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A review by ketreads
Stone of Farewell by Tad Williams
adventurous
dark
emotional
mysterious
slow-paced
3.5
Another great entry to the Memory, Sorrow, and Thorn trilogy by Tad Williams.
While this book does suffer from the "middle book" syndrome, it still manages to be a masterwork in high fantasy and the interwoven stories speckled throughout William's world.
Stone of Farewell starts immediately where book 1 finished. Giving us the immediate continuation of characters stories who we've come to know and love. Every character decision, whether big of small, feels like it has lasting impact. This gives us such a rich yet indecisiverable journey to these characters tales. We watch characters we've followed from book 1 split off into their own adventures, while also interweaving new PoVs to give the world even further depth. The decision to add certain character PoVs was a fantastic one! Especially as I always love seeing PoVs from morally dubious characters.
The story itself, as I said previously, does suffer a bit from middle book-fatigue. The world William's has created needs so much fleshing out with minor and seemingly inconsequential details. By the end of book 2, we don't feel as though the narrative has advanced as much as I would have liked. But I'm almost certain that this is a choice William's made to tell the story we will get to see culminate in book 3.
Until then, I shall still say I enjoyed this book a lot, regardless!
While this book does suffer from the "middle book" syndrome, it still manages to be a masterwork in high fantasy and the interwoven stories speckled throughout William's world.
Stone of Farewell starts immediately where book 1 finished. Giving us the immediate continuation of characters stories who we've come to know and love. Every character decision, whether big of small, feels like it has lasting impact. This gives us such a rich yet indecisiverable journey to these characters tales. We watch characters we've followed from book 1 split off into their own adventures, while also interweaving new PoVs to give the world even further depth. The decision to add certain character PoVs was a fantastic one! Especially as I always love seeing PoVs from morally dubious characters.
The story itself, as I said previously, does suffer a bit from middle book-fatigue. The world William's has created needs so much fleshing out with minor and seemingly inconsequential details. By the end of book 2, we don't feel as though the narrative has advanced as much as I would have liked. But I'm almost certain that this is a choice William's made to tell the story we will get to see culminate in book 3.
Until then, I shall still say I enjoyed this book a lot, regardless!