Tigana

by Guy Gavriel Kay

Both moons were high, dimming the light of all but the brightest stars. The campfires burned on either side of the river, stretching away into the night.

The white moon, Vidomni, rose, and then, not long after, came blue Ilarion to chase her hopelessly across the sky.

The boot of Italy became my Peninsula of the Palm, with the ambience of olive groves and vineyards I wanted, and my model for Brandin of Ygrath became that of a Borgia or Medici prince, arrogant, cultured, far too proud. Alberico, opposing him, was a crude, efficient Politburo survivor.

I hoped to explore, as part of the revolt the book would chronicle, the idea of the evils done by good men, to stretch the reader with ambiguities and divided loyalties in a genre that tended (and still tends) not to work that way.