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Springtime morning in Avalle
I don’t care that the priests say:
I’m going down to the river today
On a springtime morning in Avalle.

When I’m all grown up, come what may
I’ll build a boat to carry me away
And the river will take it to Tigana Bay
And the sea even further away from Avalle

But wherever I wander, by night or by day
Where water runs swiftly or high trees sway,
My heart will carry me back and away
To a dream of the towers of Avalle

Twenty years ago, the nine quarrelling city-states of the Peninsula of the Palm were invaded by the armies of two conquering sorcerers: Brandin of Ygrath and Alberico of Barbadior. After having defeated Chiara, Corte and Asoli, Brandin sent his son to conquer the last free province of the Western Palm. But the men of the Principality of Tigana stood fast, and Valentin the Prince himself slew the sorcerer’s son by the River Deisa.

Maddened by grief, Brandin himself then marched on Tigana. He destroyed their armies, murdered the royal family, razed their cities to the ground, burned all their books, and finally conjured a terrible spell removing the province’s very name from the world, making it impossible to speak or to hear for anyone not born there. And thus, for twenty years, all that was known about the most southwestern province of the Peninsula of the Palm, was lost��

Tigana is the tale of those who survived the death of their nation, and their efforts to restore both their home and its lost name, and the freedom of the entirety of the Peninsula from the tyranny of the sorcerers. For years they have planned to simply assassinate Brandin to remove the hold of his spell, but even so dangerous a plan is doomed to fail even if it succeeds. For if the Ygrathan sorcerer dies, all of the Palm falls to the Empire of Barbadior and Alberico, who is a far more brutal and tyrannical ruler than Brandin is.

A particularly interesting aspect about this book is its setting. Based on Renaissance Italy, the Peninsula of the Palm is a collection of city-states who have been at war with each other for centuries, thus making themselves ripe for the picking by foreign invaders. For the last twenty years, the Palm has been at peace because of the precarious balance of power between Brandin and Alberico.

The characters of the book are good. Nothing more and nothing less. There are no exceptional, larger-than-life figures, but in the end I found myself enjoying them all. The main characters of the book, Alessan, Devin and Catriana, all start out as musicians in the company of the great Mennico di Ferraut, and the focus on music and art is important throughout the whole book. Another interesting character is Dianora, one of Brandin’s mistresses, who is secretly a survivor of Tigana herself.

Perhaps most interesting when it comes to characterisation are the differences between the two tyrants currently ruling the Palm. Alberico is a cold, emotionless man driven only by greed and ambition. He is brutal, cynical and sadistic. His goal is to take the throne of the Emperor of Barbadior, and his invasion of the Palm is only a means to that end. But Alberico wants power for the sake of power itself, and because of that he’s only driven into an endless cycle of hungry ambition. Brandin of Ygrath on the other hand, is a man driver entirely by his emotions. His love for his son and his grief for his death was what drove him to destroy Tigana, and his passionate vengeance is still binding to the Palm. Brandin, despite all he has done, is often portrayed as a competent ruler who cares about the lands he rules, and even as a good man deep within. Thus it happens to be that the main enemy in the fight to restore lost Tigana, is the better man by far of the two tyrants.

There are two excellent parts of the book: the beginning and the ending. The prologue is simply beautiful, taking place before the second Battle of the River Deisa twenty years ago and is really just a simple conversation between two men on the eve of battle: Valentin, Prince of Tigana, and the artist Saevar. The battle in the end, on the other hand, is one of the best scenes I have ever read in the fantasy genre, because of its dramatic twists and turns, its shocking revelations and the brilliantly chosen points of view describing it.

Everything in between is sadly a bit uninteresting. There is nothing much going on, except for the occasional great scene. That makes the book seem a bit longer than it should, and I was wondering several times while reading when things would start happening. Fortunately, though, the fantastic ending and the beautiful writing is more than enough to make up for it.

Essentially, Tigana is a book about history and memory. What happens to the people of a province when its very existence is snatched away, never to be spoken of again? Kay states in the afterword that this topic was inspired by events during and after the 1968 uprising in Czechoslovakia, where people who had led the uprising were not only executed, but were edited away from all official pictures and historical records. And it is a theme that is handled exceedingly well in this book.

In addition to that, the book is morally ambiguous, and constantly toys with the reader’s emotions and preconceptions, by looking at the consequences of the righteous struggle for the restoration of Tigana. Is it right to force the world into another war, to cause the deaths of thousands of innocent people and to threaten the lives of an entire Peninsula in order to restore a name? Add to that the portrayal of Brandin of Ygrath as a sympathetic and just ruler, and you are left with no choice but to question the protagonists�� cause.

I think this is the first time I have ever read a standalone fantasy novel that does not even take place in the same world as others, and where there is no hope of getting to know more. Because of that, I was very skeptical, but in the end I was definitely positively surprised. This book was not perfect, but it was definitely good enough that I would recommend it to just about everyone.

”There are no wrong turnings. Only paths we had not known we were meant to walk.��