An adventure story, a love story, a character study, a moral framework and a thing of rare, precise beauty. Tigana is, in short, a fantasy masterwork. First published in 1990, Guy Gavriel Kay's Tigana centres on a group of dispirate rebels attempting to win back their land stolen from them by Brandin the Tyrant, himself one of two warring sorcerers battling each other for overall ownership of the Palm Peninsula. The story's prologue describes the eve of the battle for Tigana, in which Brandin's son, Stevan, is subsequently killed. Struck with rage and grief, the nevertheless victorious Brandin imposes a huge toll upon the province that stole ...  Read the complete review