The Summer Tree

4.0 out of 5 stars

I have wanted try out Guy Gavriel Kay's work for quite a while but haven't known where to start. The collective wisdom I've seen says to skip his first books, a trilogy called The Fionavar Tapestry. They say that he hadn't quite found his voice yet and that the story plays as a cheap Lord of the Rings knock off. I didn't necessarily want to read his best novels first and be disappointed later on, so I ignored the advice and dove in at the beginning. I was pleased to find that this first book was quite compelling and enjoyable. Yes, it's a bit uneven and the similarities to Tolkien are present, but I set these things aside because I saw sparks of brilliant storytelling. The world building and character work are particularly strong.

At first the characters seem interchangeable (and weirdly unskeptical when a wizard offers to whisk them away to another world), but as the story unfolds, each character embarks on their own emotional journey and I'm fully invested in it. I look forward to seeing how it all plays out in the next two books and am excited to read his subsequent (supposedly better) work.

See this review and others at The Speculative Shelf.