For me, the joy of reading Kay’s character studies is one of the biggest draws to his writing, and it’s true as ever here. There are many moments of transcendent joy to go with the pain and, probably most frequent of all, the confusion. Some of the more emotional books in the genre are side-eyed by many readers for being exhausting. We are taken deep into the characters’ psyches at both their highest and lowest moments. The emotional part is bittersweetly beautiful, enthralling and a touch epic.
Kay goes to some pains to make sure this story of secrets and lies is one of moral questions too he is careful not to let any one character’s opinion be an obviously unchallenged view and this is less a story of good vs evil than that of desires that cannot co-exist. There aren’t many battles but there is a steady diet of death assassination attempts, lone killings of traitors over in seconds, and yes, an occasional murder here and there. I use that term with thought although not total accuracy. I will be avoiding politics but it’s part politics, part spying and sneaking, and part messy murder. It’s a great intrigue plot, dripping with tension and mystery, full of great scenes where it seems like the characters are teetering on a knife’s edge. The adventure part is a whole lot of fun. On the other the processing of trauma, the struggle to maintain a whole sense of identity when every moment is trying to shatter it. On the one hand the adventure, the subtle scheming and sabotage against two tyrants far too grossly powerful to face with conventional force. Which is not a simple task, physically or emotionally.Īs such, there are two strands to this story, twin snakes around the heart. This small group, and a few others, want to reverse this spell and rescue their country and its heritage – and more. Only those born in Tigana before the spell – or another wizard – can hear it. Or rather, from what was Tigana for that country is no more, conquered and humiliated and it’s very name rendered unintelligible by an act of sorcery. What is Tigana? It’s a standalone story about a small group of people from Tigana, one of many small countries in a land conquered by two tyrants. Those are my favourite type of stories, and among those, Tigana is one of my favourites. And there are stories that try to perch on the apex of both, to have their cake and eat it. Feeling love, feeling lost, feeling change, and so on. There are stories that function most about characters feeling something.
Catching criminals, fighting, shagging, what have you. There are stories that function most about characters doing something.
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