All the Seas of the World by Guy Gavriel Kay
My rating: 3 of 5 stars
I really enjoy Kay as a storyteller, and he’s my husband’s favorite author, so we like to bond over reading his books together. While my soulmate was happy to give this beast five enthusiastic teary-eyed stars, I had a harder time stepping over the flaws in the execution of the whole, while still deeply enjoying certain sections. One of the things that likely contributed to this (which I didn’t realize until about the middle of the book), was that this title is a “GGK Avengers” of sorts, where we see returning characters, battle references, and cultural traditions that are pulled from other Kay worlds in previous books that I haven’t read. So… I believe that this novel is meant to be a crowd-pleaser for loyal Kay fans while also being readable as a standalone. For me, it was too many characters, too many gratuitous concubines, and too chaotic of a perspective-shifting situation. That said, I absolutely loved Folco and would gladly read an entire book of his adventures. And of course, as in every Kay book, the high quality banter at court was 100% on point. I will also always be thankful for this book as it kept me company in the airport during a long, looooong delay. 🙂
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