Subject: Tigana

From: [email-masked] (Dani Zweig)
Date: 13 Nov 90 00:25:15 GMT

"Tigana", by Guy Gavriel Kay, is set in a small land which was conquered
and partitioned by two rival invaders.  Now, a generation later, a plot to
free that land is unfolding.  It is a plot which must unseat both the
invaders, because if one falls, there will remain no check on the power of
the other.

The most informative way to evaluate this book might be to compare it to
Kay's previous work:  The Fionavar Tapestry.  I'd rate Tigana as being a
bit better crafted, albeit a bit less fun to read.  The Fionavar Tapestry
was High Fantasy, with Great Doings, Great Magics, and the Fate of the
Multiverse at stake.  The scope of Tigana is far more limited.  What is at
stake is the political and cultural future of one isolated land -- and it
turns out that viable and honorable alternatives to the plot do exist,
relatively small magics are used, and then only seldom, there are few Great
Doings, and such battles as are fought are fought largely off-stage.

Rather, and to a far greater extent than in The Fionavar Tapestry, the focus
is on the characters:  how they develop, what conquest does to them, what
rebellion does to them.  Such a focus doesn't make for as *exciting* a book
but it makes for one which is almost as good.  Four stars out of five.

-----
Dani Zweig
[email-masked] 

   'T is with our judgements as our watches, none
   Go alike, yet each believes his own
		--Alexander Pope