The Summer Tree

The Summer Tree is the first volume in the epic Fantasy trilogy The Fionavar Tapestry by Guy Gavriel Kay. Five university students from Toronto are transported by a mage into another world, to Fionavar, under the pretence of witnessing a celebration, the enduring peace of a thousand years and the continued binding of Rakoth, a god-like figure who once tried to conquer Fionavar by force. Since Rakoth’s defeat a thousand years before, he has remained chained beneath his former mountain fortress. Of the five Toronto students, each has hidden strengths and will play pivotal roles in the epic battles to come. In a spectacular catastrophe, the mages are betrayed and treachery sees Rakoth freed. The Summer Tree focuses on the importance for two of the five Toronto students. Kimberely becomes a Seer, enriched with foresight but given the power to summon armies to war against Rakoth. Paul, filled with self-guilt, entered Fionavar without a future remaining in Toronto. Paul sacrifices his life for Fionavar, hoping to repay a debt, believing incorrectly he was to blame for the death of his in a car accident. Paul becomes sacrifice to the god of the Summer Tree, the custom to deliver drought-ending rain. The gods have another fate for Paul and Fionavar and so Paul is saved from death, returned to life but always Twiceborn, conscious of ebb and flow between life and death, Paul becomes the Lord of the Summer Tree, an intercedent for the gods of Fionavar.
The Summer Tree begins a trilogy of epic battle, rich storytelling, full of fable and myth. The philosophical concept underpinning The Fionavar Tapestry is the destiny of all universes relies on the fate of the first world, Fionavar. The complex threads of fate can only be unravelled, the universe destroyed by Rakoth, the one god from outside the realms of Fionavar and seemingly beyond the effects of fate.