What's in a name?

Week 22: Tigana – Guy Gavriel Kay
Recommended by: Ashley Hayden

What does Tigana mean to you? Probably you either think it's gibberish or think of the former French midfield dynamo and later Fulham manager. To the majority of the Palm, however, it's a word they can no longer hear, a name stripped of all power by brutal magic. It might share a moniker with one of Les Bleus, but this Italianate setting is the basis for the fantasy novel I've been looking for.

One of my personal bugbears is the need within the genre for novels to be part of trilogies or even longer sagas, where it's hard to get away from the law of diminishing returns – the later books get longer and the pace slows to a crawl. I accept that this is driven partly by fans who generally like this and want to spend more time exploring the sandbox they have been given to play in, and partly by publishers who know they have a banker on their hands if the first title is a success. I'm not against this format, obviously, but I do long for more stand-alones, without the numerous sequels, prequels, side treks and whatever else. Tigana falls into this category and I like it for the fact it's self-contained.

I also like it for the world it builds: human, low magic, political, and fractured. I like it for the places it presents: small enough but part of a much bigger world. I like it for the plot, its twists and turns, its own take on the overthrow the tyrant story. I like it for being plot-centric but character driven. And I like it for the interesting characters, possessed of multiple dimensions, who I grew to love and care about, and the story told from a variety of viewpoints. I like it for the romance and the heroism, the humour and the action, the shades of light and dark. And I like it for being all of these things wrapped up in one neat package.

It's a bit of a doorstopper (another genre trope) but not overlong – I'm more forgiving in that it's feature length rather merely an instalment anyway but it didn't outstay its welcome and it didn't sag. It would perhaps have been interesting to find out more about the Barbadians, who were a bit one-dimensional, though this was balanced by knowing more about the Ygrathians, or at least some of their high-powered figures. And while both were important, the latter have precedence by virtue of Brandin's more central role in the plot. Overall it really did tick all the boxes for me and I'll certainly be checking out Kay's other books.