Barnes & Noble add “The Witchwood Crown” to “Best of June” list

arnes and Noble has named speculative fiction writer Tad Williams’ upcoming The Witchwood Crown one of the best Science Fiction and Fantasy novel releases for June, according to their new list for June 2017. The first volume in a long-awaited sequel series called “The Last King of Osten Ard”, The Witchwood Crown takes up the story 34 years after the end of “Memory, Sorrow, and Thorn”.

The Osten Ard novels (The Dragonbone Chair, 1988; Stone of Farewell, 1990; and To Green Angel Tower, 1993) became international bestsellers upon their release in the 1980s and 1990s, and they inspired a generation of other well-known writers, including Christopher Paolini, Patrick Rothfuss, and George R.R. Martin, who presumably named his cross-dressing character Arya (who travels with a wolf and is pursued through the forest by a man in helm shaped like a hound’s head) in homage to Williams’ cross-dressing character Marya (who is also pursued by a man in a hound’s helm while traveling through the forest with a friendly wolf).

Subsequent stories set in the world of Osten Ard include The Burning Man (1998) and The Heart of What Was Lost (2017), a bridging novel between the events of “Memory, Sorrow, and Thorn” and “The Last King of Osten Ard”.

Barnes and Noble’s summary of The Witchwood Crown reads, in part:

All those who love epic fantasy owe it to themselves to read Williams’ seminal “Memory, Sorrow, and Thorn”, the classic trilogy introduced the universe of Osten Ard, one of the most detailed, best-realized fantasy settings in the classic vein, complete with ancient evils, dark magicians, and power struggles between princes. The books inspired many of the biggest names in the genre today (including George R.R. Martin), so Williams’ epic-length return to Osten Ard—after tying off loose ends in January’s short standalone novel The Heart of What Was Lost—is one of those rare new books with an ironclad hold on our “must read” lists.

The Witchwood Crown is one of B&N’s 26 picks for the month of June. Among the other books added to their list are: Neal Stephenson and Nicole Gallard’s The Rise and Fall of D.O.D.O.; Seanan McGuire’s Down Among the Sticks and Bones; and Terry Brooks’ latest Shannara novel, The Black Elfstone.

The Witchwood Crown will be released in the U.S. on June 27, 2017. Three more Osten Ard novels will follow.