A Brightness Long Ago by Guy Gavriel Kay (20)

Now there's a great book. GGK did something amazing with A Brightness Long Ago. The first book I read by him was Tigana, and while quite good,  it doesn't hold a candle to A Brightness Long ago. The pacing is wonderful, actions and consequences piled up without feeling rushed. The way he tells the story through a series of flashbacks and mixed POVs is crisp, unique, and refreshingly. The whole book feels like a brilliantly connected series of short stories, just long enough to make you feel something profound but not so long as to get mired in the telling. You skip lightly across the surface of the world, catches glimpses of the depths beneath.

The way the story is told, maybe even more so than the story being told, is what turns this book into something magnificent.

And who doesn't love a quote about books inside a book:

Quote

So many stories can be told, in and around and braided through the one we are being given. Don’t we all know that stories can be sparks leaping from the bonfire of an offered tale to become their own fire, if they land on the right ground, if kindling is there and a light breeze but not a hard wind?

Someone is deciding what to tell us. What to add, what not to share at all or when (and how) to reveal a thing. We know this, even as we picture in our minds another young man, a tailor’s son from Seressa, remembering a spring ride, how we used to like to sing…

We want to sink into the tale, leave our own lives behind, find lives to encounter even to enter for a time. We can resist being reminded of an artificer, the craft. We want to be immersed, lost, not remember what it is we are doing, having done to us, as we turn pages, look at a painting, hear a song, watch a dance.

Still, that is what is being done to us. It is.

Loved it.

Damn. I suppose I know what I'm reading after Leadership, Strategy, and Tactics.

I don't think there are necessarily contradictions within the text itself. We've never had a Cishaurim POV outside of battle and never with a Skin-Spy. Moenghus lets the reader, via Kellhus', assume that what Kellhus' says about vocal discrepancies is accurate. Fanayal is obsessed with being Kellhus' equal and there's never really a reason for Meppa, Psatma, or Fanayal to talk about the possibility of Skin-Spies or how the Cishaurim (remember they're Fanim Priests) actually found the Skin-Spies or how they reacted to their discovery. We do know from Aurang that the Consult couldn't keep Skin-Spies operating in Fanim territory. Likewise, the conversation between the Mutilated and Kellhus never even mentions the Psukhe as they are concerned strictly with the Metagnosis v. Tekne (Kellhus really has no reason to share that Meppa seemed to give him a better fight than Aurang did, nor that Kellhus left Meppa alive).

Just throwing data out there, as I've perceived it.

Man's search for Meaning is def worth a read.

Bakker readers should be Frankl readers... it seems axiomatic .

Tyrants and Kings, or at least Jackal of Nar, is Madness' favorite fantasy (TSA aside AFAIK).

Specifically the second book, The Grand Design, though Jackal of Nar is pretty cool too. And I can't say it's my favorite fantasy aside TSA, though that specific book I recommend like Speaker for the Dead (for which you have to at least be familiar with the events of Ender's Game, to the audience ).

Legend is the only Gemmel book I've read, and for what it is I was very impressed.

I devoured most of Gemmell when I was like 14. So many great books.

And finally the Acts of Caine I was gushing about last year. I hope others find interest in it as I did, its a good story but it does take a rather strange after book 2. Kinda disappears into its own naval but still a great read regardless.

I liked the first two like I like Hyperion/Fall of Hyperion. Definitely worth the read for Bakker fans.

I'm fairly sure Bakker enlisted him in checking over the Glossary before TTT's release.

I still can't download a database from SMF and I noticed it takes quite a bit of time to clear after we've rejected Spam-Sranc before the pending users notation disappears.

Thanks again for all you guys have done.

Lol, I miss you, good sir .