The Lions of Al-Rassan Paperback – Big Book, 28 June 2005

It is a brilliant book. Readers of Guy Gavriel Kay will be familiar with the standard and depth of his writing. I would recommend it to anyone who likes reading fantasy.

GG Kay ist einer meiner absoluten Lieblingsautoren. Wer auf intelligente, subtile Geschichten steht, gepaart mit einer sprachlichen Geschliffenheit, die sich nicht vor Werken "ernst zu nehmender Literatur" verstecken muss, obwohl es Genreliteratur ist, der ist bei Kay meiner Meinung nach immer richtig (oder bei Patrick Rothfuss).Wobei dieses Buch ein spezieller Liebling von mir ist, weil Kay darin so mutig ist (keine Spoiler!), und mir dieses Finale auch noch beim fünfzehnten Mal lesen nahe geht.

Absolutely brilliant.It started fast, was an amazing story of companionship, religion, and duty.Amazing politics, interactively plotted, heartbreaking,Only reason to stay away is if you don't like books that PoV hop like a madman.

The Lions of Al-Rassan is, in many ways, the seminal novel in Guy Gavriel Kay's opus. Or at least it is to date. When he first arrived on the fantasy scene, with The Fionavar Tapestry, Kay was in some respects not a lot different from many other writers in the genre. He published a trilogy, which while lively and involving with some interesting characters, really had little to separate it from the output of other post-Tolkein writers. However, with his next two novels Tigana and A Song for Arbonne it became clear that here was a craftsman who was interested in more than simply churning out simple repartitions of the existing tropes. Each of those two novels have fine elements, but they were experimental without being wholly successful. Kay was intent on fusing two existing genres (the fantastical with the historical)to create a new one. Kay had not found the pure essence of what he was trying to create until The Lions of Al-Rassan. Stripped of almost all the standard magical devices of most fantasy he retold the story of El-Cid and the Spanish expansion in an alternate, and only very slightly magical, universe.It was a triumphant success. Where his earlier novels had sometimes been marred by overt and clumsy plot devices and an occasional confusion between genuine sentiment and sentimentality, Lions was a rich, assured, human centred story which carried the readers into a different world and made us understand the complexities of loss and desire at a time of political and social upheaval. Characterisation, which has always been Kay's strongest point as a writer, was here lifted to a new plane in his work. And rather than it being a single uncharacteristically good novel, he followed it up with three more books set in two different places and periods within the same created universe exploring different themes and problems, but all sharing his new strengths and richness of craft. (It's too long an argument to get into in this sort of review, but there are some indication that the four books are modelled on Shakespeare's second history teratology both structurally and thematically. His two subsequent novels seem to indicate that he is moving on again in both style and intent but it is rather early to make an definitive judgements as to where he is taking his work.)The Lion's of Al-Rassan may not be Kay's best work (in this critic's opinion Lord of Emperors most likely is to date) but it is a wonderful book and marks the point in Kay's career where his talent and vision cohered to mark him as one of the most readable and important writers with in the genre.

This is the second of Kay's novels that I've read. The first was Tigana which, although based on medieval Italy, still qualified as 'high fantasy'. The Lions of Al-Rassan moves away from that territory. Although it is still set in a world of Kay's creation, it reads more as a historical novel than fantasy, and uses reconquista Spain as the building blocks for a sweeping adventure. There are no fantastic creatures or magic, it is very much a story about people, places, race and religion. There are three religions involved: the Kindath - a parallel of the Jews; the Asharites - a parallel of the Moors; and the Jaddites - a parallel of the Christians. The novel's three main characters come from each of those religions: Jehane is the Kindath, Ammar ibn Khairan the Asharite, and Rodrigo Belmonte the Jaddite (and a parallel to El-Cid). There are lots of other wonderful characters, too. Alvar, a youthful soldier who grows immensely during the course of the book, is one of my favourites, along with Husari, the Asharite merchant, and Miranda Belmonte, Rodrigo's strong-willed wife.The story is very much about these characters, and how situations forced upon them make them work together, dealing with a lot of political backstabbing and religious intolerance. Naturally there is a lot of disagreement, humour, romance and heartbreak along the way. The action is handled deftly - there is not a huge amount of violence in the book, but what there is has a much greater impact for its scarcity. There are some scenes of a sexual nature, nothing too explicit, though.The prologue, set fifteen years before the main story, sees Ammar sent to assassinate the last of the Khalifs at the instruction of his king. Then, at the beginning of the novel, he is betrayed by the same king on a day that sees many die in the city of Fezana. This brings Ammar into contact with Jehane, as she helps someone escape the killings, and the story spirals outward from there.Many of the major events are used as a backdrop - GGK keeps everything on a personal level, and the characters are so beautifully written that I couldn't help getting caught up in their troubles. They are all given equal space to breathe, both male and female. In fact the female characters are marvellous - none of them get in peril and stand around waiting to be saved - they are all strong, determined, fully realised people, and more than a match for the men.Kay has such a lyrical style that it's hard not to keep stopping and re-reading passages just to savour his use of language. It took me a few pages to get my head around it, having just come off the back of authors who are maybe not quite so eloquent, but once I was into it I was hooked. I found it had great depth, was exciting, dark and deeply moving in places. For those looking for traditional fantasy I would still say Tigana is a better starting point for Kay's work, but for anyone else I can't recommend The Lions of Al-Rassan highly enough.