Memory, Sorrow, and Thorn

[RedEyedGhost]

Got Dragonbone Chair after reading that this series inspired Martin's ASOIAF in its adult themes, and I gotta say I LOVE it thus far. Only 200 pages in, but I feel like ordering the other 2 (3, if you count the 2 part third book). Great series, and is now number 2 on my favorite series list, just behind ASOIAF.

:shocked:

Shouldn't you finish it first. (and by finish I mean, everything but the epilogue. DON'T READ THE EPILOGUE!)

[DragonAge93]

On Stone Of Farewell, and I loved the way The Dragonbone Chair ended. I really like how a lot of characters came into fruitation and then changed near the end, like Simon. Sad to see this series isn't immensely popular, as I would love to see this series adapted into a show or movie.

[kephv]

I loved this series. I'd rank the books this: TDBC, TGAT, SoF. And even though I'd rank Stone last, I thought it had some of the best parts in the entire series in it: namely, the Sithi. Absolutely love the Sithi -- my favorite NH race. I also rather liked the ending -- though the epilogue, as a few have mentioned, was probably a little

too happy

for it's own good.

I really hope Tad returns to Osten Ard someday.

[DragonAge93]

Yeah, this is just a wonderfully written trilogy. Great characters, great political intrigue, great action.

[Migey]

I tried the series out and really didn't like it... couldn't be bothered getting past the first 50 pages...

[Inkdaub7]

I didn't like the series much but that's where my name comes from.

[Harding Grim]

I found this series really hard to finish actually, the dragonbone chair was great, and it has been a long time since i read them now. I just remember being absolutely drained by Gufwulth's mindless meanderings underneath the Hayholt...

time for another read maybe...

[Migey]

I'm enjoying it a little more now, but I'm over 500 pages into the first book and, well... absolutely fuck all has actually happened. He isn't a bad writer by any means but most authors could have covered the same ground in 250-300 pages that he has spent 500 doing, and they still could have put more in. I feel like I'm still on the opening act, and while the advantage is that I am following everything thus far and am spending no time confused, I still think it's a little... slow.

[Gaiseric]

One of the worst series i've ever read. I knew it's quite dated, so my hopes weren't even high, but I still got very disappointed.

First of all the books are really too slow paced...i was really tempted to skip ahead many times.

The MC is probably the worst I've ever seen....I mean...he keeps whining from the beginning to the end! I don't even know how many times he says "I'm just a kitchen boy, i shouldn't be here", but then every time he is actually in a safe place doing nothing he starts complaining of how he is underestimated, that he did this and that, and they should send him to do important missions (and obvsiously once he is on the mission he starts with the kitchen boy again). Many characters refers to him like a smart guy, but not even once he proves to be able to use his brain above the average level.... just count how many times someone smart tries to explain something to him in a very simple way but in the end he thinks by himself that he actually hasn't understood a thing and he will have to ask again another time. I could have still liked him if he became strong somehow, but till the end he remains almost talenteless. He has no magic, no particular knowledge, he is no great warrior (by the end he is passable with a sword, but no more than the usual soldier) and the only particular skill he shows is the ability to go to the road of dreams easily. I waited all 3 books to see how this ability would develop, or how he would make use of it, but in the end it meant nothing: they never understood who the false messenger was until the very end and it was already too late by then and all the white tree dreams were useless as well.

The heroine is even worse and this says a lot. I can forgive the fact that she is the princess since this is an old book and i was bound to read many clichès, but she is just as brainless as the MC (maybe that's why they fit so well togheter). Her plot was really a waste of pages. She runs from her crazy father the king to go to his uncle (and that's ok), then after some days spent under his protection she gets annoyed because none gives her something important to do (like if she was some great war tactician and his uncle should have let her oversee war preparations), so she runs again to accomplish a completely useless mission. Once she realizes that the mission in pointless she decides to run back to his uncle. Not even the time to settle down after the hardship of getting back that she decides to run again, back to his father this time, and just to have a talk with him.

Even after the war is over the first thing she says to the MC is: "Let's run away!" I actually laughed at this point from how ridiculous it was.

The ending is quite bad too, but i had lost interest far before, so even if it was good the books would still be bad imho.

[Quijote Light]

Opinions are like assholes. Or so they say.

[Harding Grim]

One of the worst series i've ever read. I knew it's quite dated, so my hopes weren't even high, but I still got very disappointed.

First of all the books are really too slow paced...i was really tempted to skip ahead many times.

The MC is probably the worst I've ever seen....I mean...he keeps whining from the beginning to the end! I don't even know how many times he says "I'm just a kitchen boy, i shouldn't be here", but then every time he is actually in a safe place doing nothing he starts complaining of how he is underestimated, that he did this and that, and they should send him to do important missions (and obvsiously once he is on the mission he starts with the kitchen boy again). Many characters refers to him like a smart guy, but not even once he proves to be able to use his brain above the average level.... just count how many times someone smart tries to explain something to him in a very simple way but in the end he thinks by himself that he actually hasn't understood a thing and he will have to ask again another time. I could have still liked him if he became strong somehow, but till the end he remains almost talenteless. He has no magic, no particular knowledge, he is no great warrior (by the end he is passable with a sword, but no more than the usual soldier) and the only particular skill he shows is the ability to go to the road of dreams easily. I waited all 3 books to see how this ability would develop, or how he would make use of it, but in the end it meant nothing: they never understood who the false messenger was until the very end and it was already too late by then and all the white tree dreams were useless as well.

The heroine is even worse and this says a lot. I can forgive the fact that she is the princess since this is an old book and i was bound to read many clichès, but she is just as brainless as the MC (maybe that's why they fit so well togheter). Her plot was really a waste of pages. She runs from her crazy father the king to go to his uncle (and that's ok), then after some days spent under his protection she gets annoyed because none gives her something important to do (like if she was some great war tactician and his uncle should have let her oversee war preparations), so she runs again to accomplish a completely useless mission. Once she realizes that the mission in pointless she decides to run back to his uncle. Not even the time to settle down after the hardship of getting back that she decides to run again, back to his father this time, and just to have a talk with him.

Even after the war is over the first thing she says to the MC is: "Let's run away!" I actually laughed at this point from how ridiculous it was.

The ending is quite bad too, but i had lost interest far before, so even if it was good the books would still be bad imho.

I have to agree with you in losing interest before the end! Sometimes its nice to have a main character who doesn't end up the conquering hero though, no? From what i remember, the amount of warriors like Casamir and other such character's that could be described as this are very numerous, for Simon to have been amongst them may have distracted from the overall theme's of the books, the sithi for examlpe, and their struggle. Look deeper than surface of the protagonsit my friend!

[Arataniello]

I was always intrigued by what Aditu's foretelling for Josua's twins was going to play out as, if Tad ever got round to writing that story.

[Gaiseric]

I have to agree with you in losing interest before the end! Sometimes its nice to have a main character who doesn't end up the conquering hero though, no? From what i remember, the amount of warriors like Casamir and other such character's that could be described as this are very numerous, for Simon to have been amongst them may have distracted from the overall theme's of the books, the sithi for examlpe, and their struggle. Look deeper than surface of the protagonsit my friend!

I agree that there are enough conquering warrior heroes out there and something different would have been nice. However Simon only redeeming features are his good heart and his luck. His luck feels more like plot armor than some real divine intervention in his favor and a good heart is something that almost every MC has, especially at the time the books were written.

I looked deeper than surface, but i didn't like that either. Sithi are just a bad copy of elves and their demise has left unconcerned. The only plotline who picked my interst was Camaris past, but it's a very little part of the story.

[pat5150]

I was always intrigued by what Aditu's foretelling for Josua's twins was going to play out as, if Tad ever got round to writing that story.

There is a collection of short stories set in that universe that should have been published after the Shadowmarch series, but it keeps getting pushed back. . .

Patrick

[Axiomatic]

Personally, I kinda like this series, but I think it'd greatly, GREATLY benefit from a ruthless editor willing to trim it down to size.

Cut out...about 60% of it. Then you'd get a really good fantasy story.

[Werthead]

I just remember being absolutely drained by Gufwulth's mindless meanderings underneath the Hayholt...

I'm over 500 pages into the first book and, well... absolutely fuck all has actually happened.

Welcome to the world of Tad Williams Fantasy Novels :)

He's a very good author, but not the author to go to if you want fast-paced action (well, apart from his latest, The Dirty Streets of Heaven, which is concise and action-packed and pretty damn good). His two fantasy series - Memory, Sorrow and Thorn and Shadowmarch - are both long-winded and take ages to get going and to finish up. MST is by far the superior of the two works and is also of historical interest: it was (arguable, depending on your stance on Stephen Donaldson) the first populist fantasy series to be aimed more at adults than children or teenagers, and set the ground for both WoT and later ASoIaF. It was also somewhat revisionist by giving the 'dark lord' a plausible motivation and believable backstory (Williams challenging Tolkien's problems in that area). If it was published today I think it would still be popular, but a lot of its profile and acclaim comes from more when it was published rather than its inherent value.

His SF series, Otherland, is by far his strongest work. It has the same weakness of being overlong, but at least in that series the length is because Williams keeps inserting episodic mini-adventures for the characters along the way. The main storyline takes yonks to get resolves, but more because of lots of side-adventures (of dubious value to the main plot, but often highly entertaining in themselves) than because sweet FA happens for hundreds of pages at a time. It's basically a TV series in novel form, and works quite well from that perspective.

[Axiomatic]

If you ask me, the best thing Tad Williams ever wrote was The War Of The Flowers. Because it's a single book, which means he doesn't spend 100 pages on NOTHING, and there aren't a million viewpoint characters doing unrelated things in different places with their stories barely intersecting.

It's amazing what Tad Williams can do when he focuses. But he prefers not to.

[Jussi]

Williams considers writing a new Osten Ard novel before the story collection A Chronicle in Stone.

Deb wants me to write an Osten Ard novel before I write the stories. But it's all in the mind-hopper.

https://twitter.com/...303362756640768

"Deb" is Tad's wife Deborah Beale.

[Toby Frost]

Personally, I liked these books, even though I did take about a decade to finish them all. I thought the writing was pretty decent, the characterisation fairly strong, and the important parts of the story worked quite well.When he wants to, Williams can write some fairly exciting stuff, such as the fight with the Ghants, and seems to have a fairly good grip on how a fantasy world could actually work (at least, enough to sound convincing to me).

Within the "rules" of epic fantasy, he did a few interesting things. The non-humans clearly are dwarves and elves, although there are a few other interesting minor races, but again they've got unusual twists. I particularly liked the Inuit/Scandinavian feel of the dwarves (I can't remember the name he uses). He also wins points for giving his non-humans strong individual personalities and not just general traits and creating villains who have motivations beyond villainy.

However, the books are massively long. Williams seems to like writing very long descriptions of people wandering around lost. He also has several threads that don't really go anywhere (after many adventures, X joins the other characters and, er, helps out). Also, the very end contains a whopping great Deus ex Machina to force two characters together, which ends one of the most interesting problems a little too neatly. But overall, I enjoyed these, and would consider reading more of his work, if I had the time.

[nickg]

If you ask me, the best thing Tad Williams ever wrote was The War Of The Flowers. Because it's a single book, which means he doesn't spend 100 pages on NOTHING, and there aren't a million viewpoint characters doing unrelated things in different places with their stories barely intersecting.

It's amazing what Tad Williams can do when he focuses. But he prefers not to.

The War of the Flowers is what I recommend to people interested in him. Definitely more focused. MST is still my favorite of his, slow pace and all. Otherland is a close second though. The series is definitely bloated and overlong, but at least it is all enjoyable for the most part.

I would totally read a new Osten Ard story.