I have no guilt at all in telling the ending, because you didn't need to be a seer to sense that coming when you started the book. Like so many other books of this type, the ending is not as important as how we get there. In The Fionavar Tapestry, Guy Gavriel Kay has spun an epic composed of a variety of threads.
Themes, characters, humour, pathos, romantic idealism, and stories out of earth's history are interwoven to create a rich and diverse work of fantasy. Good versus evil is a well-worn theme, a path trodden by writers since man first set pen to parchment. For an author the trick than is to find the means to change the scenery, or put new twists in the road, in order to captivate the reader.
This is exactly what Kay manages. At times it would appear that he has gone too far in his attempts to add colour, but he has an innate instinct telling him when enough is enough, and we are returned to the action of the plot. His characters may seem at first blush to tend towards the cliché, but as the stories develop so do they, ensuring that we care about what happens to them.
Well written and deftly characterized, The Fionavar Tapestry has proven enduring enough that it has become one of my "must read on a regular basis" books. If you are a lover of the fantastical, you owe it to yourself to at least read these books once. I must warn you though, there is the danger of them becoming habit-forming.
Edited: PC
Article comments
1 - johnboy
Interesting you didn't draw similarities with the Silmarillion.
I read the books thinking all the way how stylistically similar I thought they were.
Only when I got to the end did I notice Kay's involvement.
OK so I prefer to know the work before i check out the author.