Hello all,

Well it's certainly been an interesting month for me. I became one of the latest beneficiaries of the hi-tech recession, and lost my job. You'd think that would have meant I'd have got this newsletter out on time, but sadly, no! (Obviously I'm too busy enjoying my free time). Current plans are to enjoy freedom for a while longer and go on a vacation to Italy (where I intend to visit San Gimignano, the inspiration behind Tigana's Avalle) and a visit to my family and friends in England. Then we'll see. But (shameless plug to follow) if anyone needs a website designed, you know who to contactl! To continue on the personal note, I'll just add that I am grateful for the emails I received and the messages that were posted in the forums by people who were concerned with my safety in the wake of the bombings in Jerusalem this week. It is very comforting to know that people care. And now on to the real business of this newsletter... which is to tell you about GGK and Bright Weavings, and not myself!

GGK News
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> New Covers for UK editions
Earthlight has now acquired the rights to Tigana in the UK, to go with all titles subsequent to Fionavar. It will be relaunched in 2002, and they are redoing ALL their GGK covers in a new look because they are dissatisfied with the 'arches' look currently available. Details and gifs of the covers will of course go on site as soon as I have them.

> Ad Astra
Here's some advance warning that GGK will be appearing as Guest of Honour at Ad Astra, Toronto's annual SF convention, which takes place from the 8-10th of February 2002. Not that far away...

> The Next Book
Those who have been visiting the forums will know that GGK is about a quarter of the way through writing the new book - which will be set in the same world as that of The Lions of Al-Rassan and The Sarantine Mosaic. I know no more...

What's New on Bright Weavings
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Well this has been a bumper month for exciting new content on Bright Weavings, with a lot of new material from GGK himself, and a wonderfully clever and funny piece by a noted Imperial-regime scholar of Sarantine History...

> Poetry by GGK

There is a new subsection within the GGKs Words section of the site - poetry by GGK. At the moment the section contains three poems. Two were written for inclusion on a special CD-Rom of short fiction and poetry on selected themes (creating a myth or legend/linking up to earlier writers) that was given out to attendees of the World Fantasy Convention at the beginning of November. 'The Root of Her Tree' follows the first theme, and it's spun out of various mythic strands using elements of 'luck of the tribe' and Oedipal motifs. 'Shalott' is GGK's take on the story of the Lady of Shalott, clearly based on/inspired by Malory and Tennyson. The third poem is called 'Northumbria' and was written for Dorothy Dunnett many years ago. When she passed away at the beginning of November, GGK sent me the never-before published piece for the site, in memoriam:

http://www.brightweavings.com/ggkswords/poetry.htm

> In Memoriam: Dorothy Dunnett
As well as the poem that he wrote for Dorothy Dunnett so many years ago, GGK has written a memorial piece that we now have on the site. The piece is appearing in the December issue of Locus Magazine. GGK knew Lady Dunnett for more than 25 years. He remembers his first meeting with her, her work and their friendship, and talks of the distinguished and brilliant novelist who was also a wonderful and extraordinary personality:

http://www.brightweavings.com/ggkswords/dunnett.htm

> We See by Jad's Light Alone: Guy Gavriel Kay and the New Sanctuary Mosaicist
Something very special for the site - a wonderful addition to the scholarship section that mingles real scholarship about art and literature with scholarly parody, elements of fiction, and commentary on many of GGK's themes - and also manages to be very funny: an essay by Andrew Patton who has up till now kept his identity as a noted Imperial-regime scholar of Sarantine History (!) hidden behind his persona as a successful Canadian artist and art-critic. This piece is not to be missed - read it carefully, and read it more than once!

http://www.brightweavings.com/scholarship/jadslight.htm

Tidbits
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A heads-up to our foreign language readers that I have added some links to foreign language reviews on the reviews index page. We've got links to French reviews of Tigana and The Lions of Al-Rassan, Czech reviews of Tigana and A Song for Arbonne and a Finnish review of The Lions of Al-Rassan. Of course if you don't speak those languages and fancy a bit of a giggle, you can always put the reviews through altavista's babel fish translation facility. I found a new career when I did. I'm gearing up to become a fantasy bomb disposal expert. Just working out who to send the cv too. So, for those review links, and even perhaps a career change, check out: http://www.brightweavings.com/reviews/index.htm.

The observant among you might have noticed a new graphic added to the right-hand side of Bright Weavings' pages. Some people have asked (honestly, they did) about contributing financially to the site, so I have set up a facility for people to do so, should they wish. This is not a 'subscription' thing, or even an expectation. It's simply there for those people who do feel that they have enjoyed the site and its features in such a way that they wish to contribute towards its upkeep. It's the blue graphic with a paypal logo, and you can see it on any page of the site except for the forums.

The keen among you will remember that GGK attended the World Fantasy Convention at the beginning of November, where Lord of Emperors was on the finalist ballot for Best Novel of 2001. Well, it didn't win (what were they thinking?) but if you want to read a report about the Convention, and see some pictures of the various famous bods that were there, you can at http://www.sfrevu.com/2001/9798%20World%20Fantasy/Page.html. Our very own Francois Vincent actually attended the Convention as it took place in his home town of Montreal, and he left us some reports about it as well, in the forums. Those can be found at: http://www.brightweavings.com/scgi-bin/discus/show.cgi?2/140. And speaking of the forums...

In the Forums
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The forums are abuzz. There's literally no other way to put it. When I started putting together this newsletter, and wanted to see what the 'happening' threads were, I clicked on the 'new last week' link and found that there were new messages in 35 of the threads on the forums. 35! It's getting hard to keep up with all the action, but here are my selections of the most interesting and fun discussions going on at the moment. Of course you might be better off just going to the forums homepage and clicking on that 'last week' link yourself...

> Welcome to the University of Sarantium
Who better to learn sculpture from than Ginserat? Gourmet cooking than Strumosus? Costume design than Baerd? The University of Sarantium only chooses proven experts in their fields to teach our bright, ambitious students. Whether you want to do War Studies (featuring 'Helmets and Shields: How to turn anything into a Weapon, co-taught by Carullus and Blaise de Garsenc, and 'Trees and their use in Unarmed Combat' co-taught by Marius of Quileia and Devin bar Garin) or the more peaceful (maybe) Literary Studies (featuring Letter Writing by Rodrigo Belmonte, The Art of the Expletive by Caius Crispus, and Politics in Ballad Form by Bertan de Talair), there's something for everyone here! (My personal favourite has got to be in Drama: Appearance: Why dirty fingernails can be the death of you by Taeri bar Sandre). Find out more by reading the prospectus (along with descriptions of fraternities and evening classes) at:

http://www.brightweavings.com/scgi-bin/discus/show.cgi2/138

> GGK Character Crossovers
What would a conversation between Diarmuid and Devin be like? Alec thought it might go something like this:

"What, you think you've had trouble with your older brother? You've never met Aileron!"
"Hmmph, at least you never got caught hung upside down by him. Plus, I've never even been sure about how my father feels for me!"
"Oh, don't get me going about fathers!"

Things might get a tad more bizarre if GGK characters met characters from other areas entirely. Dreamcatcher has a fabulous take on Jane Austen and GGK:

Mr. Darcy: In vain I have struggled. It will not do. You must allow me to tell you how ardently I admire and adore you. Will you marry me?
Dianora:: I hate you. I will destroy you.
Mr. Darcy: I might wonder why with so little endeavor at civility, I am thus rejected.
Dianora: You have ruined my friends and my family. You are scum. Can I be your concubine?
Mr. Darcy: Yes.
time passes
Mr. Darcy: You are too generous to trifle with me. If your feelings are what they were last spring, say so at once.
Dianora: I assure you sir, they are quite the opposite. (drowns self)
Mr. Darcy: We should have met in Finavir.

For more interesting, hilarious (and plain bizarre) crossovers, go to:

http://www.brightweavings.com/scgi-bin/discus/show.cgi?5/149

> Free Will or No Free Will?

Our group read of The Fionavar Tapestry is proceeding in fits and starts. After some time spent discussing whether Aileron and Kim were ever destined to have a fling, things moved on to a more serious note with Elizabeth's introduction of the topic of Darien, and free will, with musings on nature and nurture, destiny and free will, Rakoth and the Wild Hunt, Darien "No one who has ever lived, surely, can ever have been so poised between Light and Dark" and more. Would we be better off without free will? Is there such a thing as free will? What is 'evil' and can it be quantified? A few morsels:

Elizabeth says: Vae's response upon learning of Darien's paternity is that he will need a lot of love...but Jennifer wants him "truly free" to make a pure choice, uninfluenced (I admit we see more about this later, but it's been brought up in the books previously). Is Darien truly balanced - "perfectly poised" between Dark and Light? He "grew up" in a loving home, but ignorant. Not having his "real" mother brings up all kinds of adoptive-child rejection issues, regardless of what he was taught concerning her. I'd say he is poised by Nature, perhaps, but you can't leave the Nurture out of the equation....he didn't grow up in a vaccuum. Now, I realize that he's a fictional character, so what I'm also digging for here is commentary on our own humanity and personality development. So many people blame their parents for their own dysfunction these days, I'm quite concerned. And certainly there are likely genetic pre-dispositions to some behaviours (e.g. Alcoholism). But what about our choice of Light and Dark? Now, there's more than one choice involved in character/personality development, but are we free to make a pure choice, when we make them? Can we be? Can we overcome both Nature and Nurture (the negative or Dark aspects of both) and choose Light (psychologically healthy choices)? (and a whole 'nother conversation: are there Grey choices?) Or are we sometimes "doomed" in a sense, by either influence?

Alec says: I'm not sure we could call Rakoth the advent of evil in Fionavar. The Wild Hunt on some level allows free choice. For free choice to exist the Weaver can't control/determine everything, and Rakoth was let into the tapestry as a consequence. If we have free will then, with or without Rakoth, we can do evil. Who knows how long the people of Fionavar lived and occasionally fought even before Rakoth arrived. (remember: the Wild Hunt was one of the oldest things, but Rakoth first appeared only 1000 or so years before as I recall)...

Cassie says: I was just reading these last posts, and something suddenly struck me. I was thinking about pain and sadness, and the fact that there is quite a bit of it in the Tapestry. And then another word came to mind: sacrifice. If I had to use one word to describe the actions of the people in Fionavar, it would be that; sacrifice. Diar's, Kevin's, Paul's, Kim's, Lancelot's...now that I think about it, most of the characters in the tapestry sacrificed something of themselves, for something greater than themselves. They sacrificed for the 'light' in the world. Maybe they sacrificed themselves so that they would always be part of the light; that in acting on the light's behalf, they too would become part of it. Hmmm, that last thought is a little abstract, but maybe someone else will understand what I'm trying to say and word it more clearly. I have to agree with Thunderchild that without any of events of the 'dark' there might not have been any of the sheer greatnesses of the 'light.' Without opposition, greater good probably would not have happened. Perhaps it is the dark in the world which makes us stive for the light. It pushes us to make ourselves...more in tune with the light...hmmm...closer to the light.

It's a long, complicated discussion and I'm going to hope that these excerpts have whetted your appetite for more because it really is a fascinating topic that people are engaging with seriously. You can read it all, and contribute yourself at:

http://www.brightweavings.com/scgi-bin/discus/show.cgi?99/106

There are many more active threads, including Which character you most resemble, Addicts Anonymous (how many times have you read each book), more questions answered by GGK, Broken Wing's continuing discussion of her first reading of Fionavar (she's up to The Wandering Fire), GGK Action Figures, and more. So go join the discussions.

And that's it from me for this month. I can't promise a December newsletter as I'll be away, but I'll try. New stuff will still be appearing on the site though, including some more cover art and some more Martin Springett specials in his Images of Fionavar series. And I'd like to wish everyone a Season's Greetings - to all those who are celebrating (whatever you're celebrating) enjoy the festivities.

Till next time,

Deborah