The Wandering Fire (The Fionavar Tapestry, Book 2) (Paperback)

~ (Author) "Winter was coming..." (more)
Key Phrases: lios alfar, svart alfar, blind shaman, High King, Paras Derval, Gwen Ystrat (more...)

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

In the second book of Kay's Fionavar Tapestry, the five protagonistsordinary Toronto college studentsreturn once more to become warriors and wizards in the beleaguered fantasy world of Fionavar, now suffering an unnaturally prolonged winter. To combat dread Rakoth Maugrim, King Arthur and Lancelot are revived and the Wild Hunt summoned from its long sleep. Together they vanquish the attacking wolf packs and shatter the cauldron of power. As the book ends, though, they are still deep in danger and hopelessly mired somewhere in mid-story. This elaborate, lore-filled fantasy, smelling of dusty library stacks and perfumed prose, will doubtless please those who enjoyed the first volume, The Summer Tree. Both are striking as unconscious but almost clinical catalogues of an adolescent world view, full of self-dramatization and self-pity, a desperation for instant status or celebrity, a preoccupation with lost love and death (which become equivalent totems) and a general lack of humor or perspective. SF Book Club Main selection.
Copyright 1986 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Product Description

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 Norton)

Kay's intricate Celtic background will please fantasy buffs. (Publishers Weekly)

Immense scale, literary richness and dazzling heroes. (Toronto Star)

This is the only fantasy work I know which does not suffer by comparison to The Lord of the Rings. (Interzone)

A grand galloping narrative...reverberates with centuries of mythic and incantory implications. (Christian Science Monitor)

The essence of high fantasy...a remarkable achievement. (Locus)

The Fionavar Tapestry is a work that will be read for many years to come. (Charles de Lint)

Product Details

• Paperback: 400 pages
• Publisher: Roc Trade (May 8, 2001)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0451458265
• ISBN-13: 978-0451458261
• Product Dimensions: 7.9 x 5.3 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (28 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #83,837 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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• This is item 2 in The Fionavar Tapestry Series.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

10 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Classic clash of good and evil with a twist, January 7, 2000

By	Keith Fraser (Oxford, England) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Wandering Fire (The Fionavar Tapestry, Book 2) (Mass Market Paperback)

I have now read this and its prequel, The Summer Tree, and am earnestly searching for Book Three, The Darkest Road (as usual with trilogies and suchlike, bookshops never have the one you're looking for!). When I read about the Fionavar Tapestry at the back of The Lord Of The Rings, of all places, I was immediately attracted by the idea of people from our world becoming characters in a fantasy epic.

Very frequently I have seen the Fionavar Tapestry compared to the works of Tolkein. In my opinion it is hard to compare them as they are very different. Tolkien's is a created mythology, supposedly preceding recorded history; Fionavar is a parallel world, and our own modern world is involved in the story by the use of the five protagonists. The characterisation is also different: Kay develops the relationships between his characters far more, at the expense of the much more complex and richly developed world of Tolkien. This is not to say that either is superior to the other, they are simply different, possibly because of their differing times of writing: Tolkien reads like classical epic or tragic poetry, whereas the Fionavar Tapestry is more modern in its treatment of characters and events, though the themes in both are the same.

Comparisons with Tolkien aside, I feel that the glowing reviews of the Tapestry are well deserved. The characters, particularly the five people from our world, are believable and easy to sympathize with. The story rarely descends into cliche (I say rarely - there are one or two moments which I thought could have been more originally handled, but they were still enjoyable and it is almost impossible to avoid cliche entirely, as I have just discovered - _descends into cliche_ is itself a cliche!) and blends real folklore and the author's own ideas excellently (I recognised a lot of things, such as the lios alfar, from the work of Alan Garner, which uses folklore as well). With respect to The Wandering Fire, I thought that the new spin it brings to the legend of King Arthur was extremely clever and original.

All in all, a cleverly constructed non-genre version of the classic war between Good and Evil.

As a final thought, be sure to read the Summer Tree before this one, otherwise it will have a lot less impact.

7 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Hard to get in., March 11, 2001

By	Stephanie Noverraz "crooty" (Lausanne, Switzerland) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Wandering Fire (The Fionavar Tapestry, Book 2) (Mass Market Paperback)

The Wandering Fire is the second volume in The Fionanvar Tapestry (starting with The Summer Tree and ending with The Darkest Road).

In Fionavar, Maidaladan, Midsummer's Eve, is approching but an unnatural winter is spreading all over the land. The Kings and Mages are gathering to try to understand the reason of this mysterious cold, and the armies of Brennin, Daniloth and Cathal are preparing for an oncoming war. Back in our world, Kim, now a Seer, summons Uther Pendragon in Stonehenge to help her wake his son Arthur in Glastonbury Tor, and crosses with the latter to Fionavar, for he is the legendary Warior who'll help them fight against Rakoth the Unraveller.

Meanwhile, Jennifer secretly gives birth to Darien, the fruit of Rakoth's rape, and puts him in the hands of Vae, Finn's mother, to hide and foster him. On the plains, the Dalrei try, not without great difficulty, to protect the last herds of eltors from the attacks of the monstrous wolves of Galadan, the Wolflord.

I was looking forward to reading this book, I really was. Having gone through the rather tedious introduction of The Summer Tree, I thought this one would start right on with more suspense and fast paced action (although I also enjoy highly desciptive books, such as Tad William's Memory, Sorrow and Thorn series, which I highly recommend, by the way). But it doesn't.

Indeed, I found Kay's style awkward and irregular, and the plot messy and somewhat grotesque at times. It's like he was afraid of revealing too much and enrobed his story in numerous unnecessary and confusing elements that did nothing but slow my reading down. Maybe, had I known the story of Arthur, I would have liked it more.

However, the book also has some good bits, even though I had to wait half the book before the story became interesting, and in the end I can say I enjoyed it. Let's just hope The Darkest Road becomes gripping quicker.

6 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars And more...., October 21, 2005

By	S. Potter "thepothole" (Mapleville, RI United States) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

I remember the first time I read this series. It took me four days (it would have taken three, but there was a delay in getting the last two from a friend). I was moved more deeply than any other work in fantasy I had read. I remember staying up until 6 AM (I was in theater at the time) reading them, and weeping my way through the last third of the last book in the series.

Without doubt, Kay invokes all that is deep in us as people who have created mythos and myths to carry us. He evokes all that is strong in us, while showing that even the mythic have their weaknesses. While later works of Kay's may be more polished, this is the raw material that he still works from.

As with every reading, when I finished my recent re-read I was almost traumatised to leave the world that had been so well crafted. The end leaves all satisfied, but there is a bittersweet flavor to it, since the people he has created are no longer accessable to the reader.

This is the series I would want while stranded on a desert island. And I cannot think of anything more to say than that.