A review by ianbanks
The Dragonbone Chair by Tad Williams

5.0

I've become astonished at the number of people who complain that a 900-page novel, the first in a 2500-page trilogy, takes so long to get started. The verb I often use is "stately." The current vogue for stories that begin in media res is to blame for this,as well as the way that publishers have become conditioned to think that we need constant action and adventure to satisfy us.

However, Mr Williams spends roughly 200 pages setting things up for us: we learn about the background to the story, we learn who the major players are, we are given clues that a bigger threat is lurking just over the next page, we are given an absolute bloody ton of information then, as the pet shop owner said to John Cleese, "Voom."

Voom?

VOOM! It lets rip and doesn't stop for the next 700-or-so pages. (I'll amend that to include the two other volumes of the trilogy as well: there's very little let-up) There's intrigue, adventure, burgeoning romance, magic, swordplay, cats, wolves, portents, comets, ancient books, poems, songs... everything.

It takes everything that's great about 80's fantasy - heroes with humble beginnings, dark lords, evil minions, elves, magic, Arthurian echoes - and turns it up to 11, but also adjusts the bass and treble so that it is actually really good. Simon is one of the best characters in all of fantasy fiction: he spends a large amount of time completely bewildered by what's happening, he doesn't appear to have any skills that will amount to anything, he's awkward, clumsy - just what a real teenager would be. He doesn't come to us fully formed like Athena out of Zeus' forehead because, like us, he learns what the rules of life in his world are as he is thrust into it. He makes friends because he trusts people. He tries hard to do the right thing. He's not always right and he gets angry and upset at things when they don't go the way he wants them to. He feels like a real human being, as do all the other characters in here.

Which is what I love about it: the sense that there is a history between so many people living in these pages. I love the banter between Isgrimnir and Josua; the teacher/ student vibe between Morgenes and Simon; the stuttering friendship between Simon and Miriamele; the frustration that Rachel feels when she just can't get good help; the sense that Binbik, Jarnauga and Geloe are the most badass bookworms you've ever met, even through the very little they do to prove it. These feel like people you know.

And the kingdom of Osten Ard feels fully formed as well. I'm not a fan of excessive worldbuilding, preferring a backdrop for my characters rather than a setting that takes precedence to any story that the author tells, but what Mr Williams gives us is a constant running dripfeed of information: the songs about Mundwode Jack (a Robin Hood figure), Binibik's troll myths, the Sithi poems, the histories that Morgenes, Tiamak and Strangyeard quote from, all add to and create extra dimensions to the story without feeling too much like exposition. The cultures they inhabit, too, echo (as in most fantasy) our own world, with enough hooks to make us think, "OK, they're like ..." but not enough to make us feel that we're getting stereotypes and caricatures.

Seriously, this is a great, epic, huge and fun book. Bear with it, because even though "nothing much happens," it's the most fun you'll have watching characters do nothing but set up plots ever.