The Witchwood Crown (The Last King of Osten Ard #1)

Decades ago, I bought a paperback copy of The Dragonbone Chair and fell in love with the story and the characters. So when I heard that Tad Williams was finally going to write a follow up to his original Memory, Sorrow, and Thorn trilogy, I was both excited and worriedexcited that I would get to revisit his world and its characters, worried that it wouldnt live up to the earlier series. Well, both the worldbuilding and the storytelling are still wonderful, even if this first book didnt quite grab me the same way The Dragonbone Chair did. Its been over 30 years since Ineluki the Storm King and the Norns were defeated. King Simon and Queen Miriamele have ruled wisely and well, but problems have started to crop up in the outlying provinces. The king of Hernystir subtly slights Simon and Miri on a state visit. The Duke of Nabban is being challenged by other lords of the Nabbani noble houses. The Thrithings men are attacking Nabbani settlers encroaching on their territory. Simon has not heard from his friend Prince Jiriki of the Sithi for years, in spite of hopes for closer ties between humans and the Fair Ones. Now, perhaps most troubling of all, there are signs that the Norns are beginning to be active again in the North. Simon and Miri also have more personal concerns. Duke Isgrimnur and other heroes of the conflict with the Norns are passing away. Prince Josua and his family disappeared years ago, and no one has been able to find out what happened to them. Membership in the League of the Scroll has been seriously depleted, with only a few members remaining to share their wisdom. Simon and Miris only son died young, and their heir is their grandson Morgan, a seventeen-year-old princeling who is more interested in gambling and drinking than in learning the intricacies of statecraft. Readers learn all of this in the opening chapters of the novel. This is a Tad Williams book, so of course theres a lot more story left to tell. What seems clear from the way he sets the stage (and from the subtitle of the book, The Last King of Osten Ard) is that there will be widespread conflict and the potential for great loss as Simon and Miri try to hold everything together. At one point, Simon muses that he and Miri are supposed to be living the happily after of their tale, but clearly thats not the case. The biggest question in my mind is whether the theme of this trilogy is the passing of an era and the establishment of a new order. What will remain of Osten Ard, and what (and who) will be lost? Although I liked the meaty plot shaping up in this book, it didnt quite have the same magic for me as The Dragonbone Chair did all those years ago. I think its because there isnt really a strong linchpin character to anchor the action as Simon did in the first trilogy. While lots of other characters (particularly Miri) played important roles, the heart of those books was Simon and his adventures, particularly as they shaped his growth from a boy innocently dreaming of being a hero to a man who knows that heroism is a myth, that it simply involves doing what needs to be done, with pain and death along the way. Simon really cant carry the action this time around, because as Miri regularly points out, hes the king, and not a young one, either. He cant just ride off to the Aldheorte forest to search for Jiriki himself; others must act in his stead. (I wonderif this trilogy is about the passing of an era, and Simon is still at the heart of the story, if not the actionis it also about the passing of a king?) The new characters who play the biggest roles in the plot of this book dont have the same appeal for me as Simon. Theres Morgan, who displays all of Simons boyhood stubbornness and sulkiness without his redeeming qualities (at least so far); Nezeru, whose half-Norn, half-human perspective is a little too foreign for me to fully sympathize with her; and Jarnulf, a mysterious Black Rimmersman who is apparently working against the Norns. I hope they will grow on me as the story continues, or other new characterslike Josuas missing son and daughtercome to the forefront later in the series. Obviously, this is a must-read for anyone who loved Memory, Sorrow, and Thorn. Even if they havent read the earlier books, readers who enjoy big epic fantasies with a huge cast and lots of plot will probably like this novel, especially since they wont have any of my reservations about the book and can just dive into the story. An eARC of this novel was provided by the publisher through NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. And then I bought it, because how could I not?

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 arent careful to learn from our past. Think World War I only leading to World War II, with a small peace in-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, cultsthe 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, its 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 doesnt mean the animosity between the factions vanishes for good. Just because one battle ends and peace is declared doesnt 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 toucheach of the three sections of the book is named after the debris of Memory, Sorrow, and Thorns 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 made possible via digital ARC provided by the publisher Penguins First to Read program.]

The language feels much more modern and Americanised in comparison to the first trilogy (too much Bobby Dollar slipping through, I suspect) and there were lots of continuity errors when it came to descriptions of items and minor actions taken by characters (two examples of many: Miriamele on one occasion moves from brushing her hair in front of a mirror to sitting on the foot of a bed, then two paragraphs later looks into the mirror in front of which shes no longer sitting. In another scene a letter is handed to Pasevalles only for him to tell the character whod given it to him to put it down somewhere else, even though he hadnt handed it back). The number of mistakes was annoying and they should have been easily caught by a set of late-stage, fresh proof-reading eyes. On a purely subjective basis, I disliked Miriamele in the last series – I found her bossy, condescending and unreasonable, and I never understood what Simon saw in her or why he put up with her behaviour towards him. Unfortunately, age hasnt smoothed out her rough edges, so for me a lot of this book was difficult to enjoy since shes a regular POV character, as is Simon with her present. Having said that, had there been more action then Im sure I wouldnt have minded her so much. I also found everyone to be overly pious, constantly uttering Thanks be and Praise God. Even Tiamak swears by Usires Aedon occasionally, not He Who Always Steps on Sand, which diluted his character disappointingly. The Storm King is described as having been sent back to hell instead of beyond the veil as in the first series. The parallels between Usires Aedon and Christ have always part of the Osten Ard world of course but the relentless references to what is essentially Christianity dont really have any place in a fantasy novel in my opinion. Is this increase in religious fervour a plot device? A change in Williams approach to his characters? Or even a change in Williams himself for that matter? Whichever it is, if any, the contrast to Memory, Sorrow and Thorn, where only Camaris was really devout, was distracting. There are some good new characters, although a lot of them seem to have quite obvious faults which make them a little formulaic and lacking in subtlety. It was an absolute pleasure to read some of the original characters again. The Norns are handrubbingly wicked and there are enough secrets and prophecies to keep readers on their toes. It improved towards the end so was worth persevering with. In fact the change in quality at around 65% leads me to wonder whether the first half of the book was written either much earlier or – more likely – much later, tagged on and padded unnecessarily to make a novel of Williams customary length. Suddenly the characters begin to act like their old selves again, the chapters get shorter and more concise, and events pick up. But overall Im very sad to say that I didnt enjoy this as much as I wanted to. Its incredibly slow and very light on action or indeed plot for a 700 page book. There are too many inconsistencies with characters, their actions and events. Ive read MS&T easily half a dozen times and every time I cant wait to get back to it. TWC was too easy to put down and too difficult to pick back up. It took nearly two weeks to read it, which is unheard of for me. But if Williams can fully re-immerse himself in the original Osten Ard (and its people) again, if he can maintain the pace he found in the last third of TWC, and if his editors/proof readers can up their game then I am hopeful it will end as another series which, although not as spectacular as the first, will at least be a worthy successor to one of my favourite (even despite Miriamele!) fantasy series of all time.

The Dragonbone Chair: Memory, Sorrow & Thorn Book 1 is a trilogy I read on publication many years ago. It\’s also a trilogy I\’ve re-read on numerous occasions in the intervening 24 years since To Green Angel Tower landed in hardback. Aside from a rather slow section around the ghant nest, the books are pretty much near perfect as far as fantasy novels go. They have been hugely influential in what has come afterwards, and let\’s not forget that a lot of what we now consider fantasy classics were written afterwards (A Song of Ice and Fire, The Malazan Book of the Fallen, Robin Hobbs entire library of fantasy, and most of the Wheel of Time). Returning to a set of much loved characters is always a challenge, especially when the sequel series is not set immediately after the original and this new series, The Last King of Ostern Ard, is set 34 years after the events of the preceding book*. A risk then but a risk Williams has carried off with aplomb. Not only do the characters \”feel\” right- they behave, speak and interact as the reader expects them to, they have aged and grown up realistically too. Simon hasn\’t been the perfect king, and other characters flaws are all too visible. It just works, and that is as great a compliment as a fan of the series can give. I genuinely feels like a proper continuation in terms of characters and continuity. *ignoring the novella The Heart of What Was Lost.

Really enjoying being back in Osten Ard after all this times – as usual the change of perspective keeps things fresh and also is frustrating because as ever you just get to a cliff hanger at the end of a chapter and then it\’s all change. That is of course the art of good storytelling. I admit I have forgotten a lot of the detail of the earlier books but it doesn\’t seem to matter too much. I will be awaiting the next instalment just as I did with each part of Memory Sorrow and Thorn as it was published all those years ago.

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