Tigana

Executive Summary: An enjoyable stand-alone fantasy book that is a little uneven in places but really brings shades of gray to the characters and the story.Audio book: Simon Vance seems like the perfect reader for this book. I first encountered him as part of the great ensemble readers for [b:Dune 234225 Dune (Dune Chronicles, #1) Frank Herbert https://d202m5krfqbpi5.cloudfront.net/books/1349105964s/234225.jpg 3634639]. I don't recall any particular voices of note, however. He does do Scottish accents for folks from “The Highlands”. Overall I think he does an excellent job that is a good fit for the tone of the story.Full ReviewThis book is a case study in shades of grey. It came out in 1990, 6 years before [b:A Game of Thrones 13496 A Game of Thrones (A Song of Ice and Fire, #1) George R.R. Martin https://d202m5krfqbpi5.cloudfront.net/books/1369520317s/13496.jpg 1466917] and 9 years before [b:Gardens of the Moon 55399 Gardens of the Moon (The Malazan Book of the Fallen, #1) Steven Erikson https://d202m5krfqbpi5.cloudfront.net/books/1355144064s/55399.jpg 2646042] which are the oldest fantasy fiction that I've read that do an excellent job of this. There are probably others I'm just not aware of, but both of those titles are what came to mind for me.Perspective is everything. Good and Bad are subjective. The guy who looks bad in chapter 1 may look less so when you see things from him point of view, or of that of someone near him.While this book doesn't go quite to the extremes of the previously mentioned novels it does add a lot of depth and complexity to its characters simply by letting you see them from different perspectives. Is revenge justified for horrible acts? Is achieving that revenge for your family and your home worth any cost? What's in a name? How important is it for history to remember the names and people who came before? These are just some of the questions posed in this book.There is a lot of depth here that made this an enjoyable read for me. The language is very flowery though, and that may be a turn off to some readers. It's also a little slow in places. Part two was a struggle for me, and pretty much ruined any shot this book had at 5 stars which all but like 1 or 2 of my friends seemed to have given this book. That's a lot of hype to live up to.While I don't seem to share their same sense of love for this book, it has one thing that is hard to find these days. It's a stand alone novel. In a world overrun with sequels and long fantasy series, over 20 years later and this book still stands alone.Now the ending is open enough to allow for a sequel, but I still found it satisfying and I'm not about to start/join a petition for the author to write another book. Some things are best left alone.Overall, this was an enjoyable read and one that I think is well suited to group reads as there is much worth discussing.