Fantasy Book Club Series discussion

Have you finished reading Shadowrise by Tad Williams, book 3 in the Shadowmarch series? What did you think?

Spoilers OK here!

Well, you can tell this is the second-last book because finally things are coming together, setting up the climax! Most of the main characters are heading to the same place and I don’t doubt that the others will join them.

Little hints from previous books are starting to bear fruit. The Qar blood in Olin, Barrick, and likely Qinnitan links them in interesting ways, and perhaps Briony as well. It must act differently in males than females. And the importance of the Mysteries/Shining Man deep in the Funderlings’ temple.

Does anyone else read the epigraphs at the beginning of each chapter? It’s been interesting to compare the Xandian and Eionian versions of the tales of the gods, and then compare those to the Qar version.

I am (finally) warming up to Barrick, although the “gifts” of the Sleepers have changed him. He is stronger in both body and spirit but colder as well—more removed from his emotions (not necessarily a bad thing in his case since self-pity was a dominant emotion for him).

And Sulepis continues to simply be appalling, as are his agents Vo and Ananka.

What I liked:
-understanding more of the story of the gods and how that impacts the current plots/subplots
-vivid descriptions; engaging characters—not just the main ones, but the secondary ones as well
-the multi-layered plot and the blurring of the lines between “good guys” and “bad guys” as we learn that almost everyone is just trying to survive (Exception—Autarch Sulepis!)

What I didn’t like:
-some of the inevitable journeying was a bit too endless—Briony with the players, Barrick with the crow, Olin with the Autarch and Vash
-related to that issue, the snail’s pace of much of the book. That is typical of this author, not just in this series, and while so much detail makes for a fully realized world and characters, it also makes for long books that occasionally get bogged down in the details. Still, I read this book in half the time I read book 2, so that’s an improvement in pacing, I guess.
-subplots that feel superfluous: Matt Tinwright and Lady Elan, Sister Utta and Lady Merolanna

I am hoping for a truly satisfying conclusion in the next book!

I'll agree that this series' pace can be slow.

I have finished the series.