The Wandering Fire is book two of the Fionavar Tapestry, a trilogy by Guy Gavriel Kay. This trilogy is about five friends from Toronto were whisked away to a magical world named Fionavar. Fionavar is one of the many worlds that were created at the beginning of time, and it is the first one that was made. Therefore, anything significant that happens in Fionavar has major repercussions in all of the other worlds, including earth.

There are no spoilers in this review that give away anything important in this book. However, there are potential spoilers here for those of you who haven’t read the previous book, The Summer Tree.

For a thousand years in Fionavar, Rakoth Maugrim, the Unraveller (an evil god), had been bound and held under Mt. Rangat. Wardstones had been placed in four different places of the world, and as long as they glowed blue, it meant that the world was safe, and Rakoth was still bound under the mountain. But in The Summer Tree, he managed to free himself from his bonds. It was then up to the five friends to do the best they could to try to help the people of Fionavar save their world.

At the end of The Summer Tree, Kim, Dave, Kevin, Paul, and Jennifer had returned to earth, and they now have to find a way back to Fionavar. They are all waiting on Kim, the Seer, to have a prophetic dream that should lead them back. The time eventually comes a year later, and the five friends return to Fionavar to find out that the land is being plagued by an unnatural winter, when the snow should have been long gone. The snows are effectively preventing an attack on Rakoth and his army in the north and must be stopped.


Dramatis Personae

The cast of characters in this book has not changed much from the previous novel. Though they have gone through a lot of changes since they first arrived in Fionavar, all of the original five are still present, Kim, Dave, Paul, Kevin, and Jennifer. The same characters from Fionavar are still being used as well, with the more familiar ones being Loren Silvercloak the mage, and his “source”, Matt Sören, Diarmuid the prince, and his brother and heir to the throne, Aileron.

The five characters are all essentially split up in this book, and following their separate exploits can be a bit tedious at times, but not to the point that it is distracting.

Unlike some other books I have read recently, the characters in this book are all well developed and easily distinguishable. There are enough characters to keep things interesting, but there are few enough of them that I never got confused about who was who (a major flaw in Melanie Rawn’s writing). And if you do happen to forget who a particular character is, there is always that very convenient character index at the front of the book that you can refer to.


Other thoughts

This book continues in the fashion of The Summer Tree, with the strong influence from mythology. The gods and goddesses are very similar to Greek and Roman deities. Unlike in the first book however, The Wandering Fire is strongly influenced by the characters of Arthurian legend, particularly Arthur and Guinevere.

One strange thing I noticed was that there is no mention of the family members of the five characters from earth. Nobody seems to question any of the strange things that happen. At the very beginning of the novel (so this technically isn’t a spoiler), a particular pregnant character makes a brief trip to Fionavar with another of the characters, has her baby, and returns home. Yet strangely enough, there is no mention from any of her family about where her baby went!

In my review of the first book, I noted some similarities to Tad Williams’ Memory, Sorrow, and Thorn series. For those of you who have read that series, an unnatural, unending winter may sound familiar to you. One striking similarity that I noticed was how similar Kay’s lios alfar are to Williams’ sithi (and both in turn are very similar to Tolkien’s elves). Well the similarity becomes even more apparent when in both trilogies, the lands of the lios alfar/sithi are untouched by the winter. (Keep in mind that Kay published his trilogy four years before Williams’ trilogy was published).

Speaking of unnatural weather patterns, in The Summer Tree, there was a drought that was plaguing the land and everyone was concerned about food. In The Wandering Fire, the drought was then followed by a winter that lasted until midsummer, yet there is no mention of lack of food. After such harsh winter conditions, you would expect that everyone would be starving, yet there is no mention of such a thing.

I am currently reading the last book in this trilogy, and I have been blown away with the amount of material that is covered in these three short books. The entire trilogy, at 778 pages, is not much longer than most single books I have read, yet it contains enough ideas to make several trilogies this size. I don’t know if he carries any of these ideas over into his other books, as these are the first ones I have read. Not all of his ideas are completely original, there are many similarities to Tolkien, but his story differs immensely from anything Tolkien wrote.

My age recommendation for this book would be for readers of at least 13 years or older. There isn’t anything too graphic, but the book does delve into some mature themes.

~~~Thanks for reading!~~~




Recommended: Yes