Five friends go to a university talk by a noted Celtic studies authority, and quickly discover that he is in fact a wizard, and has come to bring them to Fionavar – the first of all Worlds, where they all have an important part to play in the war against the Unraveler.
This is a series that I know my BF really liked, so I went into this book preparing to enjoy it. Then, when he saw I was reading it, he warned me that it was pretty derivative, so I shouldn’t let that color my thinking about the book too much. At that point, I wasn’t sure what I was getting myself into.
There is some pretty heavy influence of the Arthurian kind very evident in the story, but I can’t say I thought it was leaning too heavily upon it (granted, I’m in book one – that could change). It’s a good set up to a standard high fantasy novel with the added bonus of the initial real world setting, so you do have a good view into Fionavar through the character’s eyes as they discover it themselves. I enjoyed it, and will read the rest of the series.