Stone of Farewell (Memory, Sorrow, and Thorn, Book 2)

by Tad Williams

Paperback, 1991

Status

Available

Call number

PS3573.I45563 S76

Publication

DAW (1991), 768 pages

Description

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

LibraryThing member mattries37315
The second volume Tad Williams' Memory, Sorrow, and Thorn trilogy appears at first to be an event-laden set up piece for the grand finale series, however Stone of Farewell turned out into something more in-depth especially when it comes to characters. From various locations around Osten Ard,
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characters that have survived the events of The Dragonbone Chair start heading to the legendary Stone of Farewell, a temporary sanctuary for those fighting against the tide of evil brought by the Storm King. While others continue their noble, and sometimes misguided, personal quests.

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.
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LibraryThing member Crowyhead
The plot thickens... This is one of those fantasy novels that you finish feeling that both a lot and very little has happened -- it's very detailed and kind of dense, and follows so many threads of the story, that the actual plot tends to progress a little slowly. I'm not complaining, really; I
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never had the feeling (as I have had with Robert Jordan's works) that Williams doesn't have an ending in mind, and I basically became helplessly engrossed in the lives of all the characters. I like the way that Simon is growing up; it pleases me that he's not a preternaturally great leader or warrior, as the young protagonists of these books often are. He has more in common with a character like Taran in Lloyd Alexander's Prydain Chronicles, who is brave and eventually grows to be a strong leader and fighter, but who more often than not messes up, or saves things in spite of his own shortcomings.
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LibraryThing member rbtwinky
Better than I was expecting. I know that when I finished the Dragon Bone Chair (the first in the series) I was way excited about the next book after a long and mostly boring book, but I didn’t get around to reading it for quite a while. This book was pretty much the same, but that might be
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because I spent a good portion of the book trying to remember what had been going on and who these people were. Once I figured out what was going on though, the book was great. When it ended I was once again very excited about reading the next. I don’t have it yet, but I’ll probably buy it just soon enough for me to put it off.
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.
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LibraryThing member CKmtl
While the very end seemed a bit rushed to me, Stone of Farewell is decent. Williams' writing was good enough for me to buy the entire series.

Unfortunately, this second part suffers from the same downsides as the previous one: unpronounceable names (specifically any of the long Sithi ones) and an
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obvious copy of christianity as the land's main religion. Some of the names are so garbled that someone (either the editor, the typesetter, or perhaps Williams himself) misspelled them a few times.

The Aedonic stuff bothered me less in this installment of the series, though.
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LibraryThing member Tcubed
As our adventure continues, the fight to save the land gets more intense, the strangeness of the icons needed and magic woven into them becomes more alien. Tad takes the readers futher into the strange world and gives you a taste of what you might be missing.
LibraryThing member justchris
Next on the list is the fantasy trilogy by Tad Williams. This author's debut novel, Tailchaser's Song was quite well received. It was similar to Watership Down in terms of being an animal story, in this case cats, that involves dialogue and a certain amount of animal society, but without completely
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anthropomorphizing the critters. I thought it was okay, but not worth acquiring.

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.
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LibraryThing member Karlstar
No drop off in this second, huge book in this trilogy. The action moves away from the castle and the capital, as our heroes are on the run, trying to find allies against the evil forces that threaten the entire kingdom, and perhaps all humans. The ancient fued between humans and elves is on again,
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at least for some of the elves.
These books had a very unique feel to them, and were really enjoyable to read.
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LibraryThing member aleahmarie
Readers of fantasy know that, quite often, the second book in a trilogy suffers from the dreaded "black sheep" syndrome. Book two is the slightly overlooked middle child. Less respected than the first and less spoiled than the last -- but necessary nonetheless. Characters often go on long journeys
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in the second book and think about things ad nauseam, all in preparation for whatever climax awaits in book three.

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.
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LibraryThing member fuzzi
On my reread, I am tempted to give this that extra 1/2 star, but not quite.

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
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and spoil it for others. Read it!
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LibraryThing member DinadansFriend
Tad Williams is a high quality fantasist, and this is a good volume in the series. He handles all the components skillfully, and I had a good time. If you need something to read while George Martin toys with our hearts, and expectations, TW is a good substitute. Otherland is a better example of his
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skills but this one is still good.
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LibraryThing member wagner.sarah35
Simon's adventures continue in this second installment of Memory, Sorrow, and Thorn. More of his world is explored as many of the characters embark on separate journeys which give the reader a wide window into this fantasy world. New creatures are unveiled and the plots of Elias thicken. Like the
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first in the series, this book can be dense and little hard to get through at times, but I do look forward to completing the series.
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LibraryThing member renbedell
Stone of Farewell is pretty much a well fleshed out Fantasy journey book that suffers from 2nd book in a trilogy syndrome. The worldbuilding is amazing. The main protagonist and the many other POVs explore Tad Williams' world as they try to reach their destination. In can be slow, but that is just
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because the world is rich, descriptions are apt, and the characters are complex. This is in no way a good book on its own. It's impact is in its well-written worldbuilding, characterization, and setting up for the last book in the series.
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LibraryThing member AdrianGHilder
Tad William's slow but immersive writing style does a wonderful job of painting a picture of a scene in your mind and sometimes even animating it. I recall a scene where they are travelling by a river in particular. Unfortunately this comes at the expense of plot progression and I'm reliably
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informed this is the worst of the four books in this regard.
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.
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LibraryThing member BrainFireBob
Continuing my review of Memory, Sorrow, and Thorn, we move into the second book.

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
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blood of Igjarjuk, the innocence of Simon Mooncalf, or the blood-stained history of the Hayholt.

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.
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LibraryThing member briandarvell
Overall a good continuation to the story. First half was a bit of a slog but the novel got more interesting and had better pacing in the 2nd half. I feel that the characters were getting more developed throughout this story and it was a bit more polished towards the end - perhaps the author was
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starting to find more of their groove in the writing. Definitely worth continuing the series from this point on and I am eager to see what's next in store in Osten Ard.
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LibraryThing member Linyarai
Absolutely loved it. One of my favorites by far.
LibraryThing member benkaboo
Summary: Another solid volume of enjoyable fantasy fair. Nothing too bad and occassionally really good bits. But it's only half way through the story and I'm not sure I have another 1600 pages in me.

Standout feature: The scene where something is scratching at the door ...

Things I liked:
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Atmospheric writing the scene where Rachel is hearing something scratching at the door but is afraid to open it. Makes me think Mr Williams is very good at doing little bits of atmospheric writing (reminds me of the bit in book one where simon is heading into the dungeons of hayholt).

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. 'Even now in the south one of your closest allies has been killed'. Seems a bit clumsy to me.

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.
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LibraryThing member Queensowntalia
Fabulous series.. well drawn out, complex characters. Top notch writing. All the books in the series are fairly generous in size, particularly the final 2, but the series is good enough you won't mind.
LibraryThing member davisfamily
Still want to punch most of the characters, but I think this book was all about personal fragility, and some general buttheadedness...
I love the audible version of this, very well read. Now to book 3....

Language

Original language

English

Original publication date

1990

Physical description

768 p.; 4.13 inches

ISBN

9780886774806
Page: 0.6117 seconds