Five-star archives: ‘The Lions of al-Rassan’ by Guy Gavriel Kay
I read this is 2011, as a follow-on to ‘Tigana’, and while it avoids the flaws of that work, it has a few all its own. I went on to read ‘A Song For Arbonne’, which I gave 4 stars, and haven’t read any Kay since. I do enjoy his work, but it is terribly over-wrought, and I have to get myself in the right frame of mind for it. My tastes nowadays veer more towards smaller, less ambitious tomes. Or perhaps just writing that doesn’t take itself quite so seriously. Well, this was a three Kleenex book and no mistake. That’s three boxes of Kleenex, of course. Not a book to read on public transport, unless you have no embarrassment gene. No one does grand tragedy quite like Kay. But I’m not totally sure what genre this is. It’s more fantasy than anything else, but the world-building is lifted […]