num_pages: 501
description: Guy Gavriel Kay virtually invented a genre that, with consummate artistry, blends history and fantasy in some of literature's most acclaimed works of the fantastic. Now, the award-winning author turns his gaze, and his readers', to the Northlands. Leaving behind the decadent, sophisticated courts of his most recent works, he has shaped a memorable saga evoking the Celtic, Anglo-Saxon, and Norse cultures of a thousand years ago.There is nothing soft or silken about the North. The world echoes with the clash of weapons and sea-raiders' cries, the lives of men and women as challenging as the climate and lands in which they dwell.For generations, the Erlings of Vinmark have taken their dragon-prowed ships across the seas, leaving fire and death behind. But times can change, even in the North, and in this tale wrought of violence, beauty, and supernatural presences in the half world forests and nights, men and women of three cultures find the threads of their lives unexpectedly brought together.Bern Thorkellson, punished for his father's sins, denied his heritage and home, commits an act of vengeance and desperation that brings him face to face with a past he's been trying to leave behind.In the Anglcyn lands of King Aeldred, a shrewd king, battling inner demons all the while, shores up his defences with alliances and diplomacy—and with swords and arrows—while his exceptional, unpredictable children shape their own devices and desires when battles comes and darkness falls in the spirits woods.And to the west, in the valleys and shrouded hills of the Cyngael, whose voices carry music even as they feud and raid amongst each other, violence and love are entangled deeply when the dragon ships come and Alun ab Owyn, chasing an enemy in the night, glimpses strange lights gleaming above forest pools.Making brilliant use of motifs from saga, song, and chronicle, and conjuring, as always, themes of today from elements of the past, Guy Gavriel Kay has created a work of subtle, intricate richness, bringing to life a vivid and multi-layered world and its peoples balanced on the knife-edge of change.
language: English
title: The Last Light of the Sun
titlecomplete: The Last Light of the Sun
genres: Fiction, Historical, Historical Fantasy, Canada, High Fantasy, Science Fiction Fantasy, Epic Fantasy, Alternate History, Historical Fiction, Fantasy
ratings_count: 9046
awards: awardedAt: 1104566400000
name: Locus Award
category: Best SF Novel, awardedAt: 1104566400000
name: Sunburst Award
category: Canadian Novel
publisher: Viking Canada