Koruna z čarodřeva, 1. svazek

The Last King of Osten Ard #1

by Tad Williams, Dana Krejčová (Translator)

Uběhla desetiletí od chvíle, kdy odvážný Simon se svými přáteli z řad lidí, trollů i Sithů porazil děsivého Krále bouří. Strašliví Nornové byli zahnáni do své pevnosti daleko na severu a ve Východním Ardu zavládl mír. Jenže nic netrvá věčně.
Brány Nakkigy se opět otevírají a nocí se plíží monstra z legend. A co je nejhorší. Simon už není mladík, ale stárnoucí muž zklamaný vlastními potomky. Království se začíná trhat na kusy, staří přátelé a spojenci odcházejí či se vydávají po stezkách vedoucích k temnotě…

Genres: Fantasy, Fiction, Epic Fantasy, High Fantasy, Audiobook, Science Fiction Fantasy, Adult

448 pages, Hardcover

First published June 27, 2017

About the author

Tad Williams is a California-based fantasy superstar. His genre-creating (and genre-busting) books have sold tens of millions worldwide, in twenty-five languages. His considerable output of epic fantasy and science fiction book-series, stories of all kinds, urban fantasy novels, comics, scripts, etc., have strongly influenced a generation of writers: the ‘Otherland’ epic relaunches June 2018 as an MMO on steam.com. Tad is currently immersed in the creation of ‘The Last King of Osten Ard’, planned as a trilogy with two intermediary novels. He, his family and his animals live in the Santa Cruz mountains in a suitably strange and beautiful house. @tadwilliams @mrstad

Reviews

[Petrik · Rating 4 out of 5]

4.5/5 stars

It is with a heart of joy I proclaim The Witchwood Crown as an exquisite return to the world of Osten Ard.

“You have a fine voice. Remember that music is a noble charge, even a dangerous charge, because it can pierce a man’s heart when a spear or arrow cannot.”

Unlike many longtime fans of Memory, Sorrow, and Thorn trilogy, I did not have to wait long upon completing To Green Angel Tower to have the capacity and means to read The Witchwood Crown by Tad Williams. The Witchwood Crown is the first book in The Last King of Osten Ard series, and it was first published 24 years after To Green Angel Tower, the last installment of Memory, Sorrow, and Thorn trilogy, a trilogy hailed and praised by many as one of the finest in the fantasy landscape. If you are not new to my reviews, you would know I share this sentiment. Similar to how Memory, Sorrow, and Thorn trilogy is one of my priority series to start and finish last year in 2023, The Last King of Osten Ard quartet is one of my priority series to read this year. And to make sure I’m prepared, I have read the bridge short novel titled The Heart of What Was Lost as well before starting The Witchwood Crown. I strongly recommend you do that if you haven’t started this series yet. My reading experience was certainly enriched by this decision. And although I do not think The Witchwood Crown was as incredible as The Dragonbone Chair, this is still a slow-burn and powerful first book in the next chapter of The Osten Ard Saga that will remind fantasy readers and fans of Memory, Sorrow, and Thorn why Tad Williams is one of the best writers in the genre.

“They have left us a world, but have they left us enough wisdom to protect it?”

First things first. A few names of the main characters from the first series will be mentioned in this review. I will keep things vague regarding what happened to them in the first trilogy, but you will most likely know that they survived Memory, Sorrow, and Thorn trilogy. There is no reviewing this book and series properly without mentioning their names because some of the themes of The Witchwood Crown are aging, family, legacy, death, and passing the torch to the younger generation.

Thirty years have passed since The Storm King's War ended. Osten Ard has been at peace ever since with its new rulers. But age weighs upon the leadership of our returning main characters. Simon, Miriamele, Binabik, Duke Isgrimnur, Eolair, Tiamak, and more are old. Simon's dreams have deserted him, and his old allies die one after another due to aging. Betrayal and assassination threaten. His son and heir, John Josua, is years dead. And his grandson, Morgan, is a complete wastrel of a brat. But the calmness of peace is about to be shattered. In the frozen North, in Nakkiga, the mountain fortress, Ineluki's ally, the Norn Queen, wakes from her deep, decades-long sleep and tells her followers that she will sleep no more. Humanity must be destroyed. Her sorcerers will bring a demon back from death, and her warriors will seek the world for living dragon's blood... And finally, the greatest artifact of all, the Witchwood Crown, will be hers.

“How could the priests say that death came as the great friend when instead it came like an army, taking what it wished and destroying peace even years after it had withdrawn?”

If you’ve read Memory, Sorrow, and Thorn, you would know what to expect from the writing and storytelling structure. Most of the first 200 pages of The Witchwood Crown are focused on Simon, Miriamele, and the characters explaining what has happened in the three-decade time jump between the two series of Osten Ard Saga. Additionally, one of my favorite things about this portion is reading Simon and the returning characters from the first trilogy reunited and reminiscing about their past. These pages were so lovely and bittersweet for me. And I can imagine this section lacking significant impact if you haven’t read Memory, Sorrow, and Thorn. Once again, I strongly recommend you to read that first and The Heart of What Was Lost before reading The Witchwood Crown. You will thank me later. But back to my point, Tad Williams is well-known for his beautifully written slow-burn narration. The Witchwood Crown is not an exception. This novel is a return to Tad William’s storytelling and writing style at his best.

“With Sludig’s arrival, he felt as though a circle had closed and something was completed. The old friends, who had known each other since the days of the Storm King’s War, were quickly lost in reminiscence, talking of old terrors and of equally distant moments of joy and wonder. The beloved voices washed over him.”

Even though The Witchwood Crown is a more bittersweet and darker start to a series compared to The Dragonbone Chair, it doesn’t mean the novel itself contains a ton more battle scenes. If we’re speaking about action scenes, this 350k-word novel most likely has the fewest action scenes out of every book in Osten Ard Saga so far. And as much as I love this book, I feel like I must give a bit of caution. The journey of redemption and discovery in a darkening world found in The Witchwood Crown is not what I would deem suitable for newcomers to epic fantasy.

“My people are saying that to meet an old friend is like the finding of a welcoming campfire in the dark… Just the sight of your face warms me, Simon.”

I don’t think The Witchwood Crown would have worked as much as it did for me if it had focused merely on the returning characters again. It is precisely because Tad Williams decided to introduce and focus on both the returning and new characters that The Last King of Osten Ard exhibited the potential to be superior to the first trilogy. And that statement, too, remains to be seen. But I’m hopeful. I loved what Tad Williams is doing with the overall narrative in The Witchwood Crown. The way I see it, this book works as a long setup installment necessary for the rest of the series to shine. However, while the slow pace and the large cast of characters were positives for me, they can easily be a downside for newcomers to the epic fantasy genre. We’re talking about more than 15 POV characters on top of many supporting characters and locations to remember, after all. The sweeping scope in The Witchwood Crown is bigger than before. The characters are well-realized, the dialogues are engaging, and there are many names and lore details to remember. From humans, giants, dragons, trolls, Sithi, Norns, and dwarves, characters from every continent in Osten Ard are much more involved in the narrative now. The dynamic, chemistry, and conflict between the new and returning characters made the quality in The Witchwood Crown shine brighter, and I wouldn’t have it any other way.

“People tell you what to do. You do your best, but you don’t always succeed. Then one day, you realize that you’re the one doing the telling.”

Because we have more than 15 POV characters in The Witchwood Crown, it is not efficient for me to talk about each respective character's details. Whether you like these characters or not, I can safely say every one of them was captivating. At least, that’s how it went for me, even if a few of them did take some time to get used to. Obviously, it was easy for me to feel invested in reading Simon, Miriamele, Binabik, Eolair, Isgrimnur, Tiamak, the Sithi, and Viyeki again. These are some of the returning key characters from Memory, Sorrow, and Thorn trilogy and also The Heart of What Was Lost. Loss and the passage of time may have changed—or not so much in the case of Simon—and weighed upon them, but my attachment to them through The Storm King’s War remained intact in The Witchwood Crown. I am not as old as Simon in The Witchwood Crown, but his constant longing for the past and the companion of his true friends are something I can relate to deeply. Reading Simon reflecting on his past and meeting his friends again brought me joy and a feeling of sadness in equal measure. But the new characters… these are the determining factors of The Witchwood Crown.

“Miriamele’s letter had made him think about their lost son—a grief no less painful for being familiar—but it had also reminded him of his own childhood, when the castle had seemed as big as the world and when nobody had paid much attention to the comings and goings of a mere kitchen boy. The memory gripped him and would not let go.”

As I said, if you enter The Witchwood Crown expecting most of the story to be told from the perspective of the returning characters, you will be disappointed. Exposure and pages-count wise, the new POV characters outweighed the returning characters. Morgan, Pasivalles, Tzoja, Nezeru, Jarnulf, Unver, and more. And let me tell you, none of these characters can be considered overwhelmingly good in nature. Most of them have their own design and schemes to achieve. Or, in the case of Morgan, an absolute brat that you want to slap non-stop. I won’t lie. Morgan is one of the most infuriating and spoiled brats I’ve ever come across in the fantasy genre. He will, as intended, test your patience with his stupidity and extreme selfishness. His behavior toward Simon and Miriamele should’ve earned him some prison time or beating. Fortunately, the story told from his POV is one of the most unputdownable in the novel. And in a similar way to how Simon had Binabik to accompany him in The Storm King’s War, Morgan, too, has Snenneq as his friend. The appearance of Snenneq made it easier to tolerate reading Morgan’s antics. And here, Morgan will constantly be forced to learn the hard way so he, hopefully, can develop into a better person.

“Making those errors may be the only way they will learn the lessons we did, my dear one… Certainly for all Morgenes or Rachel tried to teach me, it never quite made sense until I had ignored their good advice and done something impressively stupid instead.”

One of the finest additions to The Witchwood Crown is something Tad Williams implemented in The Heart of What Was Lost: the perspective from the Norns. In fantasy series, personally speaking, it is almost always refreshing to have POV chapters from the villains. Doing this can result in more emotions and complexity for the villains, and I am pleased to find out that this is reintegrated into the narrative. Viyeki’s story and his dilemma with the humans were fascinating to me. More importantly, I absolutely loved reading the storyline and development of Nezeru and Jarnulf as they are accidentally paired with Makho on a mission for Hakatri’s bones. I did mention in this review about the minimal actions in The Witchwood Crown, but when they’re there, they are well-placed and brimming with tensions.

“In truth, ruling anything, let alone the largest kingdom in the history of Osten Ard, was a process of learning about and reacting to hundreds upon hundreds of small problems, some of which would quickly become larger problems if left unsolved, and then persisting with them until they had been solved or at least reduced from crisis to mere irritation.”

Having read many fantasy books and series now, I can vouch with confidence that with The Witchwood Crown, Tad Williams proves once more why he is a master in world-building and immersion. We learned more about the Sithi, the Norns, Ruyan the Navigator, and many more. There is something magical about Tad Williams's prose that always makes me want to take my time reading his books. His prose is worth savoring. It took me two weeks to read The Witchwood Crown; for comparison, that is as long as the days I need to read To Green Angel Tower. Although it is true I felt the book was slightly longer than it should be for the first book in the series, every time I opened the pages of The Witchwood Crown, I felt instantly engrossed in the world and predicament of the characters. It is a slow-burn narrative. If you are reading Tad Williams’ books, you should know that by now. But if you are like me, a fan of his writing and experiencing escapism into another world, The Witchwood Crown will be worth the read.

“The world was full of people quite certain they already knew the answer to every important question. The older Eolair got, the more he valued men—and women, too, most definitely—who thought for themselves, who asked questions, who were not satisfied with seemingly easy answers to difficult problems.”

Overall, it feels good and amazing to be back in the world of Osten Ard again. I am worried about the fate of the characters as it feels like darkness is about to engulf the world of Osten Ard again. My instinct says Empire of Grass, the sequel to this book, will have a relatively faster-paced narrative filled with more conflicts, betrayals, and tribulations. I am excited to find out about that. But for now, if you are a fan of Memory, Sorrow, and Thorn trilogy, you are doing yourself a disservice by not reading The Witchwood Crown. It is so beautifully written, enchanting, bittersweet, and magnificently immersive.

“It is when we are apart that I most realize how fortunate we were to find each other, though all the world was against us.”

You can order this book from: Amazon | Blackwells (Free International shipping)

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[Sean Barrs · Rating 5 out of 5]

Tad Williams is a master, a true master of epic fantasy. I can only think of perhaps a handful of novels that are this well written in the genre.

Firstly, it’s worth pointing out that I’ve not read Tad Williams’ original trilogy, but after this I feel like I ought to. I want to see more of this world. I need to see more of this world. It’s flawless and bleak and magical: it’s easily one of the best fantasy universes created. Why? Because it’s vast and finely crafted, resting on years of history and lore. My lack of experience with the world of Osten Ard didn’t affect my enjoyment of this book. It’s very friendly to new readers. And that’s really important, for me, fantasy is nothing without rich history to help cement the world building. It acts as a platform for the characters to develop. And I wasn’t overwhelmed by it despite not reading the first three books. The balance is just right.

There’s no reason not to make this your next fantasy read!

Central to the plot is the on-going struggle between men and Norns. The world of men is ruled by kind-hearted King Simon who is utterly overwhelmed by his burdens. He is surrounded by betrayal (though he doesn’t know it) and his ancient enemies have returned to plague his kingdom. He is beset by petty politics and frustrating courtiers. His son is dead and his heir, his grandson Prince Morgan, is a useless drunkard. And this is where there is the biggest room for growth, Morgan has big things coming his way and he needs to step up because King Simon seems like a man ready to break. I think Morgan is more than he realises.

Despite the apparent evilness of the Norns, and the maniacal will of their Queen, I found myself quite invested in their side of the story. They are not all bad. They do not all want to rid the world of men; they are forced to do so by their monarch whose thoughts leech into their brains and drive them forward into battle. And this made the novel real interesting, going forward into the rest of the series, I’m really intrigued to see how this will develop. There’s much more to this immortal race. I find them quite mysterious, and as such their sections of the novel were some of the best.

It is a slow book, and it will certainly appeal to readers who like careful fantasy. By careful fantasy I mean books that take their time, slowing letting the plot build up as the characters are revealed in good time. And because of this I think it will directly appeal to readers of Robin Hobb. Like Hobb, Williams has not rushed but has laid the groundwork for something quite grand. There are some big surprises in here, and the next book is sure to take an interesting direction.

It’s a book driven by cultural clashes and racial wars. The world is stark and grey, and I’m not entirely sure who to root for. It’s highly compelling fantasy, go read it!

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[Bradley · Rating 5 out of 5]

Re-read 7/4/22:

This is the first time that I've read this book after having re-visited the original trilogy almost 25 years before. It's so weird to get into this with Simon as a Grandfather, his son dead, and his grandson something of a wastrel.

The book is a huge one. Quite dense and detailed, and it brings us to a point where everything is about to get hellish again. This time, it's the Morrigan. The immortals are restless. And let's face it, everyone is restless.

I frankly enjoyed the worried grandfather bits more than the upset kid bits, but overall it's just a huge sprawl of a novel. This is not an epic fantasy overflowing with battles. But it is dense with worldbuilding and it helps to have gotten yourself lost in all that came before.

Of course, I know very well that this is merely the OPENING novel to something really badass. It takes time to do these things right. :)


Original Review:

I'm almost speechless.

I mean, reading this long, long book takes me back to all the long, long books of Tad Williams and especially his most well-known and beloved original fantasy. (Of which this picks up many years down the line, with Simon the Scullion a grandfather and King of the kingdom.)

What this does extremely well: worldbuilding and characters. He takes his time. And I mean, he lets all the characterizations come out gloriously slowly, with rich detail, and living in such a world that runs so deep as to reclassify the term "escapist fiction".

We live there. We become one with the world of Osten Ard. Whether we're a Norn, one of the elfish immortals, or of men, we dive really deep into the world. I can't find real good or evil anywhere. Just people of all kinds, be they giants, shapeshifters, any kind of immortal, half-immortal, or of the race of men. It's easy to just "say" this, as well, but Tad Williams shows us in all the glory just how true it is.

And then we have the echoes of the undead king, the darkness of magics to come, all the reasons why all these kingdoms are on the path to being laid very, very low, and it all boils down to PEOPLE (of any flavor) doing what they think is right, and still they bring about the greatest evils.

Did I mention how much glorious, deep, well-thought-out, detailed worldbuilding is going on here?

A taste: Prester John, Herne, echoes of catholicism twisted into undead rituals, elves coming across the sea from far away to live here (rather than the reverse), and a whole immortal ppl lied to and left in poverty... for what? It reminds me of Dragon Age, but let's get real here. Tad Williams' epic came out over twenty years ago and this only continues (gloriously so) the long, long tale. :)

I can't say that this fantasy has anywhere near the epic bloodshed and magics that anyone might expect out of today's epic fantasy genre, but when it comes to depth of character, the main story, and worldbuilding... few and perhaps none can compare.

Frankly, I'm lost in admiration.

It's far from a hard read (aside from the length) and it's easy to fall deep into the good writing. I'm remembering my initial response to his first fantasies in just the same way.

Truly Excellent!

[Mogsy · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.5 of 5 stars at The BiblioSanctum https://bibliosanctum.com/2017/07/27/...

This was a very long, very dense read, but I really don’t mean that in a negative way. Quite the contrary, in fact; it’s has been a while since I’ve sunk my teeth into an epic fantasy so rich and layered, and it felt incredibly refreshing to fall into a meaty novel like this and just let it consume me completely.

The Witchwood Crown is the start of a new series set in the universe of Tad Williams’ Memory, Sorrow, and Thorn trilogy, though I believe it would serve as a decent jumping on point for readers new to the author and his books. This was my first experience with his work and I found I was able to follow the story quite easily, excepting some initial confusion over the lore of Osten Ard and the different inhabitants that make the continent their home. Thankfully, in a lengthy novel like this, there’s plenty of world-building and no shortage of opportunities to catch up on all this information so it wasn’t long before I felt totally at ease in this new setting.

The story continues the story of King Simon and Queen Miriamele from the previous series, having been married for the last thirty years since the conclusion of Memory, Sorrow, and Thorn. Their grandson Morgan is now the heir apparent, after the death of Simon and Miriamele’s son Prince Josua. With their grief still all too fresh, this causes the aging royal couple to become both overprotective and excessively tough on Morgan, who both yearns for and chafes at the growing responsibilities placed upon his shoulders. Like any young person growing up, he’s trying to find himself but always seems to be getting mixed up into trouble with his rowdy, tavern-hopping friends.

Meanwhile, the realm is in danger once again from a threat long since thought vanquished. The Norns, an immortal elf-like race, are rallying together and preparing for an invasion to reclaim the mortal lands for themselves. After falling into disfavor and becoming a sacrifice, a young half-Norn woman named Nezeru is taken along on a journey to fulfill a mission for their queen, and along the way the group encounters a mysterious warrior named Jarnulf who appears to be much more than he claims to be.

There are a lot of characters involved but I liked how the narrative introduced them all gradually, making it easier to identify the multiple plot threads and determine which perspectives are the important ones. While Simon and Miriamele are characters that I’m only meeting now for the first time, evidently there’s still plenty of growth and development to be had even though they’re both now into their golden years. The two of them are more in love than ever, but the years have also brought certain new life changes and challenges as their priorities have shifted, and most of their disagreements now have to do with their grandson. Speaking of Prince Morgan, he was another important POV character, not to mention one of the more complex and well-written ones. Unlike Simon, who started from humble beginnings as a kitchen scullion, Morgan was born into a royal life and grew up wanting for nothing. In spite of this, he is something of a shiftless and troubled young man who couldn’t be more different than his driven grandfather. And yet there’s something about him that reminds me of a lost and scared little boy, and reading about his self-doubt just makes me want to wrap him up in a big hug.

That said, as a newcomer to this world, I confess it was an interesting experience to be reading the first book of a sequel series, one that I could tell has deep ties to the previous trilogy. While it did not affect my enjoyment overly much, it was at times distracting to be catching little snippets of references to past events and wondering at the full details behind them. The main crux of the story also took a long time to build (for a novel that’s more than 700 pages long, that’s really saying something) and there were rambling sections which I felt could have been trimmed without making too much of an impact on the overall story. Again, this is only my personal opinion as a brand new reader to this world. It’s more than likely that I’m just missing a lot of the nuances, being completely unfamiliar with the events of the previous trilogy, and if you’re an old fan I imagine your experiences will be very different.

At the end of the day though, I think it’s safe to say that no matter who you are, as long as you have a love for rich, multilayered epic fantasy then you will certainly develop a deep appreciation for The Witchwood Crown. It’s a heavy novel, both literally and figuratively, containing robust world-building and character development. Exploring complex themes and conflicts, Tad Williams takes a big-picture look at how several generations deal with problems threatening their kingdom, and while the sheer scope of it can feel a little overwhelming at first, a willingness to invest some time and patience in the story will eventually pay off. I feel like I have a stronger, more confident grasp of the world now, and I look forward to continuing with the next book of the series.

[Taylor · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is definitely the best fantasy book that I've read in years. It definitely gets 5 out of 5 stars from me on Goodreads, and a score of 10 out of 10 on my own personal scoring system. :)

Check out my full review:Here

[Andreas · Rating 4 out of 5]

Some 30 years ago, Tad Williams started his Osten Ard  series with The Dragonbone Chair, Stone of Farewell, and concluded it in 1993 with To Green Angel Tower. I never expected him to return to this wonderful world and characters. Now, we have a long novella The Heart of what was Lost, which picked up some threads directly after the first trilogy, and this new doorstopper of a novel. So, yes dear newcomer, you have to read all the books before this one.

Those 30 years gone are also reflected in the setting - the main characters got old, mayhaps wiser. Imagine a Mooncalf Simon Snowlock established as a renown king of some 50 years old, shouting around at his drunkard grandson! The Duke of Rimmersgard, Isgrimnur, kind of old back then, is now about to die of age. After some 100 pages, the old gang has gathered: Simon, Miriamele, Binabik, Isgrimnur, Tiamak, and Eolair travel around in a state visit in their dominion, which sounds as boring as it reads. Heavily missing are the Sithi Jiriki and Aditu, but that has its reasons.

On the antagonist side of the Norn, that mischievous folks are gathering their strength again. We get good insights into the culture, heroic characters, and traditions resembling a template for every roleplaying dark elf.

Williams takes his good time to elaborate a tension arc, lets the book start easy, happy, nice, and only Simon's grandson Morgan seems to be a problem child with his drunkard friends - one of them old Sir Porto from the prequel novella - dangling around. But immortal Norn queen Utuk’ku has awakened and prepares for war against the mortals of the realm. She sent out elite warriors to get her the eponymous Witchwood Crown. Also, political unrest drives the southern part of the realm.

Only the last third of the book takes up urgency again and develops speed. Take your time and enjoy the slow cruising before taking the roller coaster ride! Because that is, what the last 100 pages will bring you.

I feared that I wouldn't be able to return to this beloved epic fantasy world, because I changed myself in the last couple of years. But Tad Williams has outdone himself to picked up the character, changed them in time without loosing the atmosphere of the first books. He transported me back again to Osten Ard without headaches. Oh joy!

I recommend this to readers who need a different taste in their diet of dark, gritty, near pornish Fantasy worlds of GRRM, Lawrence, or Abercrombie, who want to go for a lighter reading without loosing complex settings, characters, and plots.

[Len Evans Jr · Rating 5 out of 5]

I loved this book... even at almost 700 pages the author kept me turning page after page long after I should have gone to bed on multiple nights. The characters though many are all so skillfully drawn that you quickly come to know and care about what happens to them. The pace of the plot is measured; yet not too slow... always keeping you hooked. I need to now go back and read the original trilogy to tide me over till the next book in this one is released. A definite must read... check it out when it is released in mid-June.

[Rachel (TheShadesofOrange) · Rating 4 out of 5]

4.0 Stars
After enjoying the trilogy that starts with the Dragonbone Chair, I was eager to dive into this sequel series.

I was pleased to find that the characters and writing quality were the same quality of the original worth. The world felt well fleshed out. The original trilogy was the inspiration for A Song of Ice and Series series and this sequel series scratched the same itch for anyone craving a well written, rich epic fantasy series.

I would absolutely recommend this one to fantasy fans but it would be best experienced after reading the original series. I am very interested in continuing this trilogy.

Disclaimer I received a copy of this book from the publisher.

[Patrick St-Denis · Rating 2 out of 5]

If you have read my review of The Heart of What Was Lost, you probably recall just how great it was for me to finally return to the world of Osten Ard. I read To Green Angel Tower when it originally came out, so I've been waiting for a very long to discover what happens next. Memory, Sorrow, and Thorn turned out to be a seminal work of fantasy, one of the very best of its era. Like countless Tad Williams fans, I couldn't wait to sink my teeth into The Witchwood Crown.

In the end, The Heart of What Was Lost was the perfect companion book for anyone who loved Memory, Sorrow, and Thorn, as well as the perfect setup book for The Last King of Osten Ard trilogy. Still, the novel was nothing more than a vignette, a brief episode focusing on the Siege of Nakkiga. The Witchwood Crown takes place three decades later and is the opening chapter in a brand new series featuring protagonists that we have learned to love and a huge cast of new characters. Understandably, expectations are extremely high for this new trilogy. Given how long it took for the author to finally elect to write this sequel, we could expect nothing less. Not since the Dune sequels were announced has a new SFF series been so eagerly anticipated.

Lofty expectations can be tricky things, however. And considering how beloved Memory, Sorrow, and Thorn has continued to be over the years, let's just say that The Last King of Osten Ard has very big shoes to fill. If you've been hanging around these parts for a while, you should know by now that I've always been a big Tad Williams fan. Regardless of the shortcomings that certain readers find so annoying and/or off-putting, I've always managed to overlook them and enjoy Williams' books/series. I mean, I'm aware of these perceived weaknesses, but Tad Williams has always found a way to scratch my itch, no matter if it's epic fantasy, science fiction, urban fantasy, or everything else in between. I was so excited about The Witchwood Crown that I once claimed that if George R. R. Martin's The Winds of Winter and Williams' latest came out on the same day (not going to happen, of course, but just for the sake of argument), I'd probably read the latter first.

Thanks to the author, his wife Deborah, and the good folks at Daw Books, I was one of the first reviewers to receive an advance reading copy. I wanted to get a review up as soon as possible, so I started reading it right away. By the second evening, I knew something was wrong. Quite wrong. I wasn't feeling it. At all. This book was a veritable chore to go through. The slog of slogs. I persevered, hoping that it would get better as the story progressed. Alas, to no avail. I actually put the novel down twice, each time for a couple of weeks, because I didn't want the first review online to be luke-warm at best. Had it been written by anyone but Tad Williams, I would have stopped reading before reaching the halfway point. Yet the author has wowed me so often in the past that I simply couldn't quit. Eventually, I did pick it up again and reached the end. And it does get a little better. But the sad truth remains that, in my humble opinion (and that's worth what it's worth) The Witchwood Crown is Tad Williams' weakest work to date. In many ways, it is to the author what Crossroads of Twilight was to Robert Jordan. And the Jordan may have been better. I kid you not. . .

Here's the blurb:

The Dragonbone Chair, the first volume of Memory, Sorrow, and Thorn, was published in hardcover in October, 1988, launching the series that was to become one of the seminal works of modern epic fantasy. Many of today’s top-selling fantasy authors, from Patrick Rothfuss to George R. R. Martin to Christopher Paolini credit Tad with being the inspiration for their own series.

Now, twenty-four years after the conclusion of Memory, Sorrow, and Thorn, Tad returns to his beloved universe and characters with The Witchwood Crown, the first novel in the long-awaited sequel trilogy, The Last King of Osten Ard.

Thirty years have passed since the events of the earlier novels, and the world has reached a critical turning point once again. The realm is threatened by divisive forces, even as old allies are lost, and others are lured down darker paths. Perhaps most terrifying of all, the Norns—the long-vanquished elvish foe—are stirring once again, preparing to reclaim the mortal-ruled lands that once were theirs…

Not surprisingly, the worldbuilding is head and shoulders above what is the norm in today's speculative fiction market. In that regard, The Witchwood Crown showcases a Tad Williams writing at the top of his game. Memory, Sorrow, and Thorn was vast in scope and vision and this new series builds on storylines that already echoed with depth. Several new dimensions are added to what has always been a multilayered work of fiction, and on this front at least the first volume of The Last King of Osten Ard delivers. The Sithi and the Norns are not your typical elf-like race, and for some reason Williams is the only fantasy author who can bring out the darker nature of the fairy folk in such a fashion. To finally get the chance to discover more about the inner workings of the Norn society was undoubtedly the most fascinating aspect of The Heart of What Was Lost. Thirty years later, the plans that were put in motion in the heart of Nakkiga are bearing fruit and we learn even more about them. And now that Queen Utuk'ku has awakened, the world is about to find out that the Hikeda'ya are not the vanquished foe so many people believed them to be. Those hoping to find out more about the Sithi are bound to be disappointed. Sadly, we see very little of them, and most of the scenes involving the Sithi occur near the very end of the book. As far as geography is concerned, the tale occurs in various locales all over Osten Ard. Indeed, certain plotlines take place in the far north, in Nakkiga, Rimmersgard, the Frostmarch, and Hernystir. Others occur in Erkynland, mostly focusing on the Hayholt. Nabban and the Thrithing lands are also the stage for what appear to be major storylines. Finally, the Aldheorte forest is another locale we return to. As you can see, The Witchwood Crown is a far-reaching novel that covers a lot of ground, which is something that doesn't necessarily always work in the book's favor.

One of the principal shortcomings of this book is the decidedly weak political intrigue. As I mentioned in my review of Shadowmarch way back when, Tad Williams excels in many different aspects when it comes to writing novels, but politicking is definitely not one of them. This was true then, and sadly it's true now. Instead of playing to his strengths, likely to have more appeal to fans of George R. R. Martin's A Song of Ice and Fire and other politically-involved fantasy series, Williams put political intrigue at the heart of a number of important plot threads. Which, due to the clumsiness of such intrigues, puts the Hernystir, the Nabban, and the Thrithing plotlines on very shaky ground. Add to that the fact that Simon makes for a particularly inept and occasionally dumb High King who has surrounded himself with not necessarily the brightest of people at court, and you have an incompetent government so totally unprepared to deal with any sort of crisis that it is second only to the Donald Trump administration in that regard. All in all, since a large part of the novel hinges precisely on political intrigue, it can be quite a setback at times. As I've said before, not everyone can be a politicking master like Martin, Katherine Kurtz, or Jacqueline Carey. Tad Williams took quite a risk when he chose to go down that path. Time will tell if he can pull it off. But based on The Witchwood Crown, it will be an uphill battle and the odds are stacked against him.

The novel's biggest flaw is the characterization, which is habitually one of the aspects in which Williams truly shines. This facet leaves a lot to be desired. Moreover, The Witchwood Crown is a veritable mess of points of view. Sometimes, less is more. I'm convinced that this book would have benefited from a lesser number of perspectives. Do you recall how George R. R. Martin took some heat when A Feast For Crows was released due to the fact that many readers opined that there were simply too many POV protagonists in the series? And then A Dance With Dragons added even more. Well, I've lost track of exactly how many perspectives there are, but The Witchwood Crown features about as many points of view as GRRM's A Song of Ice and Fire taken as a whole. And that is way too much for a single novel. It can be confusing, at times downright boring, and it bogs down the narrative with pointless scenes that go nowhere. Why Tad Williams elected to introduce readers to so many disparate characters and give them their own POV in the very first volume of the series, I'll never know. But it does kill momentum, time and time again, as you skip from an interesting plotline to an unnecessary conversation or info-dump that brings little or nothing to the tale. Introducing the cast is all well and good. But like Martin and other SFF authors, Williams could have waited and shared their perspectives in subsequent installments. As things stand, there are way too many cooks in the kitchen. This precludes any kind of tight focus on any of the storylines, and in the long run this hurts the book in a myriad of ways.

The Witchwood Crown also suffers from a manifestly poor cast. Simon and Miriamele are only shadows of who they once were in Memory, Sorrow, and Thorn. Middle age has enfeebled and made them fearful. Especially Miriamele, which was such a strong female lead in the first series, has become a somewhat weak woman who's terrified if Simon has a bad dream. How such a couple with a deficient court held on to power for so long defies comprehension. How they could remain so unaware of what goes on in and around their kingdom was definitely shocking. Prince Morgan, heir to the High Throne, is another great disappointment. I'm acutely aware that Williams is setting him up as a complete dumbass so that we can experience his transformation and root for him when he finally has his coming-of-age moment. Problem is, as the heir, Morgan should have been exposed to life at court and all that it encompasses from a young age. Simon and Miriamele, who go on and on and on about how much of a disappointment the youth turned out to, do absolutely nothing to remedy the situation. POV protagonists include familiar faces like Tiamak, Eolair, Viyeki (now High Magister of the Order of the Builders), and Pasevalles. There are plenty of newcomers, chief among them Tzoja, mortal slave wife to Viyeki, their daughter Nezeru (now one of the Queen's Talons), Jarnulf the White Hand (by far the most interesting character of the bunch), Unver of the Thrithring-folks, and Jesa (nurse to Duke Saluceris of Nabban's infant daughter). Simply put, that's just too many POVs. Another thing that might irk some readers is that a lot of female characters, at least as far as this novel is concerned, are somewhat vapid dead-ends.

Tad Williams is a notorious slow starter. Always has been and probably always will be. All of his series have suffered from long bouts of sluggish rhythm, and The Witchwood Crown could well be his slowest-paced work to date. I kept wondering when the tale would finally kick into high gear, yet the vast number of points of view prevented that from ever taking place. With the Bobby Dollar books, Williams proved that he could keep the rhythm more or less fluid. Urban fantasy is a different genre, but I was hoping that he had learned from his past errors and would apply those lessons when pacing the new series. Unfortunately, that wasn't meant to be. Those who were frustrated by the snail's pace of novels like The Dragonbone Chair will likely find little to love about this new book. It is a tedious read, every step of the way.

There are some good scenes and storylines, mind you. And yet, it's a chore to get through to them because very little actually happens in most chapters and all the good stuff is buried so deeply under extraneous and superfluous scenes that it robs them of most of the desired impact. I've always been a big fan, but I've never had such a hard time reading anything by Tad Williams. Honestly, so many sequences could have been truncated or excised altogether. A trimmed down version of The Witchwood Crown, let's say minus 150 pages or so, would probably have been a much better read.

Another problem is that The Witchwood Crown is little more than a vast introduction to an even bigger and more complex tale. As such, it introduces a panoply of characters, concepts, and plot threads. Yet it offers very little in terms of resolution. Though they were part of a trilogy, I always felt that all three installments that comprised Memory, Sorrow, and Thorn stood well on their own. Not so for the first volume of The Last King of Osten Ard. I expected something gripping and exciting to close the show. After all, a review from someone involved in the production of The Witchwood Crown promised a showdown as awesome as the grand finale of George R. R. Martin's A Storm of Swords. Hence, I kept hoping, turning those pages, slogging through more and more lackluster scenes that go nowhere, waiting for that big payoff at the end. Only to reach the final sentence and shake my head in wonder and disappointment. There is absolutely no showdown. No big payoff. I'm so sad that this turned out to be such an underwhelming novel. This was supposed to be the BIG return to Osten Ard, one of the fantasy highlights of 2017. Instead, it was a work I could barely finish. True, things do pick up in the last hundred pages or so. But it's a case of too little, too late.

In a recent interview, Tad Williams mentioned that he had never worked on something as intricately plotted as The Last King of Osten Ard. I wonder if that robbed The Witchwood Crown of some of the magic that permeated past Tad Williams works. Detractors have often complained that the author doesn't always seem to know where he's going with his storylines/characters, that he makes everything up as he goes along, etc. But there was a magic to that and Williams always came out on top in the end. I wonder if having so many details plotted out that far in advance has robbed Williams of the freedom that allowed him to follow his muse the way he used to do. Perhaps this is the reason why his latest novel failed to capture my imagination the way Memory, Sorrow, and Thorn or the Otherland series grabbed hold of me and never let go?

One can only hope that the second volume, Empire of Grass, will be a return to form for the author.

For more reviews, check out www.fantasyhotlist.blogspot.com

[Andrew · Rating 5 out of 5]

The Witchwood Crown continues Tad Williams’ seminal fantasy trilogy Memory, Sorrow, and Thorn while standing equally tall on its own in a more crowded book market, starting a new trilogy called The Last King of Osten Ard. 1988 was a different time for those massive tomes, and this first volume of the new trilogy knows that.

Instead of blindly repeating the threat of the original trilogy or copy-pasting in a new one, The Witchwood Crown takes the much more interesting route of being a sequel about how history can repeat if we aren’t careful to learn from our past. Think World War I only leading to World War II, with a small peace between.

The original trilogy dealt with the elf-like Norns and their Big Bad type Storm King, victims in the past of genocide at the hands of human invaders, threatening to do the same by exterminating the human race. The new trilogy manages to reintroduce the Norns as antagonists with a well-developed characterization and society of their own while upping the scale of the threat considerably. No spoilers on that front here, but readers of the original trilogy may have a good idea of what that threat could be.

Instead of shoving the old characters out of the limelight to hand over the reigns to a young and sexy cast (like so many TV and film reboots), or shock killing them off early on to score some Game of Thrones imitator gravitas, The Witchwood Crown makes them central players alongside a new cast. The book itself is a blending of the old and new styles of popular fantasy: there are adventures in astonishingly described locales, comedy that had me chuckling, and youthful innocence; there is also a harder tone to the violence, there are backstabbing political machinations, and scenes of melancholy.

There are about sixteen point of views throughout the book located in a handful of diverse locations across the land of Osten Ard, so Williams can switch effortlessly between story types, tones, and styles. Riots, potential civil war, old allies turning their coats, the Norns preparing for war again, trade battles, cults...the book has a little of everything.

More importantly, this new book not only manages to carry on the tradition of older fantasy while blending it with the new, it manages to have something human to say. A grand emotion or a theme. Most of Williams’ work does. That might not seem like much, but when too many writers are intent on throwing out RPG spreadsheets or, on the other hand, grimdark violence, it’s rare to read something with big ideas to match its big locations and creatures that can still be entertaining.

Just because a bunch of armies came together and fought a big battle together doesn’t mean the animosity between the factions vanishes for good. Just because one battle ends and peace is declared doesn’t mean that peace is forever. Again: think World War I to World War II. And just as in that real world history, by the end of The Witchwood Crown the entire land of Osten Ard seems primed to explode at each other based on fear, lies, and greed rooted in past hurts.

At the opening of the first part (a nice touch—each of the three sections of the book is named after the debris of Memory, Sorrow, and Thorn’s war: Widows, Orphans, and Exiles), the backbone of the book (and presumably the trilogy) is summed up with a poem by Hsu Chao:

Locusts laid their eggs in the corpse
Of a soldier. When the worms were
Mature, they took wing. Their drone
Was ominous, their shells hard.
Anyone could tell they had hatched
From an unsatisfied anger.

With all of this to praise, The Witchwood Crown is an easy recommend to both new readers and fans of Williams: a great start to what could be a new classic trilogy.

This review is made possible via digital ARC provided by Penguin’s First to Read program.

[Claudia · Rating 5 out of 5]

So good to be back in Osten Ard!

Around 30 years passed since The Dragonbone Chair was published and the same in the Saga. Simon and Miri are now High King and Queen of the realm and also grandparents. Tiamak settled in Hayholt, Binabik and Sisqi have a daughter of their own and a delicious future son-in-law.

The Norns are having their own story, on par with the humans. A lot has changed since the Battle of Nakkiga and after 30 years of peace, the clouds are gathering again, and whispers of a new war are becoming louder. Evil gods long forgotten are rising and humans must prepare again for the worst.

Unlike the previous trilogy, where mostly we follow the path of Simon and his friends, here are a multitude of points of view, including new very interesting characters, apparently not related to the main thread in the beginning.

The worldbuilding is superb, full of even richer details than in the first series. The writing is as astonishing as ever, the pace slow but not a moment boring - things are getting more complicated and convoluted with each page.

The end brings a complete surprise, one which I did not expect, and I was left counting the days till the next release.

If you plan to pick this one up, I strongly suggest to start with the first trilogy, Memory, Sorrow and Thorn and read also the novella in between, The Heart of What Was Lost. You’ll understand it way better, because there are a lot of references not fully explained here from the previous series.

That being said, I think Tad Williams is one of the greatest worldbuilders and storytellers that I have had the pleasure to read so far. If you love The Lord of the Rings, you’ll love this one too.

[Craig · Rating 3 out of 5]

I wish that epic fantasy writers wrote novels.

They write things that are often thought of as novels. They write things that are packaged and sold as novels. They write things that look like novels (sort of—they also often look like big-city phone books). But these things aren’t narratively shaped like novels, and they certainly don’t reward emotionally like novels.

If a trilogy were three novels, that would mean three arcs. Three iterations of the age-old pattern of story development, at least three climactic moments of one sort or another, three distinct feelings of having watched a satisfying ending occur. At least three distributions of something like fitting moral justice. But epic fantasy trilogies are not sets of three novels, so—lucky for Tad Williams, who seems helpless to stop this from happening—it doesn’t matter if the last volume grows too large to be bound by even the best glue a publisher can afford and must be divided in half, making for “trilogies” in four parts, or five, or what have you. Make it as many as you like: because it’s just a 3,000-page gout of words with, at most, one narrative arc, such as it is, it can be in as many volumes as you wish. The first of these, even if it runs to a thousand pages, will still just be a massive, uneventful prologue, and the whole thing will still keep you waiting for anything like resolution until a week before the heat death of the universe.

Tad Williams writes very well indeed. Seriously, very well. I just wish he wrote novels.

[Ryan Swart · Rating 5 out of 5]

I loved this book from start to finish. Easy 5/5 for me. It’s probably the best book I’ve read all year, and possibly the best epic fantasy since I finished Malazan, Realm of the Elderlings, and Dandelion Dynasty a few years ago.


It is such a step up from the original trilogy, which I enjoyed. Those books just felt too bloated for me to justify a 5 star rating.


Not that Memory, Sorrow, and Thorn was childish or immature in any way, but this book definitely reads like it’s grown up with its audience. The characters aren’t the only ones bringing their decades of previous experience to the new part of this story. Tad Williams has learned some things and it shows in many ways. And not just because there’s more violence or sex, but the themes feel…richer. There’s more to chew on here.


And, of course, it’s as beautifully written as most any other epic fantasy you’ll find. The balance of tone is perfect to me. Tad Williams creates vivid imagery and chooses just the right words to set the scene or put you in a different pov character’s frame of mind.


The characters are nuanced, flawed, and at times a bit annoying, but they are also easy to love and full of their own unique charms. I came to love nearly every character (or hate the ones I expect I am supposed to lol). I was more emotionally invested with this cast of characters than I have been for some time in any series.


He still takes his time, the plot is never going to be at a breakneck pace, but there is much more of a balance than before in the previous trilogy. This book is full of exciting moments. I actually gasped multiple times and I rarely do that with any book. It’s not just that there is more action; Williams now knows how to take a more character driven scene with exposition and slice of life elements and inject it with all sorts of small things that make for a more engaging and surprising read.


Magic is soft but with hints at something almost scientific behind it, which for me is a perfect balance to keep it mysterious yet somewhat knowable.


I’ll take a break to read some other stuff but I can’t wait to continue. I’m sure I’ll be thinking about it frequently until I pick up Empire of Grass.

[Brian Durfee · Rating 5 out of 5]

Amazing and enchanting and layered with mystery. The perfect re-entry into the lands of Osten Ard. We start in high fashion with a Sithi and some poisoned arrows and then it's off to the adventure from there. In a grand tour we get to meet all our hero's from Memory Sorrow and Thorn within the first hundred pages: Simon, Miri, Binibik, Isgrimnir, Eolair, Sludig, Tiamek, and so on. Older and wiser but yet the same. New characters that stand out: Morgan, Jarnulf, Qina, Snenneq, Lillia. The action is brisk and bold and the writing, as always, lyrical and full of beauty. Tad Williams truly has a love for words that ZERO modern fantasies can match. Bravo and thank you!! Can't wait for his 2 & 3.

[Max · Rating 5 out of 5]

Ack! I had a review up for this book, but Goodreads ate it. Bummer!

The Witchwood Crown is a very nice and welcome return to Osten Ard. This is the first book in quite some years, and the start of a new generation set in my favourite fantasy world. Being the first in the Last King series, it's full of world building and character development. So do not expect too much epic battles yet! But don't worry, it is long, but not boring.

I have to get used to adult Simon a little, but that is okay and makes sense. Next reread I will like him more probably!

[P.L. Stuart · Rating 5 out of 5]

"'You see, lad, there’s the world in songs and stories, and then there’s the world that actually happens to you. And they’re not the same. Even the songs that are about real things — songs that are mostly true, I mean — they’re about people thinking about those things afterward.'"

So begins my introduction to venerated writer Tad Williams, the Erkynlanders, and the world of Osten Ard.

I can't believe it took me so long to read this author, whose works are lauded as seminal to such brilliant writers whose work I love, such as John Gwynne, Patrick Rothfuss, and GRRM. But I'm very very happy to report that I've finally read something by Williams. I discovered I was definitely missing out.

It was not a conscious decision to read the second series set in Osten Ard, rather than Memory, Sorrow, and Thorn which is the original series that began the journey of Simon, Miriamele, and the characters who inhabit that world. I went into the bookstore, and "Memory, Sorrow, and Thorn" books were not available, but the "Last King of Osten Ard" series was stocked and complete on the shelves, so that's what I picked up. Hence, this review is of book one of that series, "The Witchwood Crown".

Yet, it might seem a little backwards in terms of my reading choices. Still, there may have been some subconscious selection there, as when I understood it was a look at the protagonists as older rulers. I thought it might be interesting to see this perspective first, then if I liked the books, go back and see where it all started, sort of prequel-reading for me.

The book is set approximately thirty years after a great conflict against the god-like Storm King almost destroyed humanity. 

There are many interwoven major and minor plot-lines and numerous POVs, however the main storylines are as follows:

First, in the realm of Osten Ard, High King Simon and High Queen Miriamele, heroes of the war that saw the Storm King vanquished, rule over a vast empire of sub-feudal human domains. 

"The king and queen made an interesting pair, Pasevalles thought, seemingly as different as husband and wife could be. Simon was proud of his lowly birth and upbringing, and if given his way would have spent most of his time in the stable or the kitchens, gossiping with the servants. But the queen had been born to the old royal house, and was comfortable with most of the privileges of wealth and noble blood. She was also very fierce about protecting what she felt was right: When she sat in judgement she was fair-minded, but in no way the soft touch for a sad story that her husband was."

However, some chafe under the rule of the benevolent and largely beloved high royal couple, and not all of their vassals seem to be completely loyal. Trouble is stirring for the High Queen and King, and betrayal could come from those closest to them.

The royal pair must also contend with their wayward grandson and heir, Prince Morgan. Morgan appears to want to carouse and fritter away any positive reputation, and anticipation of his ascending the throne. Simon and Miriamele still grieve for Morgan's father - their deceased son Prince John Josua - while in the midst of their disappointment about their grandson's negative proclivities, hoping there's still time for Morgan to do a turnaround, and mold into a suitable king. 

But more trouble than just feckless bannermen, a rowdy grandson, or even the looming death of a beloved friend in Duke Isgrimnur, are on the horizon. Simon and Miriamele have been estranged from their former non-human allies, the immortal Sithi, who sided with the royals to defeat the Storm King. Then, a Sithi ambassador is waylaid enroute to Simon and Miriamele's capital. 

What does the unexpected appearance of the Sithi envoy mean? And, just as important a question, who wanted her dead?

Meanwhile, far north of Osten Ard, dangerous enemies of Simon and Miriamele, some thought to be long vanquished or dead, are stirring, and plotting. The undying queen of the Norns, Utuk'ku, now awake in her capital city of Nakkiga, after a long magical sleep, has ominous plans for conquest. 

At the centre of these schemes, a fearsome half-blood warrior, scorned for her mixed heritage, and seeking glory and vindication, named Nezuru, sees her opportunity for some measure of redemption. The hallowed remains of Hakatri, brother of the defeated Storm King, are sought during a perilous mission by a band of elite Norn warriors, of which Nezuru becomes a part. 

But along with all the expected dangers of the quest, the Norns could not have anticipated an encounter with Jarnulf, a mysterious and powerful former slave who is sworn to destroy the Norns.   
Next, Nezuru's father, Viyeki, an immortal, is Queen Utuk'ku's High Magister of Builders. Utuk'ku has instructions for Viyeki that are integral to her plans, that Viyeki dare not disobey, if he and his family wish to survive.

He departs on an errand to the lands of mortals, leaving his mistress, Nezuru's mortal mother Tzoja, at the mercy of Viyeki's vindictive wife Khimabu, who detests Tzoja. But Tzoja is a survivor, and has no plans to become the victim of the murderous jealousy of Khimabu, who particularly resents Tzjoa for bearing Viyeki the child in Nezuru, that Khimabu could not.

Finally, amongst the nomadic clans of the Thrithings, friends Unver and Fremur bond in the heat of battle. But Unver, a redoubtable warrior, though adopted by Fremur's clan of Crane is considered an outsider, and is actually a member of the Stallion Clan. Fremur's father is the leader of the Clane clan. 
Unver is in love with Fremur's sister Kulva. But Kulva is promised to another.

Besides this complication, outlanders are not considered worthy of a clan thane's daughter's hand. But Unver will not be easily denied, and Fremur will be caught in the middle of the feud for his sister, and the destiny of Unver.

What do I crave most in any book I read, regardless of the genre, subject matter, or length of the book? Fully realized, complex characters, and in depth, nuanced, languorous exploration of those characters. Well...

Williams' character work is something stupendous to behold. The cast is stretched out far and wide, to the limits of Williams' world, and there are a lot of players to keep track of. That said, Williams manages to create a real sense of intimacy and familiarity between the reader and the main characters, despite the numerous POVs. 

Morgan's imbibing and womanizing ways, coming to a place of more sobriety and enlightenment, and understanding more of his future responsibilities. The pride, perseverance, fierceness of Nezuru, striving for recognition and acceptance as one of mixed race who is treated like garbage, thought of as lesser, disparaged, and distrusted from the start because of her birth, and the trauma she experiences, and the growth she undergoes as she begins to see the world differently. 

Miriamele and Simon's healthy, humourous, but not-perfect relationship, an abiding love that has endured much, and has become unshakable over the passage of time and all the trials and tribulations they have experienced together, is lovely and heart-warming to behold.

These are just some of the highlights among some of the absolute best characterization in terms of depth and breadth I've seen in a fantasy novel. One of the main reasons why "The Witchwood Crown" comes in at just over a whopping 1000 Mass Market Paperback pages, is that Williams refused to be frugal whatsoever on exploring his characters. The complexity and profundity of character work involved, just like the scope of the worldbuilding, is wholly staggering.  

Fair warning, even though they are introduced somewhat gradually, you may feel slightly overwhelmed by the inundation of names of people, names of places, interconnections between characters, races, religions, traditions, cultural norms, and more that is the experience of reading "The Witchwood Crown." 

I don't believe one has to necessarily read Memory, Sorrow, and Thorn first to be able to better absorb and comprehend the backstory and history, as I certainly didn't. Detailed and complete glossaries and appendices are a must with books like these. Never fear, Williams has them to refer to in "The Witchwood Crown", and they are meticulous, while being easy to read, and will keep you straight about who is who, where they are, etc.

In saying that, it's an extremely lush and immersive world that Williams has crafted in this book, on the level of the Erikson's, Wurts, Tolkiens, Martins, Jemisins, etc. Giants, shapeshifters, mortal races, immortals, a humongous world, with various faiths and customs - Williams' worldbuilding is superb. I must mention, the primary Osten Ard faith is surely analogous to Catholicism, with some interesting differences from the real world religion. 

Williams does not fear tackling some pretty difficult themes, particularly with Unver's, Tzoja's and Nezuru's (my favourite character) stories. He handles all these themes exceptionally well, with appropriate sensitivity and care, without shying away from the horrors of them.

Sexual assault, abuse, shaming, misogyny, caste systems, prejudice, bigotry, religious intolerance, nationalism, propaganda, and more are all dealt with in "The Witchwood Crown". As a matter of fact, it's truly a clash of races, cultures and ideologies that fuel the major conflict in this book. I found this book was actually surprisingly dark, yet hopeful, in many ways. 

There was a lot of nostalgia surrounding the reign of Simon and Miriamele, which has obviously been glorious, but there is that sense of decay, and something coming to an end, as the aged monarchs try to hold the realm together, rally their people, and stave off treachery. Even without having read "Memory, Sorrow, and Thorn" that nostalgia was palpable, for me.  

This read is so layered, so dense, that those who don't like that sort of book, and crave the fast-paced, may wish to look elsewhere. It's not that plenty of things don't HAPPEN. There is plenty of tension, lots of political intrigue, betrayals, deception, HUGE reveals, romance, fight scenes (on a smaller scale for the most part, yet very intense and extremely well-written), quests, and more. 

It's just not end-to-end pure adrenaline, like reading Evan Winter, or other writers with a propensity to eviscerate and lop off heads every other chapter. I'm absolutely fine with either pace, but you know I love the slow boil, careful build-up, things simmering to a boil, setting things up for later explosions. "The Witchwood Crown" is THAT type of book.  

This book, like most first books in a series, involves a ton of set-up for future books, many many mysteries waiting to be revealed as the series unfolds, a lot of cryptic clues that may lead to nowhere, or be the key to everything. 

Williams' prose worked well for me, very atmospheric, some passages of simply beautiful writing, mostly very accessible yet fairly eloquent. While not quite as flowery as I adore, there was plenty of great work here to keep me absorbed, and with a book this long, a reader needs prose that will keep them immersed in the story. 

If you are someone who is enamoured by high fantasy with quite dark undertones (like me), and want to peak at the immense talent of a writer who inspired wordsmiths like Gwynne and GRRM to create their own worlds, then I don't think you'll be able to feel your TBR is quite complete until you've added the books of Tad Williams to it. 

I didn't think there was any room in my crowded list of top 100 fantasy books of all time, but I had to elbow out some space for "The Witchwood Crown" by Tad Williams. Absolutely fantastic read, and Williams is a master storyteller. I will definitely be reading the entirety of both the "Last King of Osten Ard" and "Memory, Sorrow, and Thorn" series.

[ScottIsANerd (GrilledCheeseSamurai) · Rating 5 out of 5]

Well...shit. I finished. What a ride. I mean, I first re-read the entirety of the original trilogy, Memory Sorrow & Thorn, then whipped through the novel that bridges the old trilogy with this new one, The Heart Of What Was Lost, and now I have just finished this book, The Witchwood Crown, which is the first book of the new trilogy, The Last King Of Osten Ard.

Seriously, I have spent so much time reading Tad Williams words lately that I feel like he and I are best friends now. Like, maybe I should at least buy the guy a beer or something for all his hard work.

Wait. Fuck that! It should be that he owes ME a beer because I'm the one that just read a gazillion and one page's of his words and I'll tell ya one thing for free and certain...dude is a wordy son of a bitch and those books be looooooong!

Who am I kidding though. I loved every single sentence.

The Witchwood Crown was everything that I wanted it to be! It had that classic fantasy feeling that the original series had but yet felt new and important and stands shoulder to shoulder with all the more modern works of speculative fiction coming out these days.

I've said it before and I'll say it again, Tad Williams is a Word Wizard! The guy can tell a story like nobody's business and although his books are long and descriptive they never once feel slow or bogged down to me. Through his narrative, Tad has created a world that feels more alive than any other world I have spent time in whilst reading a book. The Witchwood Crown, obviously, only helps to increase the depth and richness of Osten Ard in ways that...well...to be frank...completely blew my mind.

MS&T was really a coming of age story, as a lot of classic fantasy is. The Witchwood Crown still explores those themes, but now because of the length of time that has passed in Osten Ard, we are now exploring the idea of growing older and looking back on our lives as well. I love how Tad didn't just take the heroes from his first series and use them as bookends in this new tale. They are still relevant, they are still vital and they are still just as important as the new cast of characters that we are introduced to. Lot's of times (think the new Star Wars movies) it feels like classic characters are just thrown in there as a gimmick or as an homage to what they have previously accomplished. While I suppose I am okay with this, that isn't the case with this story. The old still have much to do, are still integral to the plot and their stories are far from finished. This does not, however, overshadow the importance of the new cast of (younger) characters that we are introduced to. They all most certainly have their place as well, and this story is as much theirs as it is the seasoned veterans.

I also love how Tad has blurred the lines between good and evil. What we thought of as right and wrong in the original trilogy is tipped ass over teakettle in this new book. I found myself rooting for people(s) that I wouldn't have thought possible when I read the original trilogy and now some of the folk that I really liked in the earlier books I find a bit more sinister (or at least bull-headed) in this new one. It's all really confusing (in a good way) for me in who I should actually be rooting for! I mean, I want the good guys to win of course, but fuck me if I can be absolutely certain on who the good guys actually are!

Book of the year?

Yeah. Probably. I mean...it's Tad Williams. I'm a fanboy. Always have been always will be. And I'll tell ya what - those last 150 pages or so...fuck me! I need that next book NOW!!

Bravo, Tad! You have done it again! Thanks for the story, I was most certainly entertained from the very beginning to the very end!

[Athena (OneReadingNurse) · Rating 5 out of 5]

Full thoughts up at. https://onereadingnurse.com/2024/12/1...

I noticed a higher level of overall writing maturity in The Heart of What was Lost and thankfully it continues to grow and get even better in The Witchwood Crown.

I think as a series overall, The Last King of Osten Ard is better written, bleaker, darker, and uses more interesting plot advancement techniques than Memory, Sorrow, and Thorn. It was a little jarring at first to have so much time pass that we aren’t even seeing the next generation after Simon & Miriamele, but their grandchildren. This works though because Williams uses the passage of time as its own antagonist.

Binabik was a huge reason that I loved The Dragonbone Chair so much. I don’t think Snenneq is as good, but I love the family dynamic. I loved “the reunion scene” so much I hollered. Simon turned into exactly the kind of King I thought he would and the first 200 plus pages of the book pretty much catch us up on what has happened in the meanwhile between the two series. I think it might be a lot for people who haven’t read MS&T, but since new characters are being introduced too, I don’t think all the recap slows it down.

Williams always takes his time to build and build and build the history and lore and situation before delving into action, of which there is very little in The Witchwood Crown, and there are also a LOT of new characters to introduce. What…. Between 15 and 20? Each one is so different and unique and interesting though that it’s easy to keep them apart and even if they’re only being set up for bigger things in future books, they’re all interesting and real and a little bit (or a lot) morally gray.

While MS&T was dark and certainly bleak at times, it feels like this series is going to be a lot darker. There are moments of levity and even fun (Simon and the kids!) but the way that Williams ends that fun scene with a tragedy it makes me think it’s a harbringer of things to come.

Anyway, let me talk about my favorite themes of this book before this gets any longer and my head explodes. It’s a little bit hard to identify one antagonist because obviously the norn Queen is still psychotic, and Akhenabi is as terrible as ever, there are multiple human characters who are causing problems as well. The main theme seems to be that in times of peace there are always people trying to f*ck things up. The passing of time causes the next generation (Simon & Miriamele) to seek wisdom from those who have passed (😭) and find that now it’s up to them to make the hard decisions. The passage of time itself is an antagonist on its own.

Lastly, now that I’m used to the Norn points of view and liking them, it’s time to bring in the Thrithings folk! I honestly figured out who Unver was 🙌 and am excited but a little bit dreading to see where that storyline goes. The miscommunication trope has to come in somewhere and I’m feeling a big huge family drama being set up for a much later book.

Oh – and Williams had the GALL to end the book on eight different cliffhangers! Holy cow! I would have been screaming if the book ended in that place and the next one wasn’t already available!!

TLDR: I still have mixed feelings about starting at The Heart of What was Lost or starting at The Dragonbone Chair. I can see either way having benefits. The Witchwood Crown is an absolutely phenomenal book overall, truly the definition of epic fantasy, but it’s a slow burn. If this is your dig, awesome, if not I would start back at TDC.

(P.S. Andrew Wincott has gotten this series down to perfection via audio)

[Kitty G Books · Rating 4 out of 5]

*If you haven't read the Memory, Sorrow and Thorn books - this review does contain some mild spoilers for that series*

This book is the first in a new series by Tad Williams that is set in the same world as his Osten Ard books. It is set about 30 years after the ending of the final Memory, Sorrow and Thorn book, and follows the reign of King Simon and Queen Mirriamel alongside the stories of some of their friends, children, grandchildren and allies.

What I really enjoyed about this book compared to the other Osten Ard books, is the MASSIVE improvement in writing style. This book is still a bit of a behemoth, very lengthy indeed, but this never felt like a slow read to me, whereas the first three books definitely all have moments of slow reading. Tad Williams has come an awful long way from the writer he started out as, and by this point in his career he really knows how to start a story with a punch and keep the reader interested throughout the story.

The addition of more women and girls into the story (this time handled a LOT better than those in his previous series) was also something I really enjoyed. We have some moments still where some characters could be better, but their flaws make them likeable and as a whole the ladies of this book were WAY cooler and much more interesting than the ladies in the previous series. So much so, in fact, that I cannot wait to see how this series plays out in the end.

We have so much more intrigue in this one. The story of the Norns and the growing malevolence from the first book is suddenly flipped from good vs evil into grey areas on all sides. I loved having a PoV character from the Norns, and seeing how they built up their society and rewarded/harmed the citizens. Getting to discover the plans of the foe, and the humanity that is present within some of the Norns, it opened up a whole new dynamic for the world and made it just far more exciting to read.

I genuinely really enjoyed the read-through of this, and would once again highly recommend the audio version as it was well done indeed. A solid start to a series which expands upon the M,S&T books and world in a fabulous way. The cliff-hanger ending left me wanting more, and I am highly intrigued about who is really good or bad as the series goes on! 4.5*s

[Amber]

OMG, I can't wait for another Tad Williams trilogy!

[mikey · Rating 5 out of 5]

What a way to kick a sequel series off. Might be my new favorite book 1, full review later.

5/5

I love this book. The Witchwood Crown is as fantastic of a sequel as I could ask for, a sequel to a series that I already hold very dear to my heart. A slew of new characters both new and old are (re)-introduced here, and what it’s just another testament in a long line of praises that I have for this author, that I enjoyed each and every one of them. Characters I’ve come to know and love have either grown old or passed on to the great beyond due to the ravages of time, and a wholly new, wholly darker, and somber Osten Ard takes full precedence as the looming threat of the Norn’s once again begins to take shape.

Themes of grief and loss are at the forefront of this new series, and are most heavily explored from the perspectives of two of my favorite ever fantasy characters; a now aged King Simon, and his wife, the Queen Miriamele. The loss of their only son has left irreparable damage on their souls, and watching them grapple with that, while retaining their burning love for one another, was my favorite dynamic from the whole book to read, and I can’t wait to spend more time with them through the difficult trials of leadership that await them.

{ "Your Majesty looks a bit fierce," her husband said. "Frightening, a lesser man might even call it."
Simon was only trying to amuse her, she knew, but she was not in the mood.
"If you must be told, I am still furious with that preening, giggling bitch, Tylleth."
"Then you think she is a real danger?" Simon's look said he truly wanted to know. Miri felt a sudden wash of gratitude that she had found such a man, one who cared what she thought because he trusted her and loved her, not because of the crown on her head.
Could I rule with any other? I cannot imagine such a world. }

Other notable POVs that stood out among the rest were Jarnulf, Nezeru, and Passevalles, all intriguing in their own right, all with complex and mysterious backstories that I feel we’ve only touched the surface of.

William’s prose are once again a shining star in an already masterful story, but it feels as though he’s somehow mastered his craft even further since writing MST, which is no surprise, it’s been almost 37 years since The Dragonbone Chair was published!


I’m so happy that this series exists, and will be binging the rest of it before continuing anything else.
What are you waiting for? Read these books!

[Joseph · Rating 4 out of 5]

George R.R. Martin said that Tad Williams' original Memory, Sorrow and Thorn trilogy was one of the things that pushed him to start writing A Game of Thrones. At times, the Witchwood Crown feels like Tad Williams is taking inspiration from George R.R. Martin. Not to say that everybody in Osten Ard is now a foul-mouthed, brothel-frequenting hedge knight; nor are there shocking massacres. (At least not yet.) But this time around, everything in Osten Ard seems more ... complicated.

The story picks up a couple of generations after the end of To Green Angel Tower. Simon and Miriamele still rule, albeit not from the Dragonbone Chair -- King Simon refuses to sit in that thing. The intervening years seem to have been generally uneventful, but all contact has been lost with the elves (yes, I know that's not what they're called), the Norns (who were driven back to their ancient stronghold in the short interstitial novel The Heart of What Was Lost) are getting restive, and the king's grandson & heir, Morgan (his father was born, wed, had children and died entirely offscreen between the two trilogies) is a wastrel, dedicating his time & effort to drinking & wenching in company with some of his household knights (including Sir Porto, who was first introduced in The Heart of What Was Lost), much to his grandparents' (and mother's) chagrin. Then an elf messenger is found riddled with poisoned arrows and on the verge of death, and, well, things start happening.

As always with this sort of book, there's not a lot of point in trying to summarize the events, especially of the first volume -- the story shifts between a number of groups of characters whose connections to each other aren't always completely clear at first, and the wheels within wheels within wheels are just beginning to turn. And yes, the book ends on a bit of a cliffhanger (and with one shocking revelation).

(And I was also at times reminded of Star Wars: The Force Awakens, in that a fair amount of what happens was the passing of the torch to a new generation of protagonists.)

But I was very happy to return to Osten Ard and revisit old friends (Simon and Miriamele and, of course, Binabik and many others) and make new friends (Morgan and his sister Lillia, and Snenneq, Binabik's son-in-law-to-be and many others). And it was nice to see that things have gotten more complicated -- the protagonists are not without their flaws, and the antagonists are not without their virtues; and the Norns, rather than being a faceless horde, get several point-of-view characters who manage to give their viewpoint a not-entirely-unsympathetic portrayal. And I'll be very happy to read the second volume and see how all of the different threads begin to overlap and tug at each other.

[Sotiris Karaiskos · Rating 5 out of 5]

After many years, our beloved Tad Williams turns his gaze back on the magical world of Osten Ard where the particularly important trilogy Memory, Sorrow, and Thorn is played. But even there, a long time has passed, a lot of water has flowed under the bridge, our heroes have grown, have children and grandchildren, had sorrows and joys, but generally they have been peaceful for years and were expecting a quiet old age. In the end, however, things do not seem to be going so smoothly with problems emerging in many areas at a time when the great danger from the north seems to be returning to avenge the defeat. So the question immediately arises whether the younger generation is capable of succeeding with the help of the old guard.

All of this in a book expectingly by the author's value is an excellent example of high fantasy. All we need is somewhere in its pages, an interesting story that is revealed to us at the right pace, just as interesting characters with the size of the book and the great descriptions allow us to get to know them better, as well as better we learn about a few more areas of this world. But beyond that, the writer seizes the opportunity to make us reflect on the all-conquering time, the responsibility of power, and the constant wild conflict of logic with feeling. So, as you understand, we have something that I imagine will please his fans and the fans of the genre more than my clichéd comment, as I did. Patience now until the release of part two.

Μετά από πολλά χρόνια ο αγαπητός μας Tad Williams στρέφει ξανά το βλέμμα του στον μαγικό κόσμο του Osten Ard όπου διαδραματίστηκε η ιδιαίτερα σημαντική τριλογία Memory, Sorrow, and Thorn. Ακόμα και εκεί όμως έχει περάσει πολύς χρόνος, έχει κυλήσει πολύ νερό στο αυλάκι, οι ήρωές μας μεγάλωσαν, απέκτησαν παιδιά και εγγόνια, γνώρισαν λύπες και χαρές, γενικά όμως γνώρισαν ειρηνικά χρόνια και περιμένανε να έχουν ήσυχα γεράματα. Τελικά όμως τα πράγματα δεν φαίνεται να εξελίσσονται και τόσο ειρηνικά με προβλήματα να ξεφυτρώνουν σε πολλές περιοχές την ώρα που ο μεγάλος κίνδυνος από το βορρά φαίνεται να επιστρέφει για να πάρει εκδίκηση για την ήττα του. Οπότε αμέσως προκύπτει το ερώτημα αν η νεότερη γενιά είναι ικανή με τη βοήθεια της παλιάς φρουράς να τα καταφέρει.

Όλα αυτά σε ένα βιβλίο που αναμενόμενα με βάση την αξία του συγγραφέα είναι ένα άριστο δείγμα του είδους της υψηλής φαντασίας. Ότι χρειαζόμαστε είναι κάπου μέσα στις σελίδες του, μία ενδιαφέρουσα ιστορία που μας αποκαλύπτεται με το σωστό ρυθμό, εξίσου ενδιαφέροντες χαρακτήρες που το μέγεθος του βιβλίου και οι μεγάλες περιγραφές μας επιτρέπει να τους γνωρίσουμε καλύτερα, όπως και καλύτερα γνωρίζουμε λίγες ακόμα περιοχές αυτού του κόσμου. Πέρα από αυτά όμως, ο συγγραφέας αρπάζει την ευκαιρία για να μας κάνει να προβληματιστούμε για τον χρόνο τον πανδαμάτωρ, την ευθύνη της εξουσίας και την μόνιμη άγρια σύγκρουση της λογικής με το συναίσθημα. Οπότε, όπως καταλαβαίνετε, έχουμε να κάνουμε είναι κάτι που φαντάζομαι ότι θα ικανοποιήσει τους θαυμαστές του και τους οπαδούς του είδους περισσότερο από το γεμάτο κλισέ σχόλιο μου, όπως ικανοποίησε και εμένα. Υπομονή τώρα μέχρι την κυκλοφορ��α του δεύτερου μέρους.

[Nadine · Rating 4 out of 5]

Maybe a 4.5?
I don't know why Willams' books take so long for me to finish! I loved being back in this world from the Memory, Sorrow and Thorn series and seeing all the characters dear to me again. You can really see how the writing and the overall story telling improved from the original series to this book and I can't wait to get more! Full review up soon

[Johan · Rating 5 out of 5]

Re-read #2: It only gets better with each re-read. The scope is massive, and so much happens off the page that you have to guess, and worry, about. Dangerous knowledge, dangerous trusts... I despair about the outcome of the story. Love it!

Re-read: Still love it, so much going on, so much mystery, so many questions...!
Original review below.
-

The high King and Queen of Osten Ard are on a tour of their country, visiting their friends and allies in Hernystir and Rimmersgard. But not all who welcome them are friends... Suspect activities, dark rumours, and eventually an encounter with the deadly and secretive Norns call the royal entourage home early. Meanwhilst, their allies the Sithi are mysteriously silent. And that's just the beginning of the story. A story that draws on all the wonders, and all the terror, of this magical world.

The Witchwood Crown is the continuation of the trilogy Memory, Sorrow & Thorn + the short novel published earlier this year: The Heart of What Was Lost. But it isn't necessary to have read those to read this book. Whereas the old trilogy is a buildungsroman, and much of the early story is told through the eyes of the hero, this time there are multiple, equally important, storylines from the beginning. This makes sense, since many of the mysteries of the world were revealed in the original trilogy, and the author can't pretend that old readers haven't already lived through those discoveries. New readers are introduced to Osten Ard gently, and in a way that isn't tiresome to old fans.

Naturally, old characters are reintroduced in this book, though they have aged more than three decades. But there is at least an equal part of new important characters. We get to see the Norns up close and personal, and we also get more insight into the Thrithing clans.

The theme of the story has changed from the original trilogy of the kitchen boy thrown into adventure to discover his own self, into a more familial and pensive approach to the goings on. The King and Queen keep a close eye on their offspring and subjects, though admittedly the King has to be reigned in a bit by his spouse.

The secrets and mysteries that drive the plot are uncovered slowly and carefully. Not many realisations are acquired without much resistance. After all, why should we believe the world is different than what we have always known?

I love this book (and the previous ones) for the care and nourishment poured into them by the author. A well-developed world allows for a convincing story, however magical it might be. The characters are also supremely real and easy to like.

The publication of the next book, Empire of Grass, cannot come soon enough!

[Librad · Rating 5 out of 5]

I was one of the lucky people that got to read an ARC of the Witchwood Crown - and yes, it was very very lucky. And don't worry... I'll not put any spoilers in the below!!

Having read - and loved - the MST books (the earlier series set in the same world of Osten Ard), I was so happy to be able to go back into this world, as well as slightly nervous - you know the feeling of returning to a place where you have such good memories and how often it disappoints -

I was, however, not disappointed at all, the only disappointment I had was that this book wasn't twice as thick.... Within a couple of pages I was immersed in my favourite world of Osten Ard... Yes the same world, but somehow grown up, my favourite characters from the previous series were there as well, all grown up. It is funny how much it felt like a parallel; the first time I read MST I was 16, not that much older than Simon and Miriamele... now at age 40 I'm reading about them slightly older than me...

Of course we're introduced to a whole list of new characters, as well as meeting back up with old and known characters. However, what I loved most about this book is how the feeling is the same... yes the well known characters are older and some are gone or going, yes there are a lot of new characters to get to know, yes we see much more of the Norns and their world (slight spoiler there for you), but the pure feeling of the book is the same as the first series.
The story drags you in and doesn't let go, the flow is superb even though you're following several main characters' stories, and as with all of Tad's characters, you either loved them right from the start, or you slowly learn to.

I know I'm referring back to the previous series quite a lot, but (even though I would tell you to go and read those books as well) I can definitely see how this book could be read without having any previous knowledge of Osten Ard and the well-known characters. It would only be the difference between knowing another family from your birth, or getting to know them at a later age. Both will give you just as much joy.

I'm, very near spoilers now, because I only just finished this book minutes ago, so I'll leave you with the below.... but once it's all sunk in, I might come back for some more!

Finally, I would definitely recommend this book to anyone...
... whether you've been an Osten Ard lover from the first books - this book will not disappoint you, it will immerse you back into that world in a beautiful way....
... whether you are an Osten Ard newbie - read your way into a beautiful world with characters that you'll love...

[Angela · Rating 5 out of 5]

So incredible to have new Osten Ard stories to read! From the very first chapter, this return to the much-loved world of Memory, Sorrow and Thorn is just as enthralling and magical as it was 25 years ago. Reading about the beloved old characters is exactly like meeting dear friends you've been apart from for far too long: instantly comfortable, heartwarming, and exciting as you learn what they've been up to and how things have changed. Equally wonderful is the introduction of brand-new characters, who are clearly destined to be future favorites. Fans of the original MS&T trilogy will be in heaven here! And newcomers will be thrilled by this new classic series from a ground-breaking author of intelligent, entertaining high fantasy.

Tad's world-building is second to none. From the beginning, you are stepping into a living and breathing world with a multi-layered, dark history that's evident in every twist of the plot. He's also a master of writing complex, sympathetic characters who seem to live beyond the page, drawing you into their thoughts, feelings, motivations, and plans—regardless of whether those plans are "good" or "evil." One of my favorite things about this new series (and also the novella that preceded it, The Heart of What Was Lost) is getting a closer, more personal look at the characters who were on the "dark side" in the original trilogy, the Norns. Here Tad uses his talents to show us how the world appears from their point of view, adding many facets and a fascinating depth to history, events, and motivations.

The story moves along at addicting pace, spanning far-flung reaches of Osten Ard and encompassing a host of entertaining and intriguing characters of various races and backgrounds. Suffice it to say that although it's a very long book (because it's a Tad book, of course!), I found myself at the end far too soon, already impatient to find out what happens next. It's really wonderful to have the rest of this series to look forward to!

In fact, I received this book as an ARC from the publishers (probably because they could feel my anticipatory fidgets shaking the foundation of the earth from afar), and still I'm counting down to the release date so I can read it again, in its final and most glorious form. I really can't wait.

[Linda · Rating 5 out of 5]

Once again such an awesome story! The bad guys are never just bad, and really believe they are doing the right thing. The good guys are never just good, but can be a true pain in the ass.

I love how this book tells both the story of Morgan, son of King Simon, and that of several of the Norns.

I'm really sad the release date of this book has been postponed for a year.

[reread]

As it has been a long while since I read that first draft, I had forgotten most of the story (as is my wont). It's still an awesome book! And it will be out very soon now, so go and put in a pre-order!

[Al]

*casually scrolling through Goodreads*
*comes across The Witchwood Crown*

[Firs H · Rating 5 out of 5]

I received an Advance Reader Copy of the novel in January.

The Witchwood Crown is Tad Williams' magnificent return to Osten Ard. This is a novel I've been waiting for, for 24 years. I'm happy to report that The Witchwood Crown lives up to expectations.

Set 35 years after the end of To Green Angel Tower, The Witchwood Crown answers the questions avid readers have been wondering for the last two and a half decades: What happened after the end? Were Simon and Miriamele good rulers? What happened to the remaining characters? And what about Aditu's prophecy about Josua's twin children?

Many of my questions were answered (not all, though), but even more questions were introduced. I'm now anxiously awaiting the next volume, Empire of Grass...