Tuesday, April 29, 2008

Tad Williams' Memory, Sorrow and Tetralogy, Part 1

The Dragonbone Chair ~ Tad Williams
Genre: Fantasy
5.5/10

I picked this book up last year after having it recommended to me repeatedly, and as a result had high expectations (that and I loved Tad Williams' Otherland Tetralogy). Unfortunately, these were to some extent not achieved. While Williams' prose is well-paced and fluent, and his style of writing altogether pleasing, the content itself of the book was somewhat...unoriginal. I used to be a huge fan of the entire formulaic fantasy style (David Eddings being exemplary in this); scullion boy moans about how unimportant he is. Scullion boy is apprenticed to magician, but still retains no hopes as to an interesting future. Boy is then drawn into a world of magic and intrigue, in which he finds out that he's basically the only person who can save the world. Boy meets random girl/girl dressed as boy, and falls in love with said girl. Girl turns out to be princess. Boy is depressed as he believes he's not good enough for girl. Boy gets with girl. Boy saves world.

Of course, cynicism aside, The Dragonbone Chair was a good read, and I did throw myself whole-heartedly into it as a form of nostalgia. It's set in a fantasy world (unsurprisingly), ruled over predominantly by humans, but with other races all scattered about (and generally treated nastily by humans). There are the trolls, who live in the far northern mountains and bear some resemblance to dwarves (short, like mountains, ride rams etc), the Sithi (a race that preceded the humans, heavy on the magic, part animal, very cat-like, very mysterious and misanthropic etc) and, of course, dragons. The tale follows the path of Seoman (re-named Simon for convenience by kind people who adopt him), a scullion boy who was left at the castle in mysterious circumstances, with little or nothing known about his heritage. Of course it's simply obligatory that he becomes apprenticed to a magician (who turns out to be a member of a secret order), saves a prince from his brother (who becomes an evil king), and goes on to battle the minions of Ineluki, the feared Storm King. While this it inself is not particularly novel, and the whole idea of a scullion boy who sets out on his own (and is later befriended by a troll, Binabik) isn't really new either, Williams is still able to draw the reader in (let's face it, it's generally a formula that works) , and hold them there.

The trials that Simon goes through are often rather harrowing, and I caught myself smiling more than once at some jest or cute scene (and then glanced around to make sure no one had seen my idiotic grin), so overall Williams I think did pretty well, considering that he was writing on nothing new. Whilst not the best book of its kind, and astoundingly predictable at times, it's still worth a perusal if you have the time on your hands and are really into that sort of thing. Otherwise, I wouldn't go out of your way for it.

Anonymous I

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