of court intrigue, about-face political favors, alliances broken as soon as they're made, and the inevitable downfall of the northern part of the Song Dynasty. In Ren Daiyan, Kay has brilliantly conflated the legends of Yue Fei with Song Jiang (the Robin Hood of China if there was one), especially in the early chapters, which exude the mythic landscape of social banditry and portray wilderness outlaws who fight for the weak and poor -- even for the demonically possessed.

Favorite scene: Conference at Hanjin. Frustrating politics play wonderfully here. Daiyan despises the prime minister but wants what he does (war), against the opposite judgment of those he respects, and his suicidal maneuvering against Wu Tong in front of the emperor is splendid. Close second: Daiyan's prison cell, on the eve of his execution. His confession to the prime minister that China needs an example of military loyalty, even if the emperor doesn't deserve it, is a wonderful Man for all Seasons moment. Last: Fall of Hanjin ("Kaifeng"). Unlike the fall of Xinan ("Chang'an") in Under Heaven, the fall of the Song capital is portrayed intimately through the main characters, and it hurts. I was particularly moved by the scholar's Qi Wai's decision to die for his archaeological possessions.

6. Under Heaven. 2010. 3 ½ stars. There's a great story here, but it's buried under slow pacing and extraneous excursions. Especially in the first half, Kay tells more than shows; he's clearly inspired by the Tang Dynasty, but relies on an abundance of description instead his usual narrative ploys. Eighth-century China, as a result, doesn't leap from the pages in the way his other worlds do. The second half improves on this, revving up with court intrigue and the eventual rebellion of An-Li ("An-Lushan"), only to wrap things up abruptly in the final chapters. I was left wondering what the whole point of Tai's sister was; her time spent in Bogu ("Mongol") territory was atmospheric, but never impacted the main story in any real way. I understand that Kay began working on this novel and then set it aside to write Ysabel, then, reportedly, hastily finished it to meet a deadline. Under Heaven reads like a rough draft -- the first half needing a ruthless axe, the second an expansion and better integration -- but where it delivers, it does so very well, and the setting of China under the Tangs is ideally suited for a Kay fantasy. The Sardian horses are an extremely effective device pushing an obscure soldier onto the board of power politics and unlimited wealth (250 Sardian horses is like the 10,000 talents in Mt 18:23-34, the equivalent of billions of U.S. dollars). Tai has been cursed with grace, needs bodyguards everywhere he goes, and can hardly even give away the horses as a gift to the emperor without shaming the Son of Heaven as warned by his concubine: "Our exalted emperor's is the duty of supreme generosity. He'd have to return more than you gave him or be shamed in the eyes of the world." I like the fact that we never learn why the Jade Princess gave Tai the horses to begin with. Her motives are ultimately irrelevant and remain better clouded in mystery, just as she remains appropriately off-stage. It could have been a political maneuver; it could have been malice, if she resented being sent away to Tibet and wanted to ignite a war in her country; or (as I prefer) it could have been just a capricious way of flaunting her power. This is the story of a man thrown into the world of ruthless court politics, which copies the plot of The Sarantine Mosaic -- and could have been almost as good with some clean-up work.

Favorite scene: Court intrigue at Ma-Wai. The story's midpoint is the confrontation everything has been building towards, and after which all catastrophe falls. Tai watches as the prime minister gets skewered for his incompetence in dealing with An-Li, and dances around the shameful implication that he engineered Tai's assassination; Tai confronts him, engaging in a brilliant challenge-and-riposte; finally, Tai and his elder brother spar off in a poetry contest to please the emperor's concubine.

7. Tigana. 1990. 3 stars. It's hard to be fair with Tigana. It's Kay's most ambitious novel and by far his most polished. Many consider it his masterpiece. Certainly the Palm is his most carefully constructed locale. And the theme is tragedy, where heroes and anti-heroes pursue revenge at all costs. What could possibly go wrong here? Dianora's half of the story is near flawless: the tragedies of an occupied nation unfold through her eyes, and her vow to assassinate the tyrant crumbles under falling in love with him. The problem lies in the other half, which revolves around Alessan's leadership: the revolution is hyper-idealized and the recurring sentimentality overwrought. In Baerd especially, the slightest things trigger melodramatic grief, as if Tigana had been destroyed 18 days ago instead of 18 years. Maybe I've become too jaded after George Martin, whose venal rebels under Beric Dondarrion and Stoneheart are much more believable. Kay portrays too romantic a rebellion -- sort of the way revolutionaries reinvent themselves from a hindsight perspective, rather than the way you'd expect a good novelist like Kay to show in its complicated ugliness. Alessan's claim over Erlein's soul is an exception showing the prince's dark side, but even here urges the reader to view him as ultimately noble, as if the ends (and his melodramatic grief) justify the means; moreover, he later frees the wizard in an altruistic gratitude that feels as much a cop-out as the miraculous rescue of Catriana. The Tiganan revolutionaries would have been more convincing as IRA or PLO analogs; they keep their hands way too clean igniting rebellion across the Palm. The two plots intersect at a juggernaut-climax, and Dianora goes out perfectly, while the Alessan crowd gets a happy ending that's completely inappropriate in a tragedy like this, and Tigana is restored to a glory it had no business re-attaining. Is Tigana overrated? Not exactly: it's a brilliantly plotted epic that balances action and introspection in all the right measures. But it misses the mark where it counts most. It remains Kay's magnum opus and his most inspired work. It's also his least compelling.

Favorite scene: Alessan's mother cursing him on her deathbed, for not being aggressive enough with the rebellion; she's twice as bad as he is, and I can't think of anyone who deserves her more. Close second: The sorcerer Alberico dissipating his body barely in time to save himself from being shot in the head, then reforming hideously crippled. And three: The identity of King Brandin's Fool, revealed superbly at the end.

8. A Song for Arbonne. 1992. 2 ½ stars. This is Kay's least impressive effort, though not for reasons commonly asserted. A frequent criticism is that the characters are a bit sketchy and don't leave a strong impression, and while that's true, that particular "flaw" happens to work for rather than against A Song for Arbonne given its sentimental thrust. It doesn't repeat the mistake of Tigana; it keeps patriotic zeal at arm's length by subordinating it to the theme of courtly romance, and the notorious death of a noblewoman, where the sentiment becomes more excusable. Even better, the troubadour culture is filtered mostly through the eyes of Blaise, a "crude" outsider from Northern France, who only gradually gets won over to this southern culture of lyrical passion. This encourages us to view the Provencals as foolish, intriguing, and narcotic at once. Blaise is also a mercenary, defending himself by saying, "There are principles behind what I do. Attachments are dangerous in my profession. So is sentiment." So when he finally evolves in a sentimental direction -- acknowledging suppressed feelings for his home territory in the north alongside his new respect for the southern heretics -- it plays authentic for the most part. And the court politics are admittedly fascinating, as noblemen play the dangerous game of inviting troubadours into their castles for the express purpose of wooing their wives; on the one hand, their honor is enhanced by a wife being exalted by a lovestruck poet-singer; on the other, they run the risk of extreme dishonor if the verse gets too presumptuously out of hand. Not to mention adultery, and the historical figure of Bertran de Born (whom Dante put in Hell as a "sower of discord") pretty much fucks his way through the entire novel. It's irritating, however, that Kay chooses to make almost every woman in this story a glamorous beauty, as if troubadour rhetoric is reality. But where the story really buckles is in the plotting, which is often forced and contrived, especially the about-face rescue by Bertran's arch-enemy on the battlefield, which is predictable way in advance. Things slide into place too conveniently and too often, with Blaise acquiring friends and allies too easily. The double-reveal in the last chapter as to the fate of Bertran's son is nothing impressive. Aelis' tragedy is worked around a substandard national invasion plot that shows Kay not quite knowing what to do with an intriguing subject matter.

Favorite scene: I don't have one from this book. A Song for Arbonne doesn't take enough risks. Dialogue, encounters, and events never really distinguish themselves. Then too, the story has an odd dreamy quality to it, and perhaps for this reason makes me forget details as soon as I finish it.