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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Sam" data-source="post: 1202275" data-attributes="member: 1024">WARNING - THERE ARE SOME SPOILERS BELOW.  IF YOU HAVEN'T FINISHED TIGANA, STOP READING NOW!  I think we've beaten up on Dragondoom enough, but I can't say enough how much of a contrast in quality Tigana was to the last selection of this book club. I loved Tigana.  I was very glad when JoeBlank selected it for this month's discussion.  Kay is an author that I have always tremendously enjoyed.  The strange thing is, for someone who has always delivered, I don't search out his other works. I'm going to change that by putting his books that I haven't read, A Song for Arbonne and The Lions of Al-Rassan on my reading list. I've read The Fionavar Trilogy (and loved the way he subtely weaved it into the mythos of Tigana as the "true world").  The Sarantine Mosaic was also excellent.   Kay does a great job of creating these quasi-historical settings and bringing them to life.  I am not a great student of history, but Kay brings these worlds out in a compelling fashion and provides a rich background for the story to develop.  In all of his novels, the geography and history become a huge part of the story.   Tigana was a book that I really enjoyed reading.  I mean, I enjoyed the act of reading it.  Many books are good books and are good reads because you want to see how the story progresses.  In Tigana, I liked reading it just to see what was written.  His phrasing and simple use of word structures was wonderful.  The last time I remember enjoying the act of reading so much was with some Hemmingway books.  I'm a bit pressed for time this morning, but when I get some time I will post some short excerpts that highlight this point.I'm not a huge fan of forcing all stories and characters into a D&D mold.  There are stories and setting that just don't lend themselves well to D&D or d20.  Besides, I don't want to be sub-consiously converting story elements into D&D terms while reading a book.  I'd much rather try to enjoy the book as the author intended.  Dinaora is an interesting character.  I started off pitying her, then my opinion of her changed and I view her as someone who was a traitor.  I saw her as someone who abandoned her ideals and goal; as someone who justified her abondonment as just never having the right opportunity yet.  Towards the end I started to admire her.  I suppose that coincided somewhat with Kay's humanization of Brandin.   I really liked Baerd and Alessan.  I don't really have anything negative to say about them.  I found them compelling characters and thought you could feel the pain within their hearts over the loss of their homeland.  I thought that was most evident when Alessan bound Erlein to his service.  The loss of Erlein's freedom was abhorrent (both to me as a reader, and to Alessan), but the act itself, along with Alessan's pain, futher explained the hole in these men's hearts at the loss of Tigana.  Devin was a great character, though he didn't seem as compelling as Baerd and Allessan.  Perhaps that is because Kay is using him as a main narrative force in the story.  I would have like to hear more about Catriana, Sandre and Marius, but I suppose that is the mark of a good story.  You always want to know more about the characters. Great website.  I didn't know about it until today.  Thanks for the link! In both the Sarantine Mosaic and Tigana, Kay makes the life of an artisan a key focus of the story.  In the Sarantine Mosaic, the main character was an artist who created mosaics in temples and palaces.  In Tigana, they are musicians.  In each area he brings an incredible amount of detail to the story, creating a very immersive environment.  In Tigana there were a couple of points where I wished I could have heard Devin singing, as the description was so incredible.  Anyone share this thought? Another question I have for people is: How did Tigana make you feel?  It's a great story, but more than that, what did it make you think?  I found the communal ache of the main characters at the loss of their homeland and thier history striking. Futher, I think that it was actually the loss of the history that was more painful than the loss of the homeland itself.  Their actions and dialoge makes me think that they are more upset at the general inability of people to realize what Tigana was than at the fact that it is no more.  Do you agree?  Disagree?  Did you come away with a different feeling?</blockquote>

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