The Novels of Tad Williams

Last updated October 2003

Tad Williams is another California writer (along with Brin, Bear, Benford and Robinson). Unlike the above mentioned authors, Tad started out in the field of fantasy, but recently has moved to science fiction. Tad's first book was "Tailchaser's Song" and I have never read it (it is about a cat and told, I believe, from the cat's perspective). Then he wrote, over some six years, the fantasy trilogy called Memory, Sorrow, and Thorn, more commonly known as the Dragon Bone Chair trilogy. Recently he has started on a new project, expected to be some four books called Otherland. Otherland is essentially science fiction and when it is complete, I may have to move him into my science fiction area.

I like Tad a great deal. He can write with flair, and sometimes with real beauty. He has a good feel for plot, his books are long but generally packed with action. His characters are generally well thought out, though only one really came alive for me in the fantasy trilogy (the main character). Tad likes giving a voice to his evil characters. This gives him the opportunity to describe some of the nasty things the bad guys do and, more rarely, their reasons for their actions. Considering how inhuman his evil characters are, I'm not sure Tad gains that much by having the reader live within their minds. The bad people certainly don't undergo any character transformation, they start out bad and powerful, and only over time can our heroes overcome them.

Memory, Sorrow, and Thorn Trilogy

The three books in the trilogy are titled: The Dragonbone Chair (1987?), Stone of Farewell (1990), and To Green Angel Tower (1993). The third book was so large (1000 pages in hardback) that it was published in two parts in the paperback edition. Since Tolkien's magnificent series The Lord of the Rings was published, there have been many fantasy novels that borrowed from Tolkien's work, unconsciously or not. On the whole, Tad's series stands up well to the master. While it is far from perfect, it has many nice touches and is great reading.

The first book starts out rather conventionally with our hero as a cook's scullion in the royal palace (strong echoes here of the story of Sir Gareth from Arthurian legend). In short order he must venture out into the world, hunted and nearly without friends. The Dragonbone Chair becomes something quite unusual when nearly everyone we have met is killed off in two battles at the end of book. Considering the body count, I was worried if anyone would survive to the series end.

The second book, blessed by one of the best book covers in memory (by the great artist Michael Whelan), was very different as the various characters slowly gathered at one location (named in the title). Along the way our hero spends some time in the land of the elves (called the Sithi). This section is perhaps the best part of the whole series, written with skill, feeling and imagination. Considering the previous book, the body count in this book was surprisingly low.

The third book, long enough to be two books, was, in fact, too long. A raft of new characters were introduced, some with no point. Yet again, our hero ventured into the underworld city, and the reader had to wade through pages that seemed awfully repetitive from the first book. Finally, the end of the book was a disappointment. The idea that the evil forces were relying on the skills and ability of the good people to carry out their secret plot, is just too silly to take seriously. Evil people don't trust other people, and certainly not when the issue is a matter of life and death. Finally, the matter of our hero's parentage came out of nowhere as far as I was concerned. I had a father all lined up for him (Sir Camaris) but instead Tad brings up someone else, who has hardly been mentioned elsewhere in the series.

Despite these flaws, the books were good heroic fantasy. The main character grew and changed in believable ways. The world in which everyone lived was painted with prose that was descriptive and even beautiful at times. Not as good as the original (Tolkien), not as good as Gene Wolfe's series (Book of the New Sun) but better than nearly everything else, and that is saying something.

Otherland

The first book in this series is nominally titled City of Golden Shadow (1996). Unlike Tad's previous books, this novel is science fiction. In fact this is Cyberpunk SF of a sort familiar to readers of William Gibson and Neal Stephenson. Much of the novel takes place in a highly detailed virtual reality simulation. The simulation in turn is composed of different areas, each with their own internal logic. Because of this underpining, Tad gets to throw in more than a few "fantasy" elements into his story.

I liked this first book a great deal. Two of the characters (Renie and !Xabbu) seem quite real and the setting, both technologically and culturally, is impressive. On the other hand, this is only book one of a projected four book series. Although it weighs in at a hefty 770 pages, very few of the questions that drive the book have been answered by its end. Based on this glacial pace I wouldn't expect to find the answers till the final novel appears, which is at least six years away (considering the three year span between the books in Tad's first series, this is an optimistic guess). Finally, one of the main characters is a homicidal madman (with magical powers too) and I'm a bit uncomfortable with being forced to see the world from this sick killers' point of view (even more worrisome, this character is the most capable individual we meet). Despite this, I enjoyed reading this book a great deal. It is a promising start to a new series.

River of Blue Flame

This book was not a great novel. By turns truely bizzare (especially the scene in the virtual kitchen) and sickening (the sequence where the Wizard of Oz characters live) and just plain unfocused (most of the book). This was a very disappointing sequel. I was very tempted to give up on the series after this book.

Mountain of Black Glass

An improvement over book two (River of Blue Flame). More focused, slightly less silly virtual environments. Some moderately interesting things happened at the end but I really feel no great urgency in getting and reading the fourth book in the series. All in all, the series was a failure.

The series needed: fewer characters; more careful explaination of fewer virtual environments; more ties back to the real world. Its very hard to care about anything which happens in a virtual world. 99% of the entities in the virtual world are just computer programs.

This leads to Tad's own web site at TadWilliams.com.

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