I grew up seeing Guy Gavriel Kay’s name on countless “top ten (or top five billion) best epic fantasy books you need to read!” lists. He always seemed to hold a spot in the top twenty at least, so I put him on my reading list—and there he stayed for years while I combed through almost everything else on those “best of” lists, desperately searching for something that could grip me the way Tolkien or Martin once had.
The problem was, I never really knew where to start with Kay. I didn’t know what his work was about or what kind of stories he wrote or what he was known for, there was very little media on him for the longest time…
Early last year, I stumbled across his section at the library and finally began researching the best entry point. What I found immediately reassured me: unlike so many epic fantasy authors, Kay doesn’t write sprawling, 7+ book series—often unfinished. Instead, he writes standalones. That was a relief. One of my other all-time favorites, Patricia A. McKillip, also wrote standalone fantasies, and I adore those.
Kay’s prose is extraordinary—lyrical, poetic, almost floral. He writes about people, about humanity. His stories are a unique blend of epic fantasy and high romance, with touches of political intrigue and flashes of action. That mix was right up my alley.
Instead of the great warrior, sometimes he writes about the great artist, or the devoted doctor, or the brilliant poet, or a petty (but great) thief.
So, I picked up The Lions of Al-Rassan last year. And… it was one of the best decisions I’ve ever made. It gave me everything I’d been searching for. And best(ly)….it’s a complete story. No massive commitment to ten or more books just to reach the ending. In epic fantasy, that’s almost unheard of—and I wish more authors would do it.
Kay has shown me that writing a sprawling epic fantasy with many viewpoints and grand scales and epic event doesn’t require multiple volumes and hundreds of thousands of pages and years of commitment.
After that, I read his Asian-inspired Under Heaven. It’s a masterpiece. As a half East Asian man, I deeply appreciated his fantastical treatment of that world. Kay, a white Canadian, approached it with grace, rigor, and genuine meaning—never lapsing into cheap crowd pleaser virtue-signaling or racist caricature. The world of literature needs more of this.
I’m still making my way through his catalogue, but already, the works I’ve read have changed my perspective. They’ve made so many other fantasies—even ones I used to consider masterpieces—feel shallow and poor by comparison.
I’m hesitant to name names, but some of the most praised and successful series in the world currently, just aren’t very good to me now that I’ve discovered Kay.
I can however, upon request, name authors whose work I believe is comparable in quality to Kay’s work. If you’d like to know
I just wish more people knew about Kay and would give him a chance. Recently, The Library Ladder—my favorite BookTuber—released a perfect guide to his work, and it seems to have sparked new interest in his stories. That’s exactly what we need.
I’m exploring Kay’s “World of Two Moons” which is a secondary fantasy world in which most of his books are set, but not all of them.
But his entire catalogue is set in the broader universe of his called Fionavar. And there’s a few different worlds spinning around within that universe. One of those worlds is a dark and mysterious place called… Toronto… 😱 ..
But that’s only his first book, The Fionavar Tapestry, which I actually wouldn’t recommend as an entry point.
My recommendations so far, for anyone interested, would be…
Lions of Al-Rassan
Under Heaven
Written on the Dark which came out earlier this year
The Sarantine Mosaic one of his few works that is a dualogy instead of a standalone.
Tigana a beautiful epic fantasy standalone that took me time to adapt to, the prose is very different from most, but the reward for your commitment to this one is worth it.
by Sunbather-