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May's Author of the Month: GUY GAVRIEL KAY

Saturday, Apr 30, 2016 at 3:19pm

Born in Weyburn and raised in Winnipeg, Guy Gavriel Kay is a master of historical fantasy. His work has been translated into more than twenty-five languages with global sales approaching three million copies. Kay is the recipient of the International Goliardos Prize for his contributions to the literature of the fantastic, and in 2014 he was named to the Order of Canada for his “outstanding contributions to the field of speculative fiction.”

In his latest novel, Children of Earth and Sky, Kay evokes a world inspired by the conflicts and dramas of Renaissance Europe.

With clouds of war looming on the horizon, a young woman sets out from a small coastal town to find vengeance for her lost family, while two very different people — a young artist purportedly on his way to paint the grand khalif at his request and a fiercely intelligent woman posing as a doctor's wife — set out from the wealthy city-state of Seressa.

Against a background of uncertainty and tumult, their fates — and the fates of many others — unfold on the borderlands where empires and faiths collide in Kay's latest spell-binding epic of historical fantasy.

Join us for the launch of Children of Earth and Sky, happening in Saskatoon on May 12 and in Winnipeg on May 15.

Categories: Authors, Saskatoon, Winnipeg

More articles from books

See:

Beyond This Dark House

- Guy Gavriel Kay

Trade paperback $20.00
Reader Reward Price: $18.00

Before Guy Gavriel Kay became known for his groundbreaking works of speculative fiction, establishing himself as one of the world's most respected writers in that genre, he was an accomplished poet, his work appearing in major literary journals such as The Antigonish Review and Prism. Through the years, while writing his dramatic international bestsellers, Kay has continued to quietly explore the paths and boundaries of poetry as well.

Now for the first time, Guy Gavriel Kay's poetry has been gathered and selected for publication. For those familiar with his fiction, the poems in Beyond This Dark House will resonate for their linguistic and emotional nuances and their mythological allusions, echoing and illuminating themes of his fiction.

But readers of contemporary poetry will also be captivated by the exquisite craft and power of these poems. Some are ironic and austere, slyly tracing the interplay of writer and world, present and past; others are sensual, even erotic, charting the mercurial but abiding nature of passion-in love, in language, in history.

Wandering Fire

- Guy Gavriel Kay

Trade paperback $14.99
Reader Reward Price: $13.49

In the second novel of Kay's critically acclaimed trilogy, Fionavar is locked in an unnaturally prolonged winter while anancient evil, freed from captivity, threatens the destiny of the first world and all others, including our own.

The Summer Tree

- Guy Gavriel Kay

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Reader Reward Price: $13.49

In the first volume of Guy Gavriel Kay's classic trilogy The Fionavar Tapestry, five Toronto university students encounter a man who will change their lives, taking them from our world to discover their roles in an epic war looming in the first of all the worlds: Fionavar.

Fionavar Tapestry Omnibus

- Guy Gavriel Kay

Trade paperback $34.99
Reader Reward Price: $31.49

In the three novels that make up the Fionavar Tapestry trilogy collected in this omnibus edition (The Summer Tree, The Wandering Fire, and The Darkest Road), five University of Toronto students find themselves transported to a magical land to do battle with the forces of evil. At a Celtic conference, Kimberley, Kevin, Jennifer, Dave, and Paul meet wizard Loren Silvercloak. Returning with him to the magical kingdom of Fionavar to attend a festival, they soon discover that they are being drawn into the conflict between the dark and the light as Unraveller Rakoth Maugrim breaks free of his mountain prison and threatens the continued existence of Fionavar. They join mages, elves, dwarves, and the forces of the High King of Brennin to do battle with Maugrim, where Kay's imaginative powers as a world-builder come to the fore. He stunningly weaves Arthurian legends into the fluid mix of Celtic, Nordic, and Teutonic, creating a grand fantasy that sweeps readers into a heroic struggle that the author makes all the more memorable because of the tributes he pays to past masters. The trilogy is a grand homage to J.R.R. Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings, but while the echoes of Tolkien's masterwork are very real, the books offer the wonderful taste of a new fantasy writer cutting his teeth at the foot of a master. Kay has a very real connection to Tolkien--as Christopher Tolkien's assistant, Kay was invaluable in helping to wrestle Tolkien's posthumous The Silmarillion into shape for publication. Kay is undoubtedly one of the Canadian masters of high fantasy, and The Fionavar Tapestry is one of his most enduring works. Readers, however, should also check out Kay's Tigana, A Song for Arbonne, The Lions of Al-Rassan, and The Sarantine Mosaic to truly experience a master at work. --Jeffrey Canton