Rating: 
Summary: The LONG journey to Green Angel Tower (Part 2)...
Review: Tad Williams' Memory, Sorrow, and Thorn series is certainly derivative. A young scullion with dreams of grandeur finds himself embroiled in an epic struggle to save the land of Osten Ard from the dreaded Storm King... Stop me if you've heard this sort of thing before. Even so, "The Dragon Bone Chair" (book one in the so-called four book 'trilogy'), was a compelling return to the undying genre of high fantasy, and fueled my interest in the series that ultimately lead me to the second offering, "The Stone of Farewell" - a book that was slow, ponderous, and anti-climactic. "To Green Angel Tower: Part 1" continued along those lines up until the last hundred or so pages. Fortunately, "To Green Angel Tower: Part 2" offers a less glacially paced read. Despite the size of the bloated second half, things move at a decent clip (finally!). The action is fast and dramatic, and all of it builds up to a suitably ominous confrontation with the Storm King. In due course, "TGAT: Part 2" redeems the series and lifts it far above its weakest points. The climax feels a little rushed, and somewhat anticlimactic (how could it not when you've turned nearly 3,000 pages to reach it?), but it's ultimately satisfying enough to make the series rather easy to recommend to patient fans of the genre who have not yet discovered it. The "prologue," so to speak, attempts, and mostly succeeds, at tying up all loose ends, but it could be argued that Williams opted to tack on a sort of ultra-happy ending that may or may not seem entirely appropriate in the context of the rest of the story. Without spoiling anything, Simon's secret heritage and secret destiny, when revealed, are enough to warrant a groan. Very predictable. Despite the faults of the series, Williams' world is an eerie construct, a bittersweet place where joy and sorrow are at perpetual war, and it's a place that will linger in the reader's mind long after that reader has finished... well, reading. If author Tad Williams had cut some of the fat from this monstrosity and offered a meaner, leaner yarn, I would scarcely hesitate to call it a contemporary classic. As it stands, it's exceptionally good.
Rating: 
Summary: Tad Williams - THE most impressive author in the genre!
Review: Tad's Trilogy (well, it's a trilogy in hardcover,) came to me initially as something in a thick paperback with Dragonbone Chair. It was one of those nights when I just couldn't sleep, and visited a 24-hour news stand . I'd found Melanie Rawn's "Sunrunner's Fire" trilogy there, so... I did my obligatory scan in the beginning, middle and end, and purchased the book. Within a few pages, I was solidly hooked, and simply could not put the tale away. I missed sleep, work, was late for appointments reading this incredibly well-written and richly descriptive piece of fiction. I'll confess to preferring longer stories. If I'm enjoying the characters, if the author's capable of causing me to suspend disbelief, I just don't want it to end. Tad managed to do that entirely. I was utterly engrossed in the yarn, and this is a rare thing for me. I'm not much of a Tolken fan (sorry,) so can't agree with the comparisons, except to say that the world created by Tad Williams is so complete and compelling, he deserves our highest praise. Years later, I had occasion to chat with him via email, as we both have works published by DAW. He was unpretentious, charming, intelligent, and entirely human. What impressed me as much as anything else, though, was that he made a point of being accessable to his fans, and treats them in precisely the same fashion. I'm certain history will show Tad Williams to be one of the greatest writers in decades. You owe it to yourself to have the delight of reading this wonderful series!
Rating:
Summary: This Guy Makes Robert Jordon look like Disney World
Review: The forces of the reluctant hero Prince Joshua have finally started to make a comeback. All free creatures left in this universe must band together and defeat once and for all the forces of the evil King Elias and his evil minister. This book is not for the faint of heart(at over 800 pages) but it is a good story The action has really picks up in this book and the ending while you can see it coming from some ways off it will not leave you disappointed. I look forward to reading more of this author and suggest that the rest of you do the same.
Rating:
Summary: This Guy Makes Robert Jordon look like Disney World
Review: The forces of the reluctant hero Prince Joshua have finally started to make a comeback. All free creatures left in this universe must band together and defeat once and for all the forces of the evil King Elias and his evil minister. This book is not for the faint of heart(at over 800 pages) but it is a good story The action has really picks up in this book and the ending while you can see it coming from some ways off it will not leave you disappointed. I look forward to reading more of this author and suggest that the rest of you do the same.
Rating: 
Summary: At last, the end...
Review: The only reason I read this book is that I'd already made a 2400+ page commitment and I'm just plain stubborn. At least it picked up. Simon's height wasn't mentioned for anywhere in the first 70 pages. I should have probably given it 3 stars, but I'm just so bitter about Part 1... I have the feeling that the author came up with a really good idea for a dramatic plot twist, and tried to come up with a plot based on the twist. Then he figured that the longer he could stretch out the series, the more dramatic the twist would appear. So he rambled on and on and on and on... Yes, it was a clever twist, but it would have been just as good at the end of 1800 pages instead of 3000 pages. Actually, it might have been even better.
Rating:
Summary: Unbiased Opinion
Review: The story is good. But there are bad bits. Like the use of non-recycled paper.
Rating:
Summary: Predictable but Consistent
Review: There wasn't much notable difference in the final book(s) in characterizations, writing style. plot etc. from the first two, which can be a good thing. There is nothing so disappointing as a dramatic shift in these qualities from one book to another in a series. I suppose some critics have been disappointed with the ending and I was slightly disappointed myself but not necessarily for some of other reasons cited. Williams never delved deeply into the concept of Being or good philosophical discussion of his trailings of good and evil which left everything sort of hanging at the end (which from his own discussion of the series, seems to have been somewhat intentional). Nothing, in the grand scheme of things, seems to have been truly discovered or accomplished. It all just oozes back to a slightly altered normalcy and the furious questions raised about good, evil, existence etc. just sort of slip back into the gloaming like nothing ever happened. I also found it was too predictable in the big picture elements and somewhat anticlimactic. When I was about a third of the way through Stone of Farewell the friend who recommended the series asked me what I thought of it and I told him how I thought it would end-what the plot of the Storm King was, how he was going to pull it off, the origins of several of the characters and their eventual destinies etc. He just looked at me like I was nuts so I thought I was wrong. Well, I was right. In almost every detail. I rarely am. Less big-picture predictability would have been better, but overall it was a great series with some very creative and unique qualities.
Rating:
Summary: You Cant Go Wrong
Review: This book is excellent, it is part two of volume three of Memory, Sorrow, and Thorn. With this series in your collection you cant go wrong. Tad Williams gets you into the characters so much that you become them, literally.. This man takes the high road when it comes to writing fantasy, he never slacks off and is always throwing some kind of suprise that keeps you on your toes throughout the series. A good point about this book is that you can actually read it all without skipping a chapter of two because you dont want to read about an annoying character, here you WANT to get to the next character. Granted it does have its slow parts, but what series doesnt? This overshadows everything by Jordan and Goodkind. Trust me if you buy this book you will not be dissapointed, it is worthy to be put into anyones library.
Rating:
Summary: Wow! Just one recommendation: Read the series!
Review: This is the fourth and final volume in Tad Williams's Memory, Sorrow and Thorn series (started with The Dragonbone Chair, The Stone of Farewell and To Green Agel Tower: Siege). Drawn by the will to finally reunite the three magical swords, the various heroes all slowly converge back to the Hayholt for the final and terrible battle against the Storm King, and his allies the High King Elias and his councellor, the red alchemist and priest Pryrates. Using the legendary knight Sir Camaris as a rallying emblem, Josua conquers Nabban. Enrolling new troups on the way, his army grows steadily bigger and stronger. Miriamele, accompanied by Simon, has fled from Josua's camp, convinced she can talk her father, the High King, out of his evil deeds. Even though complicity and trust settles, Miriamele is torn between her attraction to Simon and the shame she feels at having let Aspitis touch her. Compared to the first three books, this final volume is much faster paced. With many reverses in the seemingly helpless situations, unexpected turns as well as treasons and, finally, romance, it is truly "unputdownable"! And if, like me, you can't get enough of Osten Ard, do not miss Tad Williams's novella, The Burning Man, that you'll find in Robert Silverberg Legends anthology (pb isbn/asin: 0812566645). And just remember this: Beware of the false messenger...
Rating:
Summary: Great stuff
Review: This is where it all ties in. All those loose strands, those confusing tidbits that didn't yet fit in...well, now they do. You'll finally figure out who the false messenger is. Simon will be knighted, and with Princess Miriamele atlast reunited, Prince Josua and his men get a second chance at making a stand, King Elias' madness begins to make sense, the Sithi finally join in the battle against the Norns, and all the same great characters (except, ahem, for those who died) are back, and as lovable as before! This has also got to have the most action of the trilogy. What with battles, personal quests, raids and the like. Better yet, Simon is growing up, though still the same ole Simon. There's magic and intrigue in this really fat book, same as the others, but here is the conclusion, where instead of more questions being posed, we get some long-awaited answers. (Such as about the significance of the ring Morgenes gifted to Simon and the passage about Prester John's defeat of the Hayholt dragon) So return to Green Angel Tower and the confusing catacombs that riddle its foundation and feel the tension mount as the ending nears! Now the only question remaining is whether or not I should go on to read the new OTHERLAND books. I'm not crazy about computers (don't understand them overmuch) and SF isn't my thing, but on the other hand, it's by Tad Williams so it's got to be good, right?
|
