Kay is one of my favorite authors, I usually read 'Lions' every couple of years, and the others less often. Responding to some things from earlier in this thread:
1. Fionavar Tapestry - he was young when he wrote it. It's set at the U of T, because I think, he was a student there when he was writing it. He's matured a lot as a writer since then.
2. On Kay being 'manipulative.' Well he takes you on an emotional journey - so if you buy in, you don't notice the strings - and if you don't, you feel them jerking you. I don't think you can accuse him of being 'ham-fisted' in how he does it - at least compared to the genre as a whole.
3. The one trait that I notice in Kay's writing that kind of irks me a bit - is that his main characters are all so GOOD at things. They're unbelievably clever, the women are usually beautiful as hell. He'll have some minor characters that run counter to this - Tilliticus in 'Sarantium' forinstance - but all too often the lead characters are just so charismatic - so smart and able and capable. I've enjoyed reading reading GRRM partly because his characters seem to fallible and human by comparison.
