★★★☆☆ Second-hand Inkling

The Summer Tree

Guy Gavriel Kay

Guy Gavriel Kay writes historical fantasy. He doesn't like to be categorized, but he has borrowed the phrase "a quarter turn to the fantastic" to describe his work, so I think we're allowed to use it. I am a fan. I first discovered his Under Heaven series, which is about China, called Kitai in the novels. Under Heaven is brilliant.

GGK got his start editing J.R.R. Tolkien. When Christopher Tolkien started getting The Silmarillion ready for publication, he hired this young Canadian philosophy student, Guy Gavriel Kay, to assist him. Looking for more GGK, I picked up his debut novel, The Summer Tree.

The Summer Tree is not historical fantasy. GGK's Tolkien history shows. The Summer Tree is the first novel of the Fionavar Tapestry trilogy. I felt Tolkien's influence in the long flowery names containing lots of "L"s. But as I got into the story I was reminded more forcefully of another of the Inklings, C.S. Lewis. The story starts with five Toronto students, who get transported magically to a different world. It really felt like The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe without the overt Christianity, and with characters old enough to have sex. Tolkien showed up in the wizards and dwarves and elves (not always by those names, but come on, man, we can all guess what "alfar" means). Also, a horse people who live in a nation of plains near an enchanted forest -- Rohirrim, anyone?

It is not badly done, not at all. But the niff of second-hand Inkling was too much for me. I will not read any more of the Fionavar Tapestry.

The Summer Tree on Amazon

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