Guy Gavriel Kay Books In Order

The Fionavar Tapestry Books In Publication Order

  1. The Summer Tree (1984)
  2. The Wandering Fire (1986)
  3. The Darkest Road (1986)

The Sarantine Mosaic Books In Publication Order

  1. Sailing to Sarantium (1998)
  2. Lord of Emperors (2000)

Under Heaven Books In Publication Order

  1. Under Heaven (2010)
  2. River of Stars (2013)

Standalone Novels In Publication Order

  1. Tigana (1990)
  2. A Song for Arbonne (1992)
  3. The Lions of Al-Rassan (1995)
  4. The Last Light of the Sun (2004)
  5. Ysabel (2007)
  6. Children of Earth and Sky (2016)
  7. A Brightness Long Ago (2019)

Short Story Collections In Publication Order

  1. Beyond This Dark House: Poems (2002)

The Fionavar Tapestry Book Covers

The Sarantine Mosaic Book Covers

Under Heaven Book Covers

Standalone Novels Book Covers

Short Story Collections Book Covers

Guy Gavriel Kay Books Overview

The Summer Tree

Five university students Kimberly, Dave, Jennifer, Kevin, and Paul meet a wizard who takes them to the heart of all worlds, Fionavar, where they discover who they were truly meant to be.

The Wandering Fire

A mage’s power has brought five university students from our world into a realm where an ancient evil has freed itself from captivity to wreak revenge on its enemies. Praise for The Fionavar Tapestry:One of the very best fantasies to have appeared since Tolkien. Andre NortonKay’s intricate Celtic background will please fantasy buffs. Publishers WeeklyImmense scale, literary richness and dazzling heroes. Toronto StarThis is the only fantasy work I know which does not suffer by comparison to The Lord of the Rings. InterzoneA grand galloping narrative…
reverberates with centuries of mythic and incantory implications. Christian Science MonitorThe essence of high fantasy…
a remarkable achievement. LocusThe Fionavar Tapestry is a work that will be read for many years to come. Charles de Lint

The Darkest Road

The concluding volume in Guy Gavriel Kay’s stunning fantasy masterwork, now reissued with the beautiful original cover art by Martin Springett. The young heroes from our own world have gained power and maturity from their sufferings and adventures in Fionavar. Now they must bring all the strength and wisdom they possess to the aid of the armies of Light in the ultimate battle against the evil of Rakoth Maugrim and the hordes of the Dark. On a ghost ship the legendary Warrior, Arthur Pendragon, and Pwyll Twiceborn, Lord of the Summer Tree, sail to confront the Unraveller at last. Meanwhile, Darien, the child within whom Light and Dark vie for supremacy, must walk The Darkest Road of any child of earth or stars. Guy Gavriel Kay’s classic epic fantasy plays out on a truly grand scale, and has already been delighting fans of imaginative fiction for twenty years.

Sailing to Sarantium

Crispin is a mosaicist, a layer of bright tiles. Still grieving for the family he lost to the plaque, he lives only for his arcane craft. But an imperial summons from Valerius the Trakesian to Sarantium, the most magnificent place in the world, is difficult to resist. In a world half wild and tangled with magic, a journey to Sarantium means a walk into destiny. Bearing with him a deadly secret and a Queen’s seductive promise, guarded only by his own wits and a talisman from an alchemist’s treasury, Crispin sets out for the fabled city. Along the way he will encounter a great beast from the mythic past,and in robbing the zubir of its prize he wins a woman’s devotion and a man’s loyalty and loses a gift he didn’t know he had until it was gone. Once in this city ruled by intrigue and violence, he must find his own source of power. Struggling to deal with the dangers and seductive lures of the men and woman around him, Crispin does discover it, in a most unusual place high on the scaffolding of the greatest artwork ever imagined…
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Lord of Emperors

One of the world’s foremost masters of fantasy, Guy Gavriel Kay has thrilled readers around the globe with his talent for skillfully interweaving history and myth, colorful characterization, and a rich sense of time and place. Now, in Lord of Emperors, the internationally acclaimed author of The Lions of Al Rassan continues his most powerful work. In Sailing to Sarantium, the first volume in the Sarantine Mosaic, renowned mosaicist Crispin beckoned by an imperial summons of the Emperor Valerius made his way to the fabled city of Sarantium. A man who lives only for his craft, who cares little for ambition, less for money, and nothing for intrigue, Crispin now wants only to confront the challenges of his art high upon a dome that will become the emperor’s magnificent sanctuary and legacy. But Crispin’s desire for solitude will not be fulfilled. Beneath him the city swirls with rumors of war and conspiracy, while otherworldly fires mysteriously flicker and disappear in the streets at night. Valerius is looking west to Crispin’s homeland of Varena to assert his power a plan that may have dire consequences for the family and friends Crispin left behind. But loyalty to his homeland comes at a high price, for Crispin’s fate has become entwined with that of Valerius and his empress, as well as the youthful Queen Gisel, his own monarch who is an exile in Sarantium herself. And now another voyager arrives in Sarantium, a physician determined to earn his fortune amid the shifting currents of loyalty, intrigue, and violence. Drawing from the twin springs of history and legend, Lord of Emperors is also a deeply moving exploration of art, power, and the ways in which people from all walks of life seek to leave an impressionthat endures long after thery’re gone. It confirms Kay’s place as one of the most esteemed masters of fantasy.

Under Heaven

In his latest innovative novel, the award winning author evokes the dazzling Tang Dynasty of 8th century China in a story of honor and power. Inspired by the glory and power of Tang dynasty China, Guy Gavriel Kay has created a masterpiece. It begins simply. Shen Tai, son of an illustrious general serving the Emperor of Kitai, has spent two years honoring the memory of his late father by burying the bones of the dead from both armies at the site of one of his father’s last great battles. In recognition of his labors and his filial piety, an unlikely source has sent him a dangerous gift: 250 Sardian horses. You give a man one of the famed Sardian horses to reward him greatly. You give him four or five to exalt him above his fellows, propel him towards rank, and earn him jealousy, possibly mortal jealousy. Two hundred and fifty is an unthinkable gift, a gift to overwhelm an emperor. Wisely, the gift comes with the stipulation that Tai must claim the horses in person. Otherwise he would probably be dead already…

Tigana

One by one, the divided provinces of The Peninsula of the Palm had fallen, conquered by the armies and the sorcery of the two Tyrants. Now, Alberico of Barbadior holds the provinces of the Eastern Palm while Brandin of Ygrath rules the West, and normality of a sort has returned to the peninsula. But for one province there can be no peace. For there is one land that dared to spill the blood of Brandin’s beloved son. A land that has been broken and burned, its towers razed and its people crushed, and through the dark magics of the Tyrant of Ygrath, had its very name erased from the world. It falls to a small band of exiles from this shattered land to attempt to achieve what nine provinces could not, and bring down not one, but two, tyrants. Driven by fierce pride, love and the memory of what was, this brave handful of men and women will risk all that they have to return freedom to the Palm, and to hear once more the music of a forgotten name: Tigana.

A Song for Arbonne

A Song for Arbonne is Guy Gavriel Kay’s critically acclaimed fantasy of love, both courtly and forbidden, and of kingdoms endlessly opposed one dominated by male rulers and their male god, the other guided by women and their goddess.

The Lions of Al-Rassan

The ruling Asharites of Al Rassan have come from the desert sands, but over centuries, seduced by the sensuous pleasures of their new land, their stern piety has eroded. The Asharite empire has splintered into decadent city states led by warring petty kings. King Almalik of Cartada is on the ascendancy, aided always by his friend and advisor, the notorious Ammar ibn Khairan poet, diplomat, soldier until a summer afternoon of savage brutality changes their relationship forever. Meanwhile, in the north, the conquered Jaddites’ most celebrated and feared military leader, Rodrigo Belmonte, driven into exile, leads his mercenary company south. In the dangerous lands of Al Rassan, these two men from different worlds meet and serve for a time the same master. Sharing their interwoven fate and increasingly torn by her feelings is Jehane, the accomplished court physician, whose own skills play an increasing role as Al Rassan is swept to the brink of holy war, and beyond. Hauntingly evocative of medieval Spain, The Lions of Al Rassan is both a brilliant adventure and a deeply compelling story of love, divided loyalties, and what happens to men and women when hardening beliefs begin to remake or destroy a world.

The Last Light of the Sun

From the multiple award winning author of Ysabel, Tigana and A Song for Arbonne, this powerful, moving saga evokes the Celtic, Anglo Saxon, and Norse cultures of a thousand years ago. There is nothing soft or silken about the north. The lives of men and women are as challenging as the climate and lands in which they dwell. For generations, the Erlings of Vinmark have taken their dragon prowed ships across the seas, raiding the lands of the Cyngael and Anglcyn peoples, leaving fire and death behind. But times change, even in the north, and in a tale woven with consummate artistry, people of all three cultures find the threads of their lives unexpectedly brought together! Bern Thorkellson, punished for his father’s sins, commits an act of vengeance and desperation that brings him face to face, across the sea, with a past he’s been trying to leave behind. In the Anglcyn lands of King Aeldred, the shrewd king, battling inner demons all the while, shores up his defenses with alliances and diplomacy and with swords and arrows while his exceptional, unpredictable sons and daughters pursue their own desires when battle comes and darkness falls in the woods. And in the valleys and shrouded hills of the Cyngael, whose voices carry music even as they feud and raid amongst each other, violence and love become deeply interwoven when the dragon ships come and Alun ab Owyn, chasing an enemy in the night, glimpses strange lights gleaming above forest pools.

Ysabel

In this exhilarating, moving new work, Guy Gavriel Kay casts brilliant light on the ways in which history whether of a culture or a family refuses to be buried. Ned Marriner, fifteen years old, has accompanied his photographer father to Provence for a six week ‘shoot’ of images for a glossy coffee table book. Gradually, Ned discovers a very old story playing itself out in this modern world of iPods, cellphones, and seven seater vans whipping along roads walked by Celtic tribes and Roman legions. On one holy, haunted night of the ancient year, when the borders between the living and the dead are down and fires are lit upon the hills, Ned, his family, and his friends are shockingly drawn into this tale, as dangerous, mythic figures from conflicts of long ago erupt into the present, claiming and changing lives.

Beyond This Dark House: Poems

Before Guy Gavriel Kay became known for his groundbreaking works of speculative fiction he was an accomplished poet, his work appearing in major literary journals such as The Antigonish Review and Prism. Through the years, while writing his dramatic international bestsellers, Kay has continued to quietly explore the paths and boundaries of poetry as well. Now for the first time, Guy Gavriel Kay’s poetry has been gathered and selected for publication. Readers of contemporary poetry will be captivated by the exquisite craft and power of these poems. Some are ironic and austere, slyly tracing the interplay of writer and world, present and past; others are sensual, even erotic, charting the mercurial but abiding nature of passion in love, in language, in history.

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