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Tigana is one of the slowest and most intricate fantasy novels I have ever read; yet, for all its deliberate pacing, it is peppered with bursts of action and surprising plot reveals.

I’m not going to sugar coat it for you: this is a difficult book to read. I've also found it quite difficult to write a review because I really liked parts of the book, but took issue with many other elements. So I will unload my critical thoughts here whilst still doing the book justice.

After a very well written prologue, we are introduced to a huge host of characters; it takes quite some time for their place within the story to make any sense. Eventually, it does all come together but it takes a large amount of time to get there fully, and this is lengthened by random asides and late character additions to the already huge narrative. It’s convoluted. It’s wordy. And I almost gave up on it. Had I not been buddy reading this, I may have done so.

Despite these problems, Tigana is not without its merits. The quest that drives the story forward, revenge for a lost homeland, is rather powerful and unique because the homeland has not just been destroyed: it has been erased from memory by powerful magic. This was an interesting concept because even the word “Tigana� is lost. This device is what kept me reading. I wanted to see what would happen. The final action sequence was superbly written, and it delivered all it needed to. I’ve not read anything quite like it before: it was magic on a very grand scale that has clearly influenced other writers of fantasy.

Unfortunately, it's a VERY male driven story

I feel it would be remiss not to write a paragraph on the poor representation of females in the novel. To put it simply, every woman seems to be an object of sex and that seems to be the sole object of her power and how she accomplishes anything of significance in the novel. You could argue that perhaps this representation is an element of the medieval era in which fantasy is often set, limiting the status and opportunities available and means to execute influence, but this is still problematic. Not all writers fall into this pit. Whilst I would not go quite as far as to call the novel completely and unforgivably misogynistic, there is certainly an imbalance here. It is very male driven, taps into male fantasies and failed to allow the female characters to grasp opportunities that could have completed their character arc and missions more effectively (and without the need for sex.) Not to mention how horrifically bad and laughable some of these scenes were actually written.

Standalone fantasy novels of this calibre are very difficult to pull off, and whilst this has many problems (some of which are glaringly big problems), it sill manages to achieve everything it set out to. I also liked how dense the political structure was and how significant actions could be in the larger scheme of things.

So for me, this is a very mixed bag but I still enjoyed reading it and I especially enjoyed finishing it and seeing the final sequence of events unfold in a blaze of glory and bloodshed.

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