The Lions of Al-Rassan

Rating:
Summary: Kay's best
Review: Guy Gavriel Kay is an author who I just started reading two years ago when one of my friends aroused my interest in the Fionavar Tapestry. I am fairly well versed in fantasy and can usually discuss the `major' fantasy novels - either having read them or at least familiar with them. Guy Gavriel Kay, in my humble opinion, is fantasy's best kept secret.

His stories all share a few things in common - round characters, all are glinting and sad, and all of them have a reference in some way to the Fionavar Tapestry - either direct or indirect, but in The Lions of Al-Rassan, this link, is happily, as in others quite small. This is not to say that the Tapestry isn't brilliant, it provides a slight but nonetheless present and useful backdrop.

In the Lions of Al-Rassan itself we have a weaving of events similar to the period of the Reconquest in Spain. Personally reading this novel made me more interested in the Reconquest, some of the more interesting events have a basis in history - the Day of the Moat, the Kindath (read Jewish) advisor in Ragosa, Rodrigo Belemonte (el Cid) and the pariahs payments.

This book's single greatest strength, which cannot be overstated is maintaining the feel of the Reconquest while creating an involving story. This world is very natural, magical events happen only twice in the novel (and a very tame sort at that) make it more of a historical fiction in many ways than a fantasy, a definite plus and a realm of fiction that could use more writers and attention.

Overall this is one of the best fantasy novels and authors I have ever read.

Rating:
Summary: Nostalgia at its best.
Review: Based loosely upon the fall of the Moorish kingdoms of Spain to Ferdinand and Isabella, "The Lions of Al Rassan" tells the tale of an unlikely love triangle. Belmonte, the tough soldier from the Jaddite lands and Ammar el Kairan, the Poet, Warrior and Diplomat from Al Rassan adopt a posture of mutual respect and admiration, while competing for the love and respect of the beautiful and intelligent lady doctor from a despised race. About them, events conspire to tear down the world that makes their love and their very existence possible.

Al Rassan, in all its corrupt splendor, is collapsing. With it is falling the art, the poetry and the beauty. On both sides religious fanatics with no love of art vie for the ownership of the prize.

This is a wonderful and nostalgic tale of heroism, bravery, love and romance told in the way only Guy Gavriel Kay can do it. The inevitability of the fall takes nothing from the book, and if possible it adds a frisson of pathos which makes us regret the loss of Al Rassan all the more.

Rating:
Summary: Toothless Lion
Review: Kay uses Spain at the time of the reconquest after seven centuries of Moorish rule, as the backdrop for this novel. Sounds interesting, but it falls short on quite a few levels. First the great duel that the story builds towards dosen't happen till the very end of the book, almost in an off hand manner that suggests that Kay just threw it as an addendum to the story. His description of the three major religions, and of the people who follow them are shallow and as usual, cliched in the extreme. (Example- the sun worshippers- Christianity- are narrow minded and bloodthirsy, the Kindath-Jewish- are fiscally adept but fatalistic.) His characters, especially his female heroines, like all of Kay's works, are the weakest aspect of his stories. Jehane, would of course sacrifice her values and her beliefs for the love of handsome men, even those whose people have butchered her kind for hundreds of years, and who have even taken out the eyes of her own father. In Spain, the ousting of the Moors was accomplished in no small part to Isabella, but in Al Rassan, there simply is no Isabella figure. The women are generally relegated to watching the actions of men from the safety of hillsides. Al Rassan itself, not unlike Tigana, is an empty land. Fantasy novels, good ones, can draw the reader in by introducing us to rich lands, full of interesting characters, and palpable evil. Al Rassan has none of these qualities. The evil, as Kay would have us see it, is not in the wars, the massacres, or the killing of loved ones, only that the land itself is to be changed forever, that alas there will no longer be an Al Rassan. Sadly, without any passion, romance or tragedy to draw us in, Al Rassan won't ever be missed.

Rating:
Summary: Not what I hoped for
Review: I haven't read fantasy in years, but I was really enthused about the book when I bought it, the pseudo Moorish Spain setting seemed interesting. And for the first fifty or hundred pages, the author's skillful prose kept my interest, as well as the well done (if melodramatic) character introductions.

But as the book progresses, it just came off as sloppy. Throughout, the story lacks a human element. The characters are all so cliched, and noble, that the novel feels like a pulp historical romance novel. The country is given breadth by introducing a large cast, and a number of cities, by name. But it doesn't let readers get to know these extra characters and cities, and I was constantly referring to the character listings, and country map, at the beginning of the book. The end of the book, before the tacked-on epilogue, is ridiculously anti-climactic, describing the seige and conquest of cities that haven't been even touched upon before. Who cares?

The author repeatedly brings up themes on the ability of cultures to co-exist. I think it clumsily done, and I don't understand why the author modified the Judaic religions into closely corresponding sun/star/moon worship, a device which keeps the debate distanced from the real world, but still prejudices readers.

Rating:
Summary: I tried; oh, how I tried...
Review: Yes, I really wanted to like this book. I loved Song for Arbonne, and thought: "This can only be better, right?". Well, I tried, and put it down. A few months later I tried, and put it down. Then a few more months later, I tried...and put it down. As many other readers have said, I felt manipulated. I was expect to feel awe and mystique about the main character. Every character in the book seemed awed by him. But in truth, I felt nothing. In fact, if I felt anything, it was dislike for him because he had poisoned a man. But that was it. Yet from Kay's view, I should have been revering this "hero". Most of the characters were so forgetful that I couldn't remember who he was talking about most of the time, and if I was lucky, I would remember something like: "Oh yeah, he's that guy who has a wife or something..." You get the point. I hate to slam Kay, since Arbonne was so good, but like I said, I really tried to like this in any way possible, and the more I tried, the more I felt duped. Oh well, I will just have to wait for the next George Martin book to come out...

Rating:
Summary: Good but where is the emotion?
Review: I have to say that this book is a good Kay book, making it an excellent book. However, it is a little on the flat side as a fiction. Its historical/mythical overtones are strong, yet the characters are all too forgettable.

This is a book that is poetic but not quite dramatic, full of melodrama that is instantly gratifying but brief and intangible. It might have done well as a poem but as a book, it just doesn't quite cut it.

Nevertheless, the intrigue and whirlwind conflicts of war clash brilliantly in this novel. It's still a fun read if not particularly profound.

Rating:
Summary: Missing his deft touch with nuance
Review: I wanted to like this book more. I really did. Kay's is such a fresh voice in what is often a formulaic genre, that one is predisposed to looking favourably on every one of his contributions. But this work is missing a piece from its core that thwarts any heartfelt enjoyment.

There is nothing wrong with having ones emotions manipulated. This is what fiction is all about. But there is a difference between sincere and insincere, and the Lions of Al Rassan manipulates insincerely. Kay seems to have become so conscious of his considerable talents that he succumbs to artifice - like those insufferable operatic arias inserted for no reason but to show off the technical range of the Diva.

Kay's goals are worthy ones. The supernatural has almost completely disappeared because no purpose is served by its inclusion. Characters and their actions act ostensibly through the vagaries of history, and the only concession to the genre is that the historical setting is an alternate to the closing days of Moorish Spain.

Did I say vagaries? This is partly where the story fails, because there are no vagaries. Characters march from action to action, thought to thought, feeling to feeling. It is all laid out with surgical precision. There is nothing left to the imagination. This is a story that could have used more vagary.

Then again, vagary is not the same as deficiency. A city is sacked, its inhabitants slaughtered; the heroine is devastated, and we are expected to jump from an intellectual identification with her feelings to an emotional one. But how? We don't know this city. We never know its sounds, its inhabitants, its life. We form no attachment to it. Thereafter, the heroine's feelings do not involve us. We follow her subsequent actions on an intellectual level but find ourselves emotionally detached. There are similar deficiencies throughout.

Overall, Kay pushes for effect while taking short cuts. This leads to a contrived and self-conscious effort that exposes the author's literary devices with painful clarity. I sometimes felt that I was reading passages filled with bold type and exclamation marks. Strange, coming from an author who has previously shown such mastery of nuance.

I don't want to leave the impression that the work is without redemption. Kay at his worst is still better than most fantasy authors at their best. However, in Tigana and A Song for Arbonne, he has shown what he is really capable of and raised the bar of expectations to a higher setting. With Al Rassan, he fails to clear that mark.

Rating:
Summary: Extremely moving
Review: The Lions of Al-Rassan follows the life of the beautiful Kindath physician, Jehane, and the two incredible men she meets. One is the legendary Ammar ibn Khairan - poet, soldier, assassin, and chief advisor to the King of Cartada. The other is the equally famous soldier Rodrigo Belmonte of Valledo. During an uncertain time, on a peninsula on the brink of a Holy War, these two men are both exiled by their kings, and come to serve, and become loyal friends, under King Badir of Ragosa.

But when war finally erupts, and both Ammar and Rodrigo are called back by their Kings to fight - against one another.

In many ways, this is a story about the injustices of war and persecution, often leaving you to gasp at the brutality which ordinary people are capable of when blinded by their so called 'faith'. 'War feeds like a wild dog upon the hearts of brave men'.

The Lions of Al-Rassan is also about friendship, and how a woman whom most consider an infidel finds love and her place in the world.

Rating:
Summary: From Skillful Artist to Society Portraitist
Review: At first it's hard to decide what is wrong with "Al Rassan," but the longer I read, the stronger the feeling becomes that there is something missing in this book. By the time I put it down, there was a feeling of emptiness-it's like looking at a perfectly executed, but completely soulless, society portrait. This book also has the same smug self-satisfaction, the clever little vertusio technical work ('look how clever I am-isn't this a beautiful metaphor? Wasn't that a skillful allusion?' and my favorite: the "whodunit' game. I mean, how many times are you going to sit here playing word games?), and the one sided view of the subject matter. Kay seems to have fallen in love with the sound of his own voice. His major assets--the beautiful use of language and metaphor, the firm handle on writing-technique--have become more than tools, and are instead the focus. Instead of fitting seamlessly into the background, they draw attention to themselves. I felt manipulated. This word was meant to tell me this, this phase was meant to draw this and this emotion. The author should not be a constant manipulating presence in the back of your mind. It reduces any real emotional power. And, what is more essential: Kay's lack of honest communication on a technical level reflects a similar lack of honesty on a thematic level. What put Kay head and shoulders above the rest of the fantasy genre was his willingness to admit complexity. Instead of offering the usual, easy trite answers, both "Tigana" and "Arbonne" were not afraid to question, and usually left more questions then they did answers. Kay was not afraid to admit that he knew as little as his characters, and so the books felt like a quest, with the author coming along. The questions they asked were real. "Al Rassan" is different. First of all, by reducing the complexities of religion into questions of suns, moons and stars, Kay has already answered the question before he even asked it. The conversation is moot, since we already know what is going to be said. I expected a more mature and meaningful exploration from Kay then the typical trite American liberalism. Living in an area torn by religious tension and warfare, I can attest that the solution is far more complex. No one can deny the very real, destructive influences of religion, but standing on the outside as a smug preacher is hardly a way to touch the issue.

Rating:
Summary: Captivating story, shame about the anti-climax ending
Review: I enjoyed the book tremendously, because of the very powerful characters, especially the women. I felt all the time that the book should be titled 'The Lionesses of Al-Rassan'. I found it a bit difficult at times to keep up with who is who, and from which country. There were so many names, towns, geographical features, kings and places. But the author has provided a map and a list of who's who. Conflict, motivation, setting were great. I loved every moment of reading it... except the end. I got really annoyed. The whole book was a build-up to the duel between Amman and Rodrigo. Ok, we got the duel in the end. But that's when the author decided to play silly games with the reader, not telling us who the viewpoint character is, just referring to him as 'he'. It got even stupider later. He tries to mislead us into thinking that Jehane married that young soldier turned doctor, buy withholding the names and by strewing false clues. Now that sort of trick is what would-be writers do when they submit their first story to a women's magazine. The readers who have held on close for the journey of an epic like this deserve more courtesy. I felt the author was insulting my intelligence. I got really really angry. What's more, it's all too happy and sweet, everyone lives happily and peacfully and likes each other. Is all this sickly-sweet happy ending stuff really necessary? I agree with previous reviewers that the character of Amman was not as well developed as he should have been. THe idea was good, the potential was there, but the author didn't flesh the character out enough for a central protagonist.