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Fantasy. Fiction. HTML:New York Times-bestselling Tad Williamsâ?? landmark epic fantasy saga of Osten Ard begins an exciting new cycle! â??One of my favorite fantasy series.â?ť â??George R. R. Martin â?˘ â??Groundbreaking.â?ť â??Patrick Rothfuss â?˘ â??One of the great fantasy epics of all time.â?ť â??Christopher Paolini Tad Williams introduced readers to the incredible fantasy world of Osten Ard in his internationally bestselling series Memory, Sorrow, and Thorn. The trilogy inspired a generation of modern fantasy writers, including George R.R. Martin, Patrick Rothfuss, and Christopher Paolini, and defined Tad Williams as one of the most important fantasy writers of our time. BOOK TWO: STONE OF FAREWELL It is a time of darkness, dread, and ultimate testing for the realm of Osten Ard, for the wild magic and terrifying minions of the undead Sithi ruler, Ineluki the Storm King, are spreading their seemingly undefeatable evil across the kingdom. With the very land blighted by the power of Inelukiâ??s wrath, the tattered remnants of a once-proud human army flee in search of a last sanctuary and rallying pointâ??the Stone of Farewell, a place shrouded in mystery and ancient sorrow. An even as Prince Josua seeks to rally his scattered forces, Simon and the surviving members of the League of the Scroll are desperately struggling to discover the truth behind an almost-forgotten legend, which will take them from the fallen citadels of humans to the secret heartland of the Sithiâ??where near-immortals must at last decide whether to ally with the race of men in a final war against those of their own blood. After the landmark Memory, Sorrow, and Thorn trilogy, the epic saga of Osten Ard continues with the brand-new novel, The Heart of What Was Lost. Then donâ??t miss the upcoming trilogy, The Last King of Osten Ard, beginning with The Witchwood Crown! Praise for Osten Ard: "Inspired me to write my own seven-book trilogy.... Itâ??s one of my favorite fantasy series." â??George R. R. Martin, New York Times-bestselling author of A Game of Thrones "Groundbreaking...changed how people thought of the genre, and paved the way for so much modern fantasy. Including mine." â??Patrick Rothfuss, New York Times-bestselling author of The Name of the Wind "Tad Williams is a master storyteller, and the Osten Ard books are his masterpiece." â??Brandon Sanderson, New York Times-bestselling author of Mistborn "Memory, Sorrow, and Thorn is one of the great fantasy epics of all time." â??Christopher Paol… (more)
User reviews
From the north, Simon's journey begins with saving the lives of his friends from a death sentence then heads to the southern border of the Old Forest only to be separated from his friends. In the west, Prince Josua leads a ragtag band of survivors in the Old Forest first in a battle of survival then into a quest that leads them to the vast plans in the east of the country to the Stone. Miriamele learns her quest to bring Nabban to her uncle's side a failure before her arrival then finds herself being secretly traded from one political player to another while Duke Isgrimnur's search for the wayward Princess gets sidetracked to find small Wrannaman along with a legendary figure. And in occupied Hernystir, Maegwin leds her exiled country in the depths of the mountains and finds a lost city.
From the first page the action is always moving forward unlike the beginning of The Dragonbone Chair. Simon's sojourn with the exiled Sithi is a interesting and very necessary change of pace in the later half of the book as the reader continues to learn that things aren't necessary as they seem. While the vast majority of the book is a great read, there are parts that are somewhat of a drag and questionable. Both Miriamele and Maegwin seem to be well-written one page then clichéd the next, its very maddening as a reader. Another is the fact that the majority of Josua's journey to the Stone comes from Deornoth's point-of-view, while Deornoth is a great character it questionable that a major player like Josua seems sidelined by the writer.
Stone of Farewell is a wonderful middle volume of a trilogy that is not only an adventure in itself, but builds up the story for the finale. If you've read The Dragonbone Chair and are thinking about if you really want to continue with the series, I recommend you read the first 100 pages because you won't want to put it down.
One thing that really annoyed me was the way that Williams developed the relationship between Simon and Miriamele. They don’t see each other once in this whole book, but almost every time that the characters are pondering their current state of affairs they both think of the other and wonder if they are liked. BLECH. It’s just too obvious. Other than that, though, the book was very good. I really liked the whole situation between Miriamele and the rich ship-captain guy.
Unfortunately, this second part suffers from the same downsides as the previous one: unpronounceable names (specifically any of the long Sithi ones) and an
The Aedonic stuff bothered me less in this installment of the series, though.
Then Williams came out with The Dragonbone Chair. Friends of mine attended a convention where Michael Whelan was a guest artist, and they were kind enough to get me a prepublication copy signed by my favorite cover artist (still is, but I am apathetic these days). I read this story and was blown away. I was similarly impressed with the rest of the trilogy (itself called Memory, Sorrow and Thorn): Stone of Farewell and To Green Angel Tower. It remains among my all-time fantasy favorites and I reread it at regular intervals (as it's appearance in this list demonstrates).
Keep in mind that at the time I was well into my period of swearing off fantasy, since I was sick and tired of repetitive knock-offs built around medieval European cultural elements and generally being Tolkein derivatives. And this book has all of the classic fantasy tropes: a small band of heroes who begin separately but come together for a good cause, an evil threatening the land, a quest to save the world so lots of moving around the landscape fleeing bad guys and seeking the key to defeating evil, battles, the inevitable romance, and happy ending. And it has all of the standard fantasy characters: a hero of humble origins who turns out to be more than first appears, a wise old mentor who guides our heroes and has some share of magic, princesses in disguise, elves, dragons.
It is also entertaining to match up the cultures that appear in the book to the real-world inspirations. The elves and the Norns are clearly inspired by Asian cultures (Japanese probably, among others). The Rimmersmen are Vikings, the Hernystiri are Welsh (or maybe more generic Celts), the Thrithings are horse-riding nomads (Scythians? Mongols? more of an eastern European feel), the Erkynlanders are Anglo-Saxon, the Nabbanai are Italian/Holy Roman Empire, with Perdruin being Sicily, the Wrannamen may be Irish or another marsh-based culture, but I tend to think more of the bayous of the American South (perhaps the Seminoles?), and the Yiqanuc trolls are like the Inuit or perhaps the Sherpas in the Himalayas. Now that I'm writing it all down, the fact is that all of the humans in this story are white, and any people of color are represented by nonhuman cultures. And of course there's no black folk here.
While this trilogy has all of the standard, well-trodden features, many that can be correlated directly to The Lord of the Rings, it is still original and fresh, perhaps because in many ways it subverts the standard tropes, and perhaps the many, many secondary characters that provide dimensions and depth and bring the world and its many cultures to life. The narrative is filled with stories and songs, and the characters speak in a range of dialects reflecting their cultural differences. The dialogue is quite good, as is the prose in general, and the character development. It is, ultimately, a very long coming-of-age story, as a teenager matures into manhood and learns wisdom in the process of surviving many harrowing crises. It is also a meditation on love, loss, grief, despair, sacrifice, longing for peace/annhilation/the end of existence, honor, legends, human limits, and all of that good, big stuff.
These books had a very unique feel to them, and were really enjoyable to read.
Luckily for us, Tad Williams is a master of the genre and handles this unfortunate yet necessary anomaly with such grace as to make it almost non-existent. Yes, there's much trekking in Stone of Farewell. There's a lot of introspection, as well. But rather than plodding through as I often do, I found myself enjoying every detailed moment.
In Stone of Farewell you will find that the cast of characters have diverged into separate adventures and the storytelling jumps between each of them in turn. The world building continues, and Osten Ard becomes an even more developed backdrop on which these adventures play out. The final scene brought actual tears to my eyes. An extraordinary read for lovers of epic fantasy -- I cannot wait to get my hands on book three.
This book is never boring, but keeps you wondering and hanging on to see what happens to the characters.
And love'em or hate'em, they are real characters, not 2 dimensional figures.
Aside from that, I don't want to say more
Tad's imagine world is certainly not lacking in depth and contains enough mystery and character interest to make me want to finish the series. It is just as well the pace is said to pick up in the next two books.
Perhaps the whole of the story will be greater than the sum of all four books, time will tell.
The first book is an explosion of history and new culture- William's world has depth!- this installment is, in my opinion, much weaker. It is necessary to create the climax, but lacks any scenes with the power of the
It does have a very evocative eldritch city, and a closer look at the culture of the strange, fey Sithi; overall, it reads to me as the book most echoing with loss of the three. In The Dragonbone Chair, loss was in the past- even the passing of Prester John is the mourning of the passing of a man who did great deeds and touched many lives, regardless of his faults. In this book, it is a profound sense of things being irretrievably lost or lesser that one did not expect before the finale.
If one has an attachment to the relevant sections, this book explains what the villain-hero, Ineluki, wants to restore before it is lost.
Standout feature: The scene where something is scratching at the door ...
Things I liked:
Atmospheric writing
Alien race written well: In this book I think he did some great work in illustrating the very different outlook the Sithi have one the world and differentiating one set of humanoids from another. This is often a challenge in the overly cliched fantasy genre so well done on that.
Things I think could have been improved:
Villains seem to do quite a bit of bwhahahhaha exposition. 'Your all doomed anyway so I'll tell you 15% of my evil plan' - e.g.
Story/plot ratio: I've read two fairly large books now and so far: i) I know the difference between the various characters; ii) I get the impression something is definately 'rotten in the state of denmark'. But substantially it feels like not a lot of the plot has been revealed and not a lot has really happened. It still feels very much like the pieces are being setup before the game. The reason this is a problem is that I'm not sure if I have another two books in me so the setup may have cost me the resolution.
I love the audible version of this, very well read. Now to book 3....