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House of Rougeaux

Jenny Jaeckel

7.0 (1 Ratings) Rate It

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(via Goodreads) For Abeje and her brother Adunbi, home is the slave quarters of a Caribbean sugar...

The Handmaid’s Tale: The Graphic Novel

Margaret Atwood and Renée Nault

7.8 (17 Ratings) Rate It

Book

Provocative, startling, prophetic, and more relevant than ever, The Handmaid's Tale has become a...

Feminism

Ross (3284 KP) rated The Witchwood Crown in Books

May 1, 2019

The Witchwood Crown

Tad Williams | 2017 | Fiction & Poetry, Science Fiction/Fantasy

7.0

(3 Ratings)

Book Rating

700 pages that feel like so much more

I haven't read the preceding series but had researched and general consensus was that it was not mandatory. This was my first experience of Tad Williams. And indeed, I did not feel I was missing out on any information - there is enough discussion of past events to make me want to read that series, but it is done in such a way as to give the new reader enough insight.
As with so much epic fantasy, this book covers a large world, with numerous PoV characters, different cultures, creatures and races. In this regard, Williams has shown himself to be a true master - he really has built a new world that feels so well embedded and thought-through.
The plot, however, was quite well hidden in the book. The High King and Queen seem to uncover possible rumours of evil sorcery within the kingdom and there is a hint of the evil Norn rising up again. But that is such a small part of the book, so much of it is simply chatting, moaning about things, going ice skating and hill-climbing and healing people from injury/poison. With such a time commitment from readers there is a need to make every chapter count, and I felt at times the reader was being somewhat let down with needless scenes and interactions.
The battle scenes were rare exceptions, being exciting and well narrated.
I felt one major part of the book was going to be the coming-of-age and maturity of Prince Morgan, the heir to the high throne. However at the end of the book he is still an obnoxious, alcoholic arse.
This book had to be either a bridge between the old and the new series, or the start of the new one, and somehow it manages to be neither. I don't feel enough of what is surely to follow has been set up, but likewise I don't feel I know enough of what happened before and how it will influence what comes later.
A large commitment that has yet to pay off.