Rating: 
Summary: I dream of Sarantium!
Review: Yet again, Kay draws me inexorably into his worlds. I found both "Sailing to Sarantium" and "Lord of Emporers" rich, full of fascinating characters and intricate detail. He makes you care deeply about the world he creates, as well as the characters within. Only authors as good as Kay can make the world in which they live as interesting and detailed as the characters that inhabit it.I tend to read my hardbacks carefully, in small increments (and Kay is one of very few authors I spend the money on to buy the hardback editions). Usually, I have my favorite radio station playing in the background. This book was so rich and descriptive that I still, several months later, link certain passages to the songs I was listening to when I read them--they automatically come to mind when that song is played on the radio. I highly recommend both books--since once you read "Sarantium", you won't be able to stop there!
Rating: 
Summary: Grading on a curve
Review: Guy Kay started his career in the 1970s by helping Christopher Tolkien assemble some of J.R.R. Tolkien's unfinished manuscripts into The Silmarillion. Since then, Kay wrote an excellent trilogy combining Arthurian legend with standard good-evil fantasy (the Fionavar Tapestry); wrote a fantasy-themed take on Italy's fractious medieval history (Tigana); and wrote historical fantasies based on French history (Song for Arbonne)and the Spanish overthrow of the Moors (Lions of Al-Rassan). The Sarantine Mosaic is essentially an examination of Byzantium under Justinian and Theodora, with the court intrigue, background wonders and fully realized characters that drive every Kay story. The Sarantine Mosaic is basically solid in its own right, and better than most of the fantasy/altered history novels available. Kay is a master of lyrical prose and emotional writing -- his characters are easy to identify with because they are ultimately affected by the same normal human emotions as each other: the noble-born, self-made nobility, heroes, villains and common people alike. But the Sarantine Mosaic lacks an overall purpose in the narrative. The plot is just not as well-developed as in Kay's other works: Lions of Al-Rassan (drive the Asharites from Esperana); Song for Arbonne (save the country from its cruel invaders); Tigana (unite the pseudo-Italian city-state fiefdoms against their conquerors and restore a people to their homeland) and Fionavar Tapestry (the basic save-the-world from Evil concept). Instead Sailing to Sarantium is primarily "Travels With Crispin" (the lead character) and Lord of Emperors is "Mild Intrigue in Sarantium." This is very decent fare, much better than most fantasy and alternate history stories because Kay is such a smooth writer. Nonetheless, Kay has written better.
Rating: 
Summary: Then ending makes up for it.
Review: Kay begins off quite well, but soon writes about 100 pages of "romance", which almost turned me off. The ending of book 2, however, swept me away. Throughout the novel, Kay has been building character relationships as a complex circuit. At the end, he flicks the switch and the hundreds of pages suddenly become worthwhile. I admire that in an author. If only he could make those intervening pages less tedious... One may argue that it would detract from the overall story, but surely a writer like Kay can manage it?
Rating:
Summary: This not a novel; it is a work of art
Review: This book (and the other in the duology, Sailing to Sarantium) is, in my opinion, Kay's best work. I have just finished reading this for the second time, and I think the second time might have been better than the first one. The characters are expertly developped, as if by a painter painting a portrait (many small ones actually), or even by a mosaicist practicing his craft. Kay really should get into epic fantasy works. In two books, he manages to introduce more multi-dimensional characters than Robert Jordan has been able to do in 9 books, or Terry Goodkind in 6. He has, also, managed to craft a world that is entirely believable and probably took a long time to create, even if it is a reflection of our own. The most important factor in this book is that, like most of Kay's other writings, this evokes feelings and may even bring tears at times. The ending is extremely well done in my opinion (if a little rushed), yet it leaves us wanting for more. Kay is too good a writer; finishing the book brought me an intense dissatisfaction, and I was almost inclined to throw it across the room. I can't wait for his next novel. If you've read this book, you probably can't, either.
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Summary: Human Complexity in a Quiet Voice
Review: Many reviewers have complained that this work is disjointed. What they don't see is that Kay intended it so - he has taken an artistic discipline, and mirrored it in his writing. The Byzantines made the art of mosaic more central to their cultural and spiritual life than any civilisation before or since. Kay has used mosaic as a writer's conceit. The lives of his various characters are presented to us in fragments, like pieces of tile; allowed to scintillate on their own while being assembled into a greater whole. Up close, each piece is unique and tells us its own particular story. But as we recede from near to far, the form and pattern of an empire emerges. The use of this kind of metaphor is not new. Kay has used it earlier in his Fionavar trilogy. There, the metaphor was a tapestry and the lives of each character a thread. But in that earlier work, he could not resist the temptation to push his metaphor in our face. Here he has learned restraint. In fact, he submerges the metaphor so successfully into the texture of his work, that its presence passes most of us by. This is as it should be. It is meant to be felt, not noticed. There is something else admirable about this work - its quiet voice. In Kay's earlier works, his characters undergo the profoundest changes through singularly defining experiences. I often found such changes abrupt and contrived. Here, it is different. Here, Kay takes his time. The main character lays aside his survivor's guilt and rediscovers his joy for life in increments. His life change is entirely believable because we are witness to its evolution. This is a wonderful duology for people who find pleasure in the nuances of human complexity. It is oblique, subtle, restrained, multi-layered and evocative. But it does not conform to the trappings of fantasy. There's little magic and even less mayhem. The only battle scenes involve two urban riots - hardly the fiery stuff of typical sword and sorcery. It's a shame, really, that this work has been co-opted into the fantasy genre. Hard core genre readers will find it tepid while detractors of the genre will avoid it through association. For my part, I hope that Kay continues to evolve. His latest work puts him within the first rank of Canadian writers.
Rating:
Summary: I am speechless (well, almost)
Review: This is the most beautiful book I have ever read in the fantasy genre. If you are a fan of the craft of writing, please read it. This novel is a shining jewel, a reading experience to be treasured, a book that will find a place in your heart and imagination. Readers should weep when they turn the last page. Writers should weep for they are not Guy Gavriel Kay.
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Summary: Lord of Emperors (Kay, Guy Gavriel. Sarantine Mosaic, Bk. 2.
Review: In reading the duology of the Saratine Mosaic, I have found that I can only continue to praise Kay, as one of the most talented writers that I have ever had the pleasure to encounter. I found "Lord of Emperors" to be a novel of two halves. The first half is taut and full of phenomenally interwoven details. I find that Kay is very similar to Valerius II, in so much that they both have "multiple strings in their bow". To extrapalate, Kay rarely allows a stray point to be made. He handles the plot masterfully, on multiple levels, making the reader sit back and think in as abstract a manner as possible. The second half I found to almost be too expedient a wrap up of the story line. Everything moves with lightning speed, as resolutions are reach, either tragic or otherwise. This novel is excellent in its portrayal of the grit of reality in a fantasy. However, it almost felt incomplete. I feel as if some of the secondary characters, lacked depth, as if their promise and destiny were never realized, much less acheived. Overall the writing is first rate, as well as the storytelling. I have rarely encountered anyone with this level of attention to detail. I am left with a yearning for this to be a trilogy, for the lives of these characters to live in one more book.
Rating:
Summary: Freedom of fiction
Review: Kay is a prolific writer. Why? Because he is able to use history to tell marvelous stories, and thus to give us insights into history. If you ever wanted to know what life was like around 700 AD in the northern Mediterranean, here is the series you want to read. From the life of a mosaicist to the life of an emperor, from the passions of society to the passions of individuals, Kay teaches us about it all. I could not put it down until the last page was read.
Rating:
Summary: Intensely insightful -- perhaps too much for some
Review: The world that Kay has created in Sailing to Sarantium and Lord of Emperors is not a retelling of Byzantine history of the era of Justinian and Theodora. Rather, it is a novel set in a world which is clearly analogous to that of the Byzantine Empire, but in which the theology differs (it has heresies, but the faith is not historical Christianity) and the events differ (OTL history has nothing equivalent to the marriage of Gisel and Leontes), but some of the conflicts (such as the iconoclastic controversy) are played out in a similar manner. I would be inclined to say that the more a reader knows about Byzantine history, the more impressed he or she will be by the alternative that Kay has constructed. Overall, the most interesting aspect of the novels is in their setting the perspective from that of a creative artist (the Barbarian invasions seen from the perspective of their inconvenient impact on the supply of good-quality tesserae for constructing mosaics). The intensely focused nature of the viewpoint is a remarkably accurate reflection of the single-minded artistic focus, and the degree to which it can, temporarily, be laid aside. The writing is complex. There are a lot of characters to track. Kay makes a rather uncompromising demand that the reader pay attention and that the reader remember. These are not novels for the lazy. They are very rewarding for a person willing to expend some effort.
Rating:
Summary: A spectacular mosaic
Review: Mr. Kay reveals his own dazzling artistic vision through the eyes, heart and hands of Crispin the mosaicist in this elegant story. His characters are beautifully drawn though sometimes infuriating, oftentimes tragic, but never unreal. One cares about them, even the brittle, beautiful wife of Leontes, and the terrible end that she faced. The tangled emotions of this story of great love and even greater loss can haunt you with their disturbing power and poignancy. Following the assassination of Valerius II by Styliane and her brothers, a heartbroken Crispin returns to Varena nearly destroyed by grief over the destruction of his majestic work in Sarantium, as ordered by the pious Valerius III, and the loss of his friends and loved ones he is forced to leave behind. In an attempt to heal his pain and bring himself and his art back to life he creates a mosaic of each emperor, Valerius II and Valerius III, and their courts as he experienced them. He places them in an ancient, unused sancturary in Varena knowing that they too may be destroyed by Valerius III, and he could be killed for such impiety. Upon completion, Crispin stood "suspended a little above the ground, and he looked at his work for a long time, suspended also, in a different way, in a moment difficult to sort through; the sense that he would be entirely done with this, finished forever, as soon as he stepped down from this ladder." He recalls the work of unknown artisans "their names lost to silence" that he has viewed in the past. Refusing to remain unknown, he has signed his art by setting his initials in tesserae below the emperor which match those on the medallion around the neck of the figure of himself standing behind Valerius II and Alixana in the mosaic he has created of them. Lost in memories, suspended in time, his life takes yet another turn when Alixana, whom he had thought dead, walks through the door. At that moment, Crispin finally recognizes that he has achieved completion both within himself and his art and love has returned to bless his life and his soul. Throughout this lovely, troubling, humble and grand story, Crispin has remained a very real, and at times terribly conflicted, yet deeply passionate man. Perhaps it is projection by the writer that informs and inspires the characters in his stories, in any event, they are wonderful. Always.
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