Tad Williams - The Witchwood Crown / Empire of Grass spoiler thread

[Lord Patrek]

Just skimming this thread because I want to avoid spoilers.

With EoG doing nothing, I left it home and brought the new Wendig (a mistake) and the forthcoming Kameron Hurley short fiction collection with me on my hiking trip in New Hampshire.

Returned home on Monday and resumed reading EoG and it's a slog. I'm about 250 pages into it and I would like to know when does it get better? So far, it suffers from absolutely everything that made TWC such a difficult and often boring read. 

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

6 hours ago, Lord Patrek said:

Just skimming this thread because I want to avoid spoilers.

With EoG doing nothing, I left it home and brought the new Wendig (a mistake) and the forthcoming Kameron Hurley short fiction collection with me on my hiking trip in New Hampshire.

Returned home on Monday and resumed reading EoG and it's a slog. I'm about 250 pages into it and I would like to know when does it get better? So far, it suffers from absolutely everything that made TWC such a difficult and often boring read. 

I liked the whole thing but Morgan’s story improves significantly when he meets a Sithi.

[kuenjato]

11 hours ago, Lord Patrek said:

Just skimming this thread because I want to avoid spoilers.

With EoG doing nothing, I left it home and brought the new Wendig (a mistake) and the forthcoming Kameron Hurley short fiction collection with me on my hiking trip in New Hampshire.

Returned home on Monday and resumed reading EoG and it's a slog. I'm about 250 pages into it and I would like to know when does it get better? So far, it suffers from absolutely everything that made TWC such a difficult and often boring read. 

It doesn't significantly improve. It stays about the same all the way through. I feel the last third of TWC and the whole of EoG form this long, steady sense of consistency. If you're not digging it at this point, you might as well skim the rest.

Scott is right, Morgan's POV does eventually improve, but really only because he's hanging with a Sithi and learning more about the underlying conflict of the series.

[Lord Patrek]

Added another 100 pages today and it is still a slog. Morgan's a real dumbass and his storyline only gets better because we learn more about Sithi history. I wish he could just die. . . 

Nothing is getting much traction thus far and I'm more than halfway through. 

[Lord Patrek]

Well, only 60 pages to go and it's been the slog of slogs. Unless a mindfuck of an ending somehow saves it, I'd say that EoG is no better than TWC. It suffers from the same shortcomings and I'd never would have gone through this ordeal if this wasn't by Tad Williams.

One thing I really hate and I've only just managed to put my finer on it is the fact that all the good guys are extremely dense un purpose. I hate it when the bad guys are dumbasses, but in these books it's the good guys that are stupid and naive as a plot device. The writing is on the wall, but everyone from Simon to Tiamak can't seem to see anything. Even the Norns act like Nazi and Jeovah's Witness fuckwits.

This return to Osten Ard was supposed to be one of the highlights of the decade in the fantasy genre. Not sure what went wrong. . .

Keeping my fingers crossed for an ending that will make going through this 600+-page dootstopper worthwhile. . . 

[Darth Richard II]

Haters gonna hate 

[Valandil]

I really enjoyed empire of grass. All the unver/thrithings stuff was excellent, I really liked Morgan’s odyssey through the Aldheorte and the new things we’re learning about keida’ya and tinukeda’ya. Simon and miriameles pieces were slower. Simon seems to becoming or already is, an alcoholic which is tragic. Don’t agree with the scale of negativity I’ve seen on these two pages. Loved the book, the pacing is very close to the original trilogy/ quadrilogy. If only there were more books in the genre as high quality as this. 

[Darth Richard II]

This is the only place I’ve seen such negativity about it. All my good reads friends loved it.

[kuenjato]

2 hours ago, Darth Richard II said:

This is the only place I’ve seen such negativity about it. All my good reads friends loved it.

Anecdotal evidence FTW.

I don't think it's as bad as Pat, but it's completely unexceptional for the most part, and the seams really stand out in several sections as Tad railroads the narrative toward his predetermined outcome -- resulting in the same facile techniques and overall artificiality that's plagued his work from the Otherland days. 

The only improvement on the original series is that the action is more frequent and generally better written. Otherwise, there doesn't seem to be much reason for this story to exist.

[Darth Richard II]

19 minutes ago, kuenjato said:

Anecdotal evidence FTW.

I don't think it's as bad as Pat, but it's completely unexceptional for the most part, and the seams really stand out in several sections as Tad railroads the narrative toward his predetermined outcome -- resulting in the same facile techniques and overall artificiality that's plagued his work from the Otherland days. 

The only improvement on the original series is that the action is more frequent and generally better written. Otherwise, there doesn't seem to be much reason for this story to exist.

Sure, but a few people on a forum saying they don't like it is also Anecdotal.

[kuenjato]

1 hour ago, Darth Richard II said:

Sure, but a few people on a forum saying they don't like it is also Anecdotal.

We're also not explicitily claiming it's vastly unpopular with the mass majority of readers or that our opinions represent the mass majority of readers,* simply outlining, in clear and concise critiques, why the book is not working for us. It's OK to like the book, it's also OK to see it as a symptom of authorial indulgence festering some quarter-decade unchecked, to the eventual, perhaps inevitable result -- predictable, bloated, and ultimately an unworthy follow up to one of the most influential and acclaimed fantasy serials of the pre-GRRM/Grimdark era.

*Actually, Pat alluded to how these books are not selling per expectations, and thus the critiques submitted are actually valuable as potential reasons why The Last King isn't generating hype / best seller status.

Edited July 11, 2019 by kuenjato

[Darth Richard II]

8 minutes ago, kuenjato said:

We're also not explicitily claiming it's vastly unpopular with the mass majority of readers or that our opinions represent the mass majority of readers,* simply outlining, in clear and concise critiques, why the book is not working for us. It's OK to like the book, it's also OK to see it as a symptom of authorial indulgence festering some quarter-decade unchecked, to the eventual, perhaps inevitable result -- predictable, bloated, and ultimately an unworthy follow up to one of the most influential and acclaimed fantasy serials of the pre-GRRM/Grimdark era.

*Actually, Pat alluded to how these books are not selling per expectations, and thus the critiques submitted are actually valuable as potential reasons why The Last King isn't generating hype / best seller status.

Yeah I wasn't trying to be snarky...well OK i was a bit but I wasn't saying your opinions are invalid, just that it seems to be met more favorably on other sites.

 

As for sales, I know nothing about how that, that's a @Werthead question.

[kuenjato]

1 minute ago, Darth Richard II said:

Yeah I wasn't trying to be snarky...well OK i was a bit but I wasn't saying your opinions are invalid, just that it seems to be met more favorably on other sites.

 

As for sales, I know nothing about how that, that's a @Werthead question.

Sure... I've only read the reviews on Goodreads, and those are mostly gushing. Only a handful seem to feel the same way that Pat and I do.

Again, I thought the book was OK... but my overall opinion, walking away, was that there was so much more that could have been done with this world/characters/conflict. Part of this is because a whole new generation of epic-fantasy authors have taken the template in the last couple decades and really pushed the bar up and sideways and twisted it all around. Most of this is just... safe. Boring. Predictable. And so, so overwritten. 

[Werthead]

8 hours ago, Darth Richard II said:

Yeah I wasn't trying to be snarky...well OK i was a bit but I wasn't saying your opinions are invalid, just that it seems to be met more favorably on other sites.

As for sales, I know nothing about how that, that's a @Werthead question.

As I said previously, Williams has sold about 30 million books, so he's not starving any time soon. He didn't write these books for the money or because he'd committed to doing something for his website that spun out of control (leading to the Shadowmarch series, still clearly his weakest work to date), but because he wanted to.

There does seem to be a lack of excitement about the new series, which is odd given how GRRM, Rothfuss and Sanderson have hyped them up and reviews have largely been positive. I suspect a key problem is that MS&T itself has fallen off the "fantasy required reading" lists in the last decade or so and a lot of newer fantasy readers are less keen on reading the original trilogy to get to the new one. The dislike I've seen from some for The Dragonbone Chair because there isn't a kickass explosion or fight scene in the first ten pages is remarkable.

I still need to get to Empire of Grass, but after an excellent start Spinning Silver has turned into a bit of a slog and I'm finding it hard to finish the book off. Need to push through it.

[SeanF]

15 hours ago, Valandil said:

I really enjoyed empire of grass. All the unver/thrithings stuff was excellent, I really liked Morgan’s odyssey through the Aldheorte and the new things we’re learning about keida’ya and tinukeda’ya. Simon and miriameles pieces were slower. Simon seems to becoming or already is, an alcoholic which is tragic. Don’t agree with the scale of negativity I’ve seen on these two pages. Loved the book, the pacing is very close to the original trilogy/ quadrilogy. If only there were more books in the genre as high quality as this. 

I agree with that.  I found it a good read.

[Lord Patrek]

I finished it yesterday in the park with an iced cappuccino. No pay-off, no resolution, as all the threads end in cliffhangers.

Just happy it's finally over. . .

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

6 minutes ago, Lord Patrek said:

I finished it yesterday in the park with an iced cappuccino. No pay-off, no resolution, as all the threads end in cliffhangers.

Just happy it's finally over. . .

I have to question your taste.  I throughly enjoyed Empire of Grass.  

[Lord Patrek]

28 minutes ago, Ser Scot A Ellison said:

I have to question your taste.  I throughly enjoyed Empire of Grass.  

To each his own, I guess.

C'est la vie. 

[kuenjato]

5 hours ago, Ser Scot A Ellison said:

I have to question your taste.  I throughly enjoyed Empire of Grass.  

After more than 20 years of this board, we're still seeing this sort of bullshit response?

You liked the dumpster fire that was Wise Man's Fear and the insanely insecure cry-for-help that was Slow Regard, so I guess I should question your taste on whether the quality of a piece of fiction?

I may seem harsh, but this sort of commentary induces as vacuum in discussion; it is empty, ridiculous, vapid. It would have been flayed in the old days of the board, when there was substantial activity.

Back on topic: Pat, what parts of the novel did work for you? Did you scan the critiques I posted earlier? What was the worst of the slog for you?

 

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

10 minutes ago, kuenjato said:

After more than 20 years of this board, we're still seeing this sort of bullshit response?

You liked the dumpster fire that was Wise Man's Fear and the insanely insecure cry-for-help that was Slow Regard, so I guess I should question your taste on whether the quality of a piece of fiction?

I may seem harsh, but this sort of commentary induces as vacuum in discussion; it is empty, ridiculous, vapid. It would have been flayed in the old days of the board, when there was substantial activity.

Back on topic: Pat, what parts of the novel did work for you? Did you scan the critiques I posted earlier? What was the worst of the slog for you?

 

I did like TWMF (with the exception of the fairy sex portion of the book) I enjoy Rothfuss’s prose quite a lot.

I also enjoyed EoG.  It isn’t a modern “grimdark” novel that pervades much of Fantasy literature but I really enjoyed how Williams has deepened the existing world and how he has (as the review someone posted at the end of the prior thread pointed out) put a big twist on the “happy ending” people complained about at the completion of the prior trilogy.

It’s a good book.