Kay makes Laurier fantastic
Amy Neufeld

Sci-fi author extraordanaire Guy Gavriel Kay, currently on a national tour to promote his new book Sailing to the Sarantium, is coming to WLU on an intergalactic ticket from SKIFFY. He is a Canadian author, and SKIFFY felt that there would be a high demand among the Laurier population to hear him speak.

Marie Biledeau, President of the Science Fiction and Fantasy Club, feels that Kaye's books are very unique. Aside being historically based (which

is not usual in the Fantasy genre) they explore: "a complicated web of politics and human emotions."

SKIFFY is presenting Guy Gavriel Kaye in conjunction with the Laurier bookstore. The bookstore brings in authors on a regular basis to give talks which the university population are invited to attend.

This is not the first time that Kaye has come to WLU. SKIFFY has brought him here on two different occasions to talk about his books.

When the first volume of Guy Gavriel Kay's The Fionavar Tapestry (The Summer Tree, The Wandering Fire, and The Darkest Road) was published in 1984, it was hailed by critics as a milestone in speculative fiction.

As a result, readers around the world have made subsequent novels Tigana, A Song for Arbonne, and The Lions of Al-Rassan, enormous bestsellers.

The scale of Kay's commercial success is matched by the originality of his recent work. Kay's talents have transformed periods of history into challenging new worlds, creating tales of great adventure.

"Guy Gavriel Kay's books are written at a higher level of the (fantasy) genre" commented

Biledeau. "Kay does a great deal of research on his books, and they are historically based, but set in a fantasy world." His books are based on specific historical events, as well as general themes such as totalitarianism.

Renaissance Italy inspired the mythical land of Tigana, while medieval France and Moorish Spain influenced A Song for Arbonne and The Lions of Al-Rassan.

"Fantasy fiction has the capacity to be as ambitious, as important and as thought-provoking as any form of fiction we have," says Kay. "More so than historical fiction, fantasy offers a wonderful opportunity to make a story universal, and to explore issues that apply to a wider range of experience. That's what I find interesting as a writer."