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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Dacileva" data-source="post: 1214125" data-attributes="member: 12957">As with several responses in this thread, this one contains SPOILERS.  Don't read unless you're done with the book, or don't mind spoilers.I did like it, rather a lot.  It was engrossing, interesting, well-crafted, genuine, and it felt somehow important.  Kay has a way with language that feels both archaic and organic.  At risk of comparison, it seems like some of the lingual tricks McKiernan was attempting in Dragondoom were things that Kay does naturally in Tigana.I have read the Fionavar Tapestry, by Kay, and deeply enjoyed it.  It is, IMO, easily the best treatment of the "real world people drawn into fantasy world" trope that I've ever read.  Tigana was something I'd looked at several times, but never brought myself to read it until you picked it for the Club.  That said, I think I liked Tigana actually more than the Fionavar Tapestry.  This is what low-magic fantasy should be like.  As for reading more of his works, I'm probably going to try to pick up Sailing to Sarantium once I'm done with my current crop of books (Pattern Recognition, of course, and Quicksilver and Ilium, among others).It certainly had what you mention, but these aren't the elements in most fantasy RPG campaigns that I enjoy.  When you mentioned this, I started thinking about it, and realized that the overarching meta-plot would be far too restrictive, in my opinion, and the conflicts seemed a bit too limited to single characters.  Perhaps in a play-by-post or play-by-email, sure, but not a standard face-to-face game.  I prefer to create the world's situation, and let the meta-plots and motivations build organically out of the characters' individual and collective actions and desires.Oddly enough, I think my favorite character was Brandin, as some others have mentioned.  Dianora was interesting, and I was somewhat drawn to her, but her choices of love over duty and honor, while important for Alessan's eventual goals, felt more like weaknesses of conviction on her part, and demeaned her love for Baerd.  Lest anyone think that I disapprove of her because of the incest issue, I might point out that, in the period of history on which Tigana is very, very loosely based, incest had a far smaller stigma than it does today, and most royal families of Europe were very convoluted and insular, including many incestuous relationships.  I was taking it in that light, so my distaste for Dianora is solely on her shoulders.Brandin, on the other hand, is always faithful to himself, and his desires.  The whole point of the book, the spell on Tigana, is based in his deep passion for his son, and his grief at his son's loss.  This is an emotion I can understand, honestly.  Sure, it was an overreaction, but it was there.  Given some of the things other people said about the Tiganans, also, showed me that some of the stereotypes about them were justified: arrogance and superiority.  Brandin even shows that, after twenty years' time, while he preserves the spell, he actually starts to regret the necessity of his actions.  He seemed the most human, and sympathetic, character of them all.A close second would be, as someone else mentioned, Sandre.  He had more growth in himself and as a character throughout the book than anyone, as evidenced by the contrast between his treatment of his son, and his actions with regards to Catriana in Senzio.I found this book almost difficult to read, despite how easy it was to keep turning the pages, and how much it almost forced me to keep reading.  Kay has an interesting ability: I felt sympathy for absolutely everyone in this book...  So it was difficult to decide, sometimes, which person in any given conflict I felt strongest for.  Conflicts between sympathetic characters can be very heart-wrenching, and while that was emotionally draining, I deeply enjoyed it, since it encouraged my feeling of realism.</blockquote>

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