A review by monotasker
The Summer Tree by Guy Gavriel Kay

3.0

I really wanted to like this book more. Kay's prose is head and shoulders above most of what one puts up with in fantasy novels, even if it feels a bit self-conscious and overworked in places. Kay has also imagined a very rich world and his plot is full of satisfying ironies, with just the right mix of tragedy and hope. My main frustration is simply that he rushes so quickly from one world-shattering event to the next that the reader doesn't have the proper time to absorb them. If George R. R. Martin is guilty of stringing minor plot points out into 500 page novels, Kay's trilogy has the opposite problem. While Martin may give me an ulcer waiting for something to happen, I come to know and love (or hate) his characters along the way. So when something does happen (however minor) I care deeply. In these books, though, Kay gives us so little time to walk alongside his characters that when one is caught up in yet another cataclysmic event I just don't care. I end up feeling like I'm reading the plot outline for a really great book. My hope is that this was a symptom of Kay's lack of experience when he wrote the Fionavar trilogy, and I'm looking forward to reading some of his later work.