Rating: 
Summary: Fantastic Saga - Ending Not So Fantastic.
Review: A fantastical ending to an absolutely epic struggle. There's such a bouquet of eloquently though out ideas and places here. I really am missing the characters that I grew with while reading these books. Williams always evokes a sense of spirituality in his books that I tend to connect with. I love the descriptions of the dreams. The mechanics of the dream and the dream road.
Now while all this is fine and dandy Tad pulled a large one and created such a nice, lovely ending that he nearly ruined the whole experience for me. I find myself mentally blanking the last chapters as every story thread is so nicely tied up and packaged it's too sickly sweet.
Some may say that after all the torment and horror the characters have been though they deserved a happy ending...Funny thing is I believed everything in the four book saga that Tad was throwing at me.. I believed in everything except the incredibly hokey ending. An occurrence that he unfortunately repeated somewhat in Otherland. Anyway though I'll still be eagerly awaiting the next tome from him. I wouldn't miss it for the world.
Rating:
Summary: A wonderful climax!
Review: Although the first three books dragged and suffered from unoriginality, this book redeems them all. I do not want to say too much, but just read the end. The ending of this book is completely unpredictable. It is comparable to nothing I have ever read. Even though I never saw this coming, it is easy to see why this happened when looking back over the story. The ending is well set-up even though it a complete suprise. Read this book.
Rating: 
Summary: Satisfying conclusion to a great series
Review: First of all, I must say that I'm giving this 5 stars to the whole trilogy. "To Green Angel Tower" I would give 4 and a half. Beginning of "Dragonebone chair" was a little slow, but when Morgenes died, everything started to flourish. Action, adventure, horror - the book had everything a fantasy fan can wish. "Stone of Farewell" was even more interesting to read. What I liked best about these books is that some of main characters are being killed. In a fantasy genre, it's pretty hard to find an author who wold kill his heroes. What I don't like about "To Green Angel Tower" is ending. This kind of utter happyend is not in accord to the rest of trilogy. The other thing is this scullion-becomes-king cliche. I suspected that Simon was of noble blood when he collected Thorn and killed the dragon, but I was hoping that in the end he would go away and live with Sithi. Nevertheless, it's a great fantasy series and I hope Tad Williams will write many more like this.
Rating:
Summary: Satisfying conclusion to a great series
Review: First of all, I must say that I'm giving this 5 stars to the whole trilogy. "To Green Angel Tower" I would give 4 and a half. Beginning of "Dragonebone chair" was a little slow, but when Morgenes died, everything started to flourish. Action, adventure, horror - the book had everything a fantasy fan can wish. "Stone of Farewell" was even more interesting to read. What I liked best about these books is that some of main characters are being killed. In a fantasy genre, it's pretty hard to find an author who wold kill his heroes. What I don't like about "To Green Angel Tower" is ending. This kind of utter happyend is not in accord to the rest of trilogy. The other thing is this scullion-becomes-king cliche. I suspected that Simon was of noble blood when he collected Thorn and killed the dragon, but I was hoping that in the end he would go away and live with Sithi. Nevertheless, it's a great fantasy series and I hope Tad Williams will write many more like this.
Rating:
Summary: Only LOTR is better!!
Review: I am 23 now. I was 15 when I read the LOTR and 17 when I read Tad Williams trilogy. Between them I read David Eddings fantasy books. What I can say is that LOTR is beyond any other fantasy story ever (and not only fantasy) and even though a few months after I finished reading it I rtead David Eddings books and thought they were really great, only when I ended reading "To green angel tower" I realiced that it was the only fantasy book that could be compared to LOTR. It is so great and you get into the story and characters right from the beggining. That is all I want to say about that. Now I am going to start reading "Ender's Game" of O.S.Card. I t seems really good, but I don't know if it will make me feel as great as LOTR and Tad's Trilogy. (By the way, is he ever going to write anything else...)
Rating:
Summary: I can show you the world...
Review: I began "Memory, Sorrow and Thorn" with a severe bias caused by the pomposity of the name. I had been making fun of it for weeks before I actually read it. I was VERY pleasantly surprised.
I became totally immersed in Osten-Ard. The culture, atmosphere, and characters were all impressive. I was also very impressed with the sensitive treatment of the trouble with faith and belief when things go wrong. The theme of Siman's coming of age was the best I've ever seen. The subtlety was amazing. By the time I reached the second part of the third book, I was unable to put it down. My parents promised they would never let me read another book if this was the way I was going to behave. After sitting in space for three days, it was very hard to come back to earth, and after finishing the book I was nearly ready to begin again.
My only real complaint about the book is the resolation of Siman and Miriamels relationship (or lack, thereof). After all the complications, problems and complexity between the two, you'd expect there to be some kind of verbal exchange. I mean, the two NEEDED to talk. They had never cleared out any of Miriamele's problems, or spoken about what happen. What happened to Simon's need for someone who understood about the dragon's blood?
Still, all in all, their relationship up to that point was very well done, excpecially in comparison to David Eddings and some of Robert Jordan's relationships. It was only because it was so good that I was disappointed.
Another slight problem was Jasua and Vorzheva. How do the two connect? Is it because Jasua is so selfless he needs someone absolutely selfish to make up for it?
Other then that, it's some of the best fantasy I've read. Now if only he would write some more... (something about Jasua's kids?
Rating:
Summary: When All Is Said And Done..
Review: I feel like I just saved the world myself. Geez, it had to be, what 3,000 pages, to get through the whole work? Mr. Williams' characterization is phenomenal. Every person in the epic lives and breathes. His serializing style can get very taxing as he jumps from group to group telling his huge-in-scope story. But in the end, it's the people who've made it work. The vividness of detail more than makes up for the choppiness and the mind-numbing length of the work. Now mind you he's no Mark Twain. The unbelievable size of this trilogy (which had to be published in four volumes in paperback because it defies the physics of paper and glue!) is enough to stay away. But if you love big sprawling epic fantasy, this is surely one to try out. I can't say I'll ever start that darn Wheel of Time series, because this one almost killed me. But if you're a fast reader, you may be able to finish this one off between two Aedonmass festivals.
Rating: 
Summary: I Was Robbed! (spoilers)
Review: I finished reading Green Angel Tower last night. What a waste! Never have a read about such a bumbling, incompetent, irrelevent group of heroes in my life! Only Prince Josua's decisions affected events in any meaningful way. The battle for Sesuad'ra and Miriamele's bow shot at the end were the only instances where the heroes took the initiative and made a difference. Everyone else was dragged around by the swords. If it wasn't going to be them, the swords would have found someone else. Pathetic! About halfway through the last book, I realized I was witnessing the horrifying transformation of Star Wars into The Attack of the Killer Tomatoes. If I had to read one more line about a sword-nick-here and a bumped-knee-there, I would have screamed. I'm surprised we didn't get a full account of Doctor Morgenes' paper cuts! But I'm sure Tad Williams thought about including them. I apologize to everyone for not having posted this critique earlier, but I'm a slow reader. Stick with Jordan, even though he may never finish...
Rating:
Summary: Tad =Tolkien
Review: I know somepeople will look at my heading and gasp, grabbing thier volumized copy of Lord of the Rings and pray to thier fantasy gods that my soul be spared. But its true, I like Memory Sorrow and Thorn as much, I shouldn't say it but I must, or even better then The Lord of the Rings Trilogy. As an aspiring fantasy author and movie director, these books filled me with an undying urge to gobble them up, write a screen play, and get a 300 million dollar budget from New Line Cinema to share this wonderful series of books with the world. I was able to map out the angles, the colors, the sounds, the expressions, either with Tad's help or my own, and I just know that such a thing is possible. Anyways, there are three things that I loved about these books, and one that I didn't. First of all, characterization was astounding. Unlike in most fantasy novels (where, sorry to say, originality isen't very important) I found myself in a completly new epic struggle for a distant land, with Simon, the gawky kitchen scullion who overcomes the fears real people would have, who isen't the hero who can instantly kill everything in his path. Many other people have said that Mirimele was irritating, and that is the sign of a truly good author. No-one in this world is truly a likable person all of the time, and certainly not a girl who has been brought up with an air of self importance all around her. Mirimeles unkindness on the surface but inner emotions make her a complex character, and one that I enjoyed spending hours on a torn leather sofa with. Binibik was delightful, the comic relief at times, but with an air of dignity and grace, and skill, that shows there is more then meets the eye. There are countless other characters as well, the insane king that has a sane reason, the outcast brother who only wants good, and finally, and best of all, the frothing at the mouth diabolical villan. In Pyrates we have someone so evil and vile, but he has a touch of familiarity that makes him a true villan. We can imagine people in real life, taken to the extreames, that would be a Pyrates. This is something that LOTR lacked, all of the villans, such as Sauroman and Sauron, were other-worldly, It was difficult for me to imagine a gigantic flaming eye coming into exsistence. I will cover the other two things quickly, Tad, even in seemingly slow spots like the underground, puts us right where the action was. Even the second time around I was down in the pits with Simon fighting against madness while the world around me crumbled. Finally, Tad isen't afraid to kill the heros, and more importantly, not kill the bad guys. Several evil characters, especially one in particular, deserved death very much but didn't get it, and several heros who you were expecting to make it to the final page were cut short. But the good guys (spolier possible) win, and the ending is quite satisfying as everything that can comes togther. Also, some of the bad guys do get what they deseved, and in satesfiying, ironic ways. In the fantasy genre in particular, bad guy deaths seem underdone, exe. Lyim in the old Dragonlance Wizard saga is the bane of all exsistance, till the final confrontation in which he, after one paragraph of confrontation, is turned into a tree. I also have to mention that the final scene (spolier possible) in Green Angel Tower was one of the most heartpounding and suspensful things that i have ever read. Tad had an interesting style, he took you inside the heads of characters, but only a select group of characters. You were shown the world through the eyes of Deornoth several times, but you never did see the world through the eyes of Joshua. You saw the world thorugh the eyes of Simon, but never Jiriki. Basically, any character who knew of something the author didn't want known for some time we never got the chance to delve into. It makes sense that we weren't able to see things through the Sithi, it empasised the alieness of them, and the only way to really see what was happening in Stormspike was to see thorough the eyes of Utu'Ku, so the approach is justified. One could say that Ineluki and Sauron, and the entire nature of the conflicts in both series are paralell, but then you should realize that the conflict with Sauron and Mordor was actually based on the Nazi party of world war II, so in the end nothing is really original. My one complaint is that this series could have been longer. I know, some would say that 3,000 pages was plenty for the material, but I felt that there was room for more, i was quite willing to spend some more time with Simon and co. It was quite noble however, of Tad to give up the reigns and end the series, instead of following to the seductive dark side of Robert Jordan and his 20,000 page epic. So in a way, Tad has delivered one of the greatest series in Fantasy history, complete with a wonderful conclusion, and I am truly saddend my the fact that it is over. A sweaping epic of majisty, grace, romance and adventure, suprises, laughs, and love. 5 stars.
Rating:
Summary: Incredible finish to a fantastic series
Review: I love fantasy series books, and this is easily at the top. The last half of To Green Angel Tower (last quarter of the hardcover) never lets up. It is simply non-stop action. The whole series, in fact, is like that, minus the first quarter of the first book. I also appreciate the fact that it ended. Not too long, not too short, this series is in every way what a good fantasy story should be.
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