Focus on Guy Gavriel Kay
October 13th, 2006 by Alan Chudnow
Guy Gavriel Kay is one of Canada’s most acclaimed fantasy writers. His work has been the subject of a number of scholarly reviews and is taught in universities from Canada to Singapore. He began his writing career working with Christopher Tolkien editing J.R.R. Tolkien’s central work of mythology, The Silmarillion (George Allen and Unwin, London, 1977).
Kay’s work can be classified as historically influenced fantasy. Skillfully drawing on what he learned working on the Tolkien classic, Kay creates fictional realms that are unique and fully realized, drawing recognizably on the culture and folklore of pre-christian and medieval times.
His most celebrated books to date are the highly acclaimed Tigana (Penguin/Roc, 1990) and his epic debut work The Fionavar Trilogy: The Summer Tree (McClelland & Stewart, 1984), The Wandering Fire (Collins Canada, 1986) and The Darkest Road (Collins Canada, 1986). Both The Wandering Fire and Tigana won the Canadian SF and Fantasy Association’s Aurora Award.
My personal favorite is A Song for Arbonne (Viking Canada, 1992) which is a truly absorbing, sweeping tale of love and politics based on the troubadours and the traditions of Courtly Love in medieval France.
Writing for the Easton Press edition of Tigana, part of the ‘masterpieces of fantasy’ series, noted author and professor James Gunn writes
“Kay has imagined [his world] with an intensity of imagination and a skill that rivals Tolkien’s. Moreover, he has created a world in which lust and rape happen, in which torture, murder, mutilation, and execution occur routinely, in which people die bodily and painfully in battle, in which homosexuality involving both sexes is commonplace, and even incest is not unknown. Kay surprises his readers by his willingness to kill off major characters, even his most attractive ones, and this, too, gives the edge of reality to what might otherwise be airily fantastic.”
In January of 2005 Warner Brothers announced plans to turn Kay’s The Lions of Al-Rassan (Viking Canada, 1995), set during the Christian re-conquest of Moorish Spain, into a major motion picture. If done well, it should serve to drive up the popularity and desirability of his work. His next novel, Ysabel, is due out in 2007.
Collecting Kay is not difficult though some copies of the First Edition of The Summer Tree and Tigana have topped the $100.00 mark. A quick search of abebook.com show over 550 Firsts listed. Searching for The Summer Tree, First Edition w/dust cover yielded a handful of copies in the $55.00 – $65.00 range. A couple were even cheaper. A little patience should reward the diligent collector with opportunities to assemble a nice collection of Kay books in acceptable shape.
Here is a check list of Kay’s books to date:
Fionavar Tapestry series
- The Summer Tree (1984)
- The Wandering Fire (1986)
- The Darkest Road (1986)
Sarantine Mosaic series
- Sailing to Sarantium (1998)
- Lord of Emperors (2000)
Novels
- Tigana (1990)
- A Song for Arbonne (1992)
- The Lions of Al-Rassan (1995)
- The Last Light of the Sun (2003)
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Update 10/16/06: I received a very nice note from Mr. Kay expressing his appreciation for the above and providing information on further works of which I was unaware. Missing from my list is a collection of Mr. Kay’s poetry titled Beyond This Dark House (2003 Penguin Canada), which the author describes as being bound as quite a beautiful hardcover.
In addition to the above, a collector wishing to own the entire collected works of G.G. Kay should include a number of radio plays written by the author, based on major criminal trials in Canadian history. They appear in both the first and second volumes of The Scales Of Justice. Publication of these books seems to have been limited to Canada.
