First Guy Gavriel Kay Novel . . . Bad? | —————— | Book Review

TIGANA. This is a book that I picked up, not because of the book itself, but because of the author. Guy Gavriel Kay is a widely recognized author in the booktube space, especially for his prose. Not only this, but he writes fantasy standalones, and the lack of commitment is less intimidating. But what is this book actually about? Tigana is about a particular principality in a peninsula that seeks to liberate itself from a sorcerer's curse. The name of their province has been stripped away, from people's minds, from history, from everything. Whenever the name is spoken, it is simply not heard by those who were not born there before the spell was cast. In the Afterword, Kay compares this to the communist attempts to erase certain figures from history. There are the famous (or infamous) examples of photos that have been edited to remove figures who have been deleted from Soviet history books. In Kay's eyes, there is more to human loss than suffering. People can be unpersoned; their names can be taken away and forgotten by history. And this must also be talked about.

Right from the outset, this was a fascinating novel concept. I was especially excited that this was the one I picked up. So let's get started to see what I thought.

General Picture

In a way, this book was a wild ride, eliciting a wide range of emotional responses from me. But not in the way that you would think. This book started out in a way that was completely baffling. There were confusing structural decisions that were quite simply strange from a writing perspective, and I was already coming up with aggressive critiques. As the story moved on, the story began to make more sense, and the reader side of me could forgive those mishaps. The middle section of the story was bogged down in rambling and sections that seemed disconnected, almost like short stories, even. Other parts were covering so much ground that I was simultaneously thinking that Kay was spinning his wheels and covering too much space in too little time. It wasn't until I reached the end that the reader side of me got excited. The threads started to come together, and the climax was actually incredibly exciting. That's the general picture.

Structural

Worldbuilding I

This book suffers for a number of structural reasons, the first of which is worldbuilding. The worldbuilding, in and of itself, is honestly not bad. My main critique applies to the beginning of the novel, namely how certain elements of the story are introduced to the story—and I think this has a profound implication on the story as a whole. It explains why I felt so baffled in the beginning. And it will also help account for at least one other problem that I have not mentioned yet.

First, this is an almost inconsequential statement, yeet the prologue.

As for the important criticisms, I have to lay out some of the worldbuilding here. There are two sorcerers that have taken over the peninsula where this book is set. This peninsula is known as "the Palm." The sorcerers come from separate empires, and they each have their own ends in mind; consequently, the principalities that make up the Palm have been apportioned between the two of them. For the last two decades, the politics of the region has largely been reduced to these sorcerers squaring off between one another; the actual people who live there are simply under their bootheels.

But as I described above, one of the principalities has suffered under a curse by one of these sorcerers. Tigana has had its name stripped from it during the original conquest, because one of the Princes there was responsible for the death of the sorcerer's son. This sorcerer is named Brandin. The other is Alberico.

Going in, the reader might imagine that this book would be set in the principality that was once Tigana. In the text, it is now Lower Corte, named after the principality just north, its centuries-long enemy. But this is not how the book is set. In fact, the story opens in another principality entirely. We learn about the norms, the politics, and the leaders of Astibar, instead. Not only this, but Astibar is not under the rule of Brandin, it is under the rule of Alberico. Remember, Brandin is the sorcerer that is responsible for the crime of stripping Tigana's name.

This underlies all of the problems of the beginning.

In the first part of the story, there are a number of characters in Astibar who are working together in a scheme behind the eyes of Alberico. I spent the whole beginning of the story learning about Alberico. We learn about the people that he is oppressing, some more intimately than others. And this is just the beginning of the narrative, so I am still putting together the pieces of the story in the first place.

The left turn came when I learned that Alberico is the other sorcerer, not the one who stripped the name of Tigana. There are characters that make the point that Alberico can't be ignored, and this is fine, but I'm not arguing that he should be ignored; I'm saying that he should take a back seat to Brandin. This is all bound up with an awkward introduction of the main plot. After living in Astibar, after learning about them and their plights and their plots against Alberico, the story takes a sudden left turn. All that careful build up I've read for that last hundred or so pages is not actually the main plot. Get ready for the real plot: Tigana and Brandin. The reader is supposed to feel bad about Tigana and what they've suffered, but Tigana is just a random place in the world, at this point. All of this felt very emotionally shallow.

It is not until we get to the second part of the story, where we are introduced to Dianora and Brandin, that we actually start to grasp the broader scope of the Palm, and also what Brandin has done to Tigana. This is where the story starts to get interesting. But it is too late. It almost reminds me of those shoehorned flashbacks that readers often get in manga that are completely out of place. I didn't care about the stakes when the events were happening, and when the flashback comes, I just wonder why it hadn't come sooner. Are you supposed to retroactively feel things now?

Worldbuilding II

It is pretty obvious what should have happened in the story to fix this. A simple fix is to put Dianora's section first, and then follow that with the section in Astibar. This would only be a light edit. But I also guess that starting the story with Dianora would be unconventional. The actual protagonist is Devin, and the members of his party in Astibar, so they have to come first. Another problem is the jarring shift from Dianora over to Devin. The shift works better the way it is in the books because Brandin is named in the first part, and then we get to see him up close in the second part.

The more radical change that needs to happen is probably obvious, as well. The setting of the first part needs to be changed from Astibar to Lower Corte (or Tigana). Here, we get to learn about the shell that is Lower Corte today. We get to see the material consequences the city has suffered, as well as the spiritual, given the stripping of the name. In the actual story, the bland protagonist that is Devin (we'll get to that) is brought outside of Lower Corte while he was still young, but in the revised story, he could have actual memories there, after Brandin's wrath. In fact, if he were unable to hear the name "Tigana" because he was born too late, that would be a nice touch. His motivations would have to differ from the others, and be more heavily weighted on the material consequences that Tigana has suffered, as opposed to the spiritual loss of the name, but his motivations are weak in the story anyway. This would also help create contrast and flesh out the characters.

The story can then move to Astibar later in the plot to introduce those people and Alberico as an additional foe to be dealt with. The idea that you can't ignore one sorcerer for the other can be preserved.

Exposition and Side Quests

One of the reasons I wanted to read this book is because it is a standalone. But I read this and I am left wondering if the story could have been longer. Maybe not. I just want to throw that idea out there. That aside, the main thing I want to consider is how this story balanced exposition versus side quests.

I said in the beginning of this review that the story felt like it was spinning its wheels and covering too much space all at once. In the instances where the wheels are just left to spin, the characters were going on what seemed like side quests at the time. I was often left questioning why the characters were even in a particular location in the first place. And oftentimes, the reason is simply to meet someone, but the page count is padded out to add in a bunch of random and pointless scenes that serve no purpose. At another point, we had a side character who branches out and helps a number of farmers who encounter magic on a chance meeting. The scene, the entire chapter, was incredibly strange. And while there is an answer by the end, I kept asking myself the entire time, why is this here? This section almost felt like a short story that simply took place in that world, nothing more—at least until the end. Why was it a chance meeting? There was nothing purposeful about the lead up to their encounter, which makes the final battle seem very different.

There was also a lot of exposition. Much of the exposition covers the intrigue that takes place, especially from Alberico's end. Either that, or the intrigue that happens in the beginning is unrelated to the main plot. They debate and scheme over who should be appointed where in Brandin's Court, but at the end of the day, much of this is irrelevant. Political intrigue only feels exhilarating when it actually embodies the plot itself. The characters should maneuver around each other, and the plot itself is these movements. But a lot of this story is questing and sexing with exposition dumps about political intrigue, which wasn't that cool. At least until the end.

There are also a lot of time jumps, which can be fine, and are expected in a standalone, but I felt like this book lost the ability to connect me to some of the characters. We are told about them, about who they are, about what their nature is, but we don't really see it throughout the story. In fact, there are entire sections of the story where some characters just disappear from the page because they are somewhere else, I guess. I don't know.

The combination of these two things makes me think the story could be rewritten in a way that actually endears us to the characters, includes more intrigue into the plot itself, and ties in the seemingly random side quests so that they are actually cohesive.

It All Comes Together

The story does come together in the end. In multiple ways, in fact. The seeming side quest resulting from a chance encounter is tied into the end in a very significant manner. I cannot say that it was irrelevant. But the fact that it was so important only makes the set up more baffling. But put that to the side.

The plot of the story starts to find legs in the last third of the book. I was beginning to learn more about the plans that the characters were putting forth; indeed, I was beginning to realize that they actually had plans, lol. Of course, I'm exaggerating, but either way, I do want to emphasize that I really started to change my tune on the story once I reached the end. From a reader's perspective, I was actually really satisfied. As a writer, I would tear the beginning and the middle apart for all of their problems, but the end was genuinely gripping. I don't think I would change a thing about the final few chapters.

This story almost felt like a frayed strand of yarn. We start with the frayed end, and slowly move toward a tidy ending, where all of the frayed edges come together. Maybe you'll like that.

Characters

The characters are rather interesting, overall. I mean this in the sense that some are, in fact, interesting, while others fall completely flat on their face. I think Dianora is by far the most interesting character in the book, alongside Brandin, actually. Alessan is another strong character. There are some interesting connections made with characters like Baerd, and there is another character that I can't even mention because of spoilers. Unfortunately, the latter is underutilized save for the very end of the story. The most bland character in the story is the main one: Devin. I honestly don't know what purpose he serves or why he is even there. In the beginning, there was actually a sense of humor about him. But even that seemed to be lost rather quickly. I guess he's just there to ground the reader? And in ways that are more embarrassing than the standard self-insert farmboy character trope (We'll get to that).

Dianora and her connection and schemes against Brandin bring out the most complexity in the story. This is the peak of Kay's writing. On the other hand, there are other character interactions, like Alessan's relationship that just came out of nowhere. In this case, this is the nadir of Kay's writing. Dianora's backstory with her brother is also strong and disturbing. Everything else falls somewhere in between.

Weird Voyeuristic Sex Shit

Before I move on to the discussion of the themes, I want to discuss one aspect of the story that was just strange and caught me off-guard. And that was the sex scenes. Now, I don't mind sex scenes in books. I'm actually a defender of GRRM when it comes to his sex scenes; people often criticize them because they are often not titillating, but this is precisely why I prefer his scenes. His scenes prioritize the character writing over the voyeuristic element that some readers froth at the mouth for; some of his scenes are just outright uncomfortable. But again, that is the point. Sex can be many things, and so he depicts it in all its complexity.

In contrast, Kay has countless voyeuristic sex scenes in the sense that they serve no purpose save to titillate. I swear to god, there is one part of the story where they meet up with a woman who is gorgeous to behold, and she decides to sex it up with Devin one night. There is no reason for this. They tie each other up in bed and do a bunch of freaky shit, and . . .

Why?

And that's just one scene. In the beginning, a virgin woman fucks a guy in order to distract him, hoping he would not be able to listen in on a conversation; they are hiding behind a secret door at the time. But the logistics of this made no sense. Were they making no sound? How would they not be heard? Kay tries to add character complexity later, but this was just stupid. Later in the story, one male character told another that he loved him, and I was fully prepared for them to strip and fuck right there. But in that case, it turned out it was brotherly love. I was primed otherwise. I blame Kay.

But I guess he presaged the Romantasy nadir of the 2020s that we're currently smothered by. Except it's a male version, because these people are just hooking up. That's it.

Intrigue

I already talked about how the intrigue was mostly exposition. We did not get to see it unfold with the plot over time. There was one exception, and that was at the very beginning. And I have to say that the execution of this was profoundly incompetent. A plan fails for no reason other than the fact that a building was not carefully searched and/or guarded. You would think this is an obvious step, but apparently not. This was just annoying. I called it "fake intrigue" in my notes.

Themes I

The main theme of this story, that a people need a name to be remembered by, is interesting. Connecting Stalin's practice of unpersoning people to the stripping of Tigana's name is also interesting. But I think this story is lacking in execution. I think what makes Stalin's idea of unpersoning so terrifying is that it also covers up the material crimes that were committed. In the case of this book, Kay should have emphasized the material crimes first and foremost, arguing that acknowledging Tigana as an identity is the only way to acknowledge and/or understand them. In the book, we don't learn all that much about the current state of Tigana. The city seems to be shunted to the side, almost like showing it in any capacity defeats the purpose of the novel's theme. This was the wrong idea. Fixing the plot like I discussed would address this problem for the most part.

The second step would have to do with how the theme is talked about. Basically, there needs to be a false history. There needs to be an understanding of why Lower Corte (Tigana) is as destitute as it is today, and this needs to be a cover for the real reason. Maybe Kay does not need to come up with an elaborate (false) history. Maybe he can emphasize how people take for granted the current state of affairs. What matters is that Kay does none of it, because he barely talks about Tigana's material state at all; indeed, he barely even depicts it in the first place.

Themes II

One of the strengths of the story is how the themes that it discusses become more complex as the story continues on. I can't actually talk about most of the specifics if only because it becomes a bit spoilery. They involve relationships and compassion, which I found to be surprising but also refreshing. I went into the story thinking the story would go in one direction, but it landed in a much more complex way.

That said, some of the discussions seemed a bit one-sided. There were debates between characters over whether their lives were bearable under the rule of the sorcerers and whether it was worth taking the risk to break down order. Kay said in the Afterword that this was supposed to be an actual debate, but the way he characterized it in the Afterword was different from how it was debated in the book, and I think the difference made one side more obviously right. In the Afterword, it was a debate over safety versus freedom, with a dose of risk thrown in. Which is a common debate. In the book, one side was reduced to arguing that he was "free" under the sorcerers' rule, not that he was safer, which is a different thing entirely. And there was even a scene where a character dismissed him out of hand, simply because he thought he was beyond argument at that point. At no point did I think there was an actual conversation that I was supposed to consider.

Ending

The ending only has one disappointing element in it. There is a character who should have died. I will say no more. Other than that, I think this novel sticks the landing perfectly. Kay manages to make all of the loose threads relevant by tying them into the plot at the most pivotal moment in the story, and I would be lying if I said I was not impressed. When you have complex feelings about the way events are unfolding, then you know the author is doing something right.

Conclusion

Overall, this novel was a bit of a mess. The opening was baffling, the middle section was rambling and tedious, but it all came together into a satisfying climax. All of this said, I don't rate books on their endings alone. I think this novel could have been much stronger if it had avoided the problems that I discussed. I think I will give this a 4.5/10.

Video: https://youtu.be/44Wp1qyyJzw