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Title: The Last Light of the Sun
Author: Guy Gavriel Kay
Genre: Historical fantasy (Viking/Gaelic/Anglo-Saxon base)
Thingummies: 4
Synopsis: The families of a disgraced Viking-esque raider, a Welsh-like prince who never expected to be heir, and a near-legendary Anglo-Saxon-esque king clash on the edge of a faerie-filled wood in an alt-world fantasy.
Thoughts: Kay's work continues to be gorgeous, although I have mixed feelings about this one. I'd started to feel disappointed, then was completely shocked out of the disappointment, and ended overall satisfied. But there are still elements that I find confusing or disappointing, which gives a lower score of an otherwise excellent book.
There were two different points in this book, once involving a growing love triangle and once involving an Iago-like villain, where I was convinced that I knew what was going to happen and was completely disappointed in Kay for failing me. The situations were set up to be a tired old retread. The villain, especially, was disappointing--most of Kay's characters are interesting people with complex motivations, and this one seemed to be straight from central casting for a bad mystery-thriller--the deformed sadist whose only motivation is to hurt people. After half a book of catching shadowy glimpses of the intimidating figure, to get in his head and find such banality was quite the let-down.
And yet just as I started to feel disgusted, Kay reverses each situation in an entirely unexpected and yet sensible way, completely renewing my faith in him. The subsequent situations are fresh and complicated, clearly improved by the flipping of the tired archetype. While the events are not happy ones, in both cases, I was delighted by the surprise.
Overall, the characters are rich, the political situation tangled, and the setting a slightly off-kilter version of a historical period that is both interesting and under-served in fantasy. (Kay's alternate histories follow the real world loosely, with magic staying out of the main action but dancing around the edges. He also seems to have a thing for two moons. Is the world of "The Last Light of the Sun" the same as "Under Heaven", I wonder?) Like other works, it follows some aspects of history startlingly closely (a passing reference to Aeldred burning cakes over a hearth fire is clearly a reference to a legend of Alfred the Great), but strikes out often enough on its own.
The ending is overall deeply satisfying, with the Viking raider Thorkell bringing his family full circle and the Gaelic prince discovering the origins of the green spirits that have haunted him all along.
There are bits that don't quite work for me, though. The timing, for one--at the beginning, the way that Thorkell's son is written about, I had figured that Thorkell had been gone for years. About halfway through the book, Kay becomes very adamant about the fact that Thorkell left less than a year ago. It doesn't make sense, emotionally. I actually wonder if he changed his mind halfway through writing and suddenly revised the timeline.
Alun and Kendra's sudden psychic link also does not make a great deal of sense--it seems to come from nowhere. Again, it feels like a plot device, as if Kay wanted to give Aeldred an ability to see what was going on among the Cyngaels, and this was the only way he could figure out how to tie everything together.
Finally, it's never made clear what Rhiannon's fate will be. It's heavily implied to be one thing, and then a few paragraphs from the end, Aeldred notes that that particular marriage is no longer necessary. Does she go through with it anyway? Find someone else? Her fate is too central to the book to be left hanging. Especially when we find out far too much about the fates of a dozen random characters who appear once to witness something or to provide a useful plot point. We then follow them through their lives for another three pages that have nothing to do with the plot, until they finally die, before we are released to go back to the main characters. It provides a certain amount of local flavor, but overall is unnecessary and a little irritating.
Still, despite the flaws, it's a deep, rich work with engaging characters I genuinely cared about. The mix of history and fantasy is a heady one, in Kay's hands.
Author: Guy Gavriel Kay
Genre: Historical fantasy (Viking/Gaelic/Anglo-Saxon base)
Thingummies: 4
Synopsis: The families of a disgraced Viking-esque raider, a Welsh-like prince who never expected to be heir, and a near-legendary Anglo-Saxon-esque king clash on the edge of a faerie-filled wood in an alt-world fantasy.
Thoughts: Kay's work continues to be gorgeous, although I have mixed feelings about this one. I'd started to feel disappointed, then was completely shocked out of the disappointment, and ended overall satisfied. But there are still elements that I find confusing or disappointing, which gives a lower score of an otherwise excellent book.
There were two different points in this book, once involving a growing love triangle and once involving an Iago-like villain, where I was convinced that I knew what was going to happen and was completely disappointed in Kay for failing me. The situations were set up to be a tired old retread. The villain, especially, was disappointing--most of Kay's characters are interesting people with complex motivations, and this one seemed to be straight from central casting for a bad mystery-thriller--the deformed sadist whose only motivation is to hurt people. After half a book of catching shadowy glimpses of the intimidating figure, to get in his head and find such banality was quite the let-down.
And yet just as I started to feel disgusted, Kay reverses each situation in an entirely unexpected and yet sensible way, completely renewing my faith in him. The subsequent situations are fresh and complicated, clearly improved by the flipping of the tired archetype. While the events are not happy ones, in both cases, I was delighted by the surprise.
Overall, the characters are rich, the political situation tangled, and the setting a slightly off-kilter version of a historical period that is both interesting and under-served in fantasy. (Kay's alternate histories follow the real world loosely, with magic staying out of the main action but dancing around the edges. He also seems to have a thing for two moons. Is the world of "The Last Light of the Sun" the same as "Under Heaven", I wonder?) Like other works, it follows some aspects of history startlingly closely (a passing reference to Aeldred burning cakes over a hearth fire is clearly a reference to a legend of Alfred the Great), but strikes out often enough on its own.
The ending is overall deeply satisfying, with the Viking raider Thorkell bringing his family full circle and the Gaelic prince discovering the origins of the green spirits that have haunted him all along.
There are bits that don't quite work for me, though. The timing, for one--at the beginning, the way that Thorkell's son is written about, I had figured that Thorkell had been gone for years. About halfway through the book, Kay becomes very adamant about the fact that Thorkell left less than a year ago. It doesn't make sense, emotionally. I actually wonder if he changed his mind halfway through writing and suddenly revised the timeline.
Alun and Kendra's sudden psychic link also does not make a great deal of sense--it seems to come from nowhere. Again, it feels like a plot device, as if Kay wanted to give Aeldred an ability to see what was going on among the Cyngaels, and this was the only way he could figure out how to tie everything together.
Finally, it's never made clear what Rhiannon's fate will be. It's heavily implied to be one thing, and then a few paragraphs from the end, Aeldred notes that that particular marriage is no longer necessary. Does she go through with it anyway? Find someone else? Her fate is too central to the book to be left hanging. Especially when we find out far too much about the fates of a dozen random characters who appear once to witness something or to provide a useful plot point. We then follow them through their lives for another three pages that have nothing to do with the plot, until they finally die, before we are released to go back to the main characters. It provides a certain amount of local flavor, but overall is unnecessary and a little irritating.
Still, despite the flaws, it's a deep, rich work with engaging characters I genuinely cared about. The mix of history and fantasy is a heady one, in Kay's hands.
