A Brightness Long Ago

This is the latest of Guy Gavriel Kay's historical fantasy novels set in his slightly alternative Europe. It shares the same not quite Venice and other Italian city states as his previous book, Children Of Earth And Sky, and actually slyly leads directly into that book if you're paying attention. You don't need to have read the others, but there'll be a few nice touches like this you'll miss out on if you haven't. There's no overarching plot as such, more a study of several characters as they orbit each other around a series of set pieces. One of his favourite motifs is the mosaic, and that's how this book works - something going on here, then something else over there, all combining to form one overall picture. It's exquisitely written, as you'd expect from Kay, and never less than completely believable or evocative, with some wonderful characterisation. I've long held that GGK is the best contemporary fantasy writer, and while this is perhaps not quite up there with The Lions of Al-Rassan or the Sarantium books, it's still head and shoulders above pretty much every other fantasy novel that'll be published this year.

Merged review:

This is the latest of Guy Gavriel Kay's historical fantasy novels set in his slightly alternative Europe. It shares the same not quite Venice and other Italian city states as his previous book, Children Of Earth And Sky, and actually slyly leads directly into that book if you're paying attention. You don't need to have read the others, but there'll be a few nice touches like this you'll miss out on if you haven't. There's no overarching plot as such, more a study of several characters as they orbit each other around a series of set pieces. One of his favourite motifs is the mosaic, and that's how this book works - something going on here, then something else over there, all combining to form one overall picture. It's exquisitely written, as you'd expect from Kay, and never less than completely believable or evocative, with some wonderful characterisation. I've long held that GGK is the best contemporary fantasy writer, and while this is perhaps not quite up there with The Lions of Al-Rassan or the Sarantium books, it's still head and shoulders above pretty much every other fantasy novel that'll be published this year.