ere’s our latest video interview with legendary author and 2019 World Fantasy Convention honoree Tad Williams, author of the “Memory, Sorrow, and Thorn” novels, as well as the new “The Last King of Osten Ard” continuation series. Treacherous Paths contributor RedNathalie sat down with Tad and interviewed him about Empire of Grass, The Navigator’s Children, and his recent shoulder injury. Tad says the page count for The Navigator’s Children is at 900, with about 300 pages left to go.
Legendary Fantasy and Science Fiction author Tad Williams talks about Empire of Grass and several additional Osten Ard novels
e at Treacherous Paths are proud to bring readers another exclusive interview with storyteller Tad Williams, bestselling author of the “Memory, Sorrow, and Thorn” and “The Last King of Osten Ard” series of books. Tad’s publisher, DAW Books, has recently released Empire of Grass, volume two of “The Last King” series.
In this interview, we asked Williams about details of Empire of Grass, how his work on The Navigator’s Children is going, and asked for details about The Lady of the Woods, The Shadow of Things to Come, Brothers of the Sky, and The Veils of Heaven. The answers we received were often quite surprising!
Questions that have no spoilers for EoG:
Treacherous Paths: Tad, you’ve cited several authors (Tolkien, Zelazny, Peake, Moorcock, Baum, and many others) as well as world mythology and history as being influences on your writing. What other sources, such as film, television, or radio, have influenced the writing of your Osten Ard books?
Tad Williams: Hard to say, because so many of my written influences began early, and I only remember them all because I still have the books.
The Addams Family, New Yorker cartoons and then the television show, definitely had an effect on my lifestyle if not my writing. Get Smart as a reflection of the spy genre probably activated some of my absurdist tendencies, as did Monty Python and other English comedy later. I admired the early Universal monster movies, and I was scared to death by Godzilla when I was super-young.
Treacherous Paths: In 2017, The Witchwood Crown was nominated for a Goodreads Choice Award in the category Best Fantasy Novel, and in 2018 it was nominated for a Gemmell Award. This year, you’ll be the Writer Guest of Honor at the World Fantasy Convention in Los Angeles. Were you surprised to receive so much recognition in the States for The Witchwood Crown and your return to Osten Ard?
Tad Williams: Always surprised by ANY recognition, but it’s true that I was a bit startled to see all the kind words people showered on the original trilogy when I announced the new books. As I’ve said elsewhere, it also made me nervous about the project for the first time, because I realized if I screwed up I wouldn’t just be writing a bad book, I’d be souring people’s memory of a series they had enjoyed. Fortunately, that doesn’t seem to be the case and I finally stopped worrying about it after the second volume, Empire of Grass.
Treacherous Paths: You drop by the Tad Williams Message Board, which you founded in 2001 as part of your “Shadowmarch” project, from time to time to discuss your work with avid readers. What do you like (or dislike) about that interaction with your readers?
Tad Williams: I love any interaction with readers, but it’s sometimes difficult to discuss ongoing work because 1) the readers are usually a year or two behind what I’m actually doing, which makes me want to spill all the beans, and 2) whenever someone says anything even mildly critical, I begin weeping and cursing the heavens. So it’s best for me only to discuss things I’ve already written, because it’s too late (because they’re already published) for me to quit writing them in a huff because someone says a series I’m working on is “not as riveting” as the previous books, or that they “like his fantasy more than his science fiction” or whatever.
Treacherous Paths: You’re now writing The Navigator’s Children, the conclusion to “The Last King of Osten Ard”. How is the writing going? Do you still believe this series will be a trilogy? Long-time Tad readers are skeptical because it has never actually happened.
Tad Williams: Long-time readers better not get too snippy, because I’ve actually managed to hit my mark on all my books except Shadowmarch. Yes, the original Osten And volume three is…well, long. And Shadowmarch needed an extra book. But on the others, I’ve actually done what I said. Otherland was always a tetralogy, and the Bobby Dollar books were cites as three and finished in three. So there. Nyah, nyah, and I repeat, nyah.
Anyway, The Navigator’s Children will certainly be shorter than To Green Angel Tower, and I frankly don’t expect it to be too much longer than The Witchwood Crown. But talk is cheap, so we’ll have to check in again when it gets published.
Treacherous Paths: You’ve mentioned in several interviews a number of additional Osten Ard book projects, including The Shadow of Things to Come, and, in a Reddit interview, The Lady of the Wood. Can you tell us a little more about these two projects?
Tad Williams: I wrote The Lady of the Wood for an anthology that was to be edited by the late and very much missed Gardner Dozois, but his death meant that the story had no home. I haven’t published it yet because between the (already sold) other short novel to go with the current trilogy, I intend to write at least one other Osten-Ard-related short novel, and so I’m going to wait and discuss with my American publishers how they’d like to handle such a bundle of Osten-Ardia.
Treacherous Paths: Recently, your wife, fellow author Deborah Beale, shared with us a recording where you talk about another previously-unmentioned Osten Ard novel, called The Veils of Heaven. Can you tell us more about this project? (And will we finally discover why Initri has a beard?)
Tad Williams: The Veils of Heaven? I must have been half-asleep and dreaming when I told her, because I have no memory. The short story (Lady of the Wood) is a Camaris story. The original short-novel-that-goes-with-the-new-trilogy was going to be about the fall of Asu’a and Ineluki becoming the Storm King, but I think now I’m going to write that as a separate and slightly longer standalone book, leaving Brothers of the Sky —the tale of how Hakatri and Ineluki slew the dragon Hidohebhi and what happened because of it — as the other connected short novel.
Treacherous Paths: Any other Osten Ard books you’re considering writing? Why the change from not writing in the world for so many years, to suddenly writing, like, 20 new books? Not talking specifically about your conversation with Deborah about there not being any more story to tell, but how this evolved into you writing what seems to be three or four additional novels that aren’t part of the new series.
Tad Williams: The main thing that’s changed is that I found out I enjoy fleshing out Osten Ard. Before I was more worried about being seen to deliberately write long series, sequel after sequel. Also, I always had more ideas than time. But I realized while working on The Witchwood Crown that it felt just as exciting and engaging and genuine as writing a new story, so I thought, well, if more story ideas come, why not? And since I’ve been working in Osten Ard for like five years now, the ideas keep popping up for other tales.
Treacherous Paths: A number of fantasy authors have cited you as an influence on their works. Did you ever think, when you were writing “Memory, Sorrow, and Thorn” that you would influence the next generation of writers?
Tad Williams: I wanted to, yes. That was why there was a metafictional layer of criticism in it about the current state of epic fantasy, and a reflection on some differences between me (Tolkien lover but not, I hoped, Tolkien imitator) and a lot of other work going on at that time. But then nobody seemed to notice that part, treating it as just another (if better than some) “Tolkienesque big fantasy”. Apparently some did notice, they just didn’t write about it in reviews. So I’m pleased that in some ways it WAS influential, because I was a bit despairing at the time. To be frank, I wanted to write what Game of Thrones became — the next milestone in epic fantasy. Apparently it was closer to that than I knew, if still nowhere near as well-known as George’s epic.
Treacherous Paths: You’ve previously mentioned that when you were first writing The Dragonbone Chair, Sir Camaris was called Casimir, Simon was called Martin, Cadrach was a one-off character who you didn’t plan to continue, and the series was to be called “The Sons of Presbyter John”. What other changes or alterations did you make which avid readers might be interested to know?
Tad Williams: The problem with questions about the origins of Osten Ard is that it feels like it was another lifetime ago. I never take that many notes — you and another friend/reader have seen the only notebook I retain from back then — and so I have to rely on my memory. I remember Hernystir was originally called “Hernegyn”, that Binabik was “Bilabil”. “Elias” as a name goes back to the caption on a drawing I made when I was about fifteen — some dramatic fantasy-looking villain character called “Black Elias” — and the reason Prester John was Prester John was because the story was going to take place in “the real world” — our own world, but in some imaginary version of the past where magic worked.
Questions that have spoilers, or potential spoilers, for Empire of Grass:
Treacherous Paths: In Empire of Grass, some characters visit the ancient Sithi city of Da’ai Chikiza, allowing you as a writer to return to one of the most beloved lost cities in fiction. What surprised you the writer, if anything, about returning to this site specifically?
Tad Williams: The surprising thing is how little I actually described in the first books, and having to kind of start from scratch imagining its layout and its history. This means a great deal of freedom but also a great deal more work than if I had actually made it a bit more concrete. (In the adjectival rather than the nominative sense.)
Treacherous Paths: What was the most difficult element of writing Empire of Grass?
Tad Williams: The difficulty in any middle book of a trilogy or tetralogy is keeping it all relevant and exciting when the reader knows it’s not going to have a real beginning or a real ending. You sort of admit at the start that nothing’s going to change so much that the story will end soon, so you have to give the reader other things instead. The characters must begin changing, the mysteries deepen, and new but interesting factors must come into play. As far as EoG in particular, just having to make certain the new characters and situations are truly engaging and not merely new is probably the most difficult bit. Also giving the readers a sense of some of what will happen at the end of the whole story without spoiling it, since you want to build momentum.
Treacherous Paths: Which characters have been your favorites to write in these new books? Or does an author not allow himself favorites? Would it be like choosing a favorite child?
Tad Williams: Sometimes, yes. But in these books, my favorites really change depending on their situation. Sometimes it’s great fun writing Snenneq. Other times I’ve enjoyed the interactions between Jarnulf and Nezeru, or the backgrounding of the Norn civilization. But it’s also been fun to see my young characters from MS&T grown — middle-aged, in fact, like me — and still being the same people, only more so. Watching Miri kick ass, for instance, or Simon baffled by politics because common sense never seems to come into it. And it’s always fun to write villains, and I have a few good ones (I think) in these books.
Treacherous Paths: During the writing of The Witchwood Crown, you mentioned all the research you were doing for the novel. What topics of research have you been doing for The Navigator’s Children?
Tad Williams: These books, dating back to Dragonbone Chair, have always been research-intensive. I like to write pseudo-medieval worlds that actually feel like they existed before the story and will exist after it as well, places where most people are NOT part of the story but going about their lives, where the economies actually work and the things that are different from the “real world” fit in and make sense. So as usual I’m up to my bra-straps (okay, not really — I’m a go-natural dude) in medieval life and history, in the folklore of dozens of other cultures, in books about geology and botany and ecology, and a dozen other things. Actually, that’s the fun part. Making it into a story is work, but learning things is fun.
Treacherous Paths: In Empire of Grass, you have a Sitha character, Tanahaya, try to warn other Sithi of imminent danger, using a Witness. The communication breaks down, and the masked face of the gloating, evil Norn Akhenabi appears, mocking Tanahaya. The city is then attacked by Norns. This scene is quite reminiscent of a similar scene in Stone of Farewell, where the Sitha woman Amerasu uses the Mist Lamp, a Master Witness, to warn other Sithi of the danger of the Norns. The communication is intercepted by the evil Norn Queen Utuk’ku, who mocks Amerasu and then has her assassinated. I guess this was an intentional shout-out to the scene written 30 years earlier?
Tad Williams: Never assume with me that something is just a shout-out. Sometimes it’s a trick. Of course, in order to trick people effectively, I have to sometimes do things that are exactly what they look like. I guess you have to make your own suppositions on this. Or wait until the last volume.
Treacherous Paths: Book Three of the new series is called The Navigator’s Children. Based on that title, we’ll learn more about Ruyan Ve’s people, the Tinukeda’ya or Vao. In the previous four volumes, the Tinukeda’ya were quite literally tertiary figures: the third group of non-mortals that nobody ever talked about. What made you decide the story of the Vao was central to the story of “The Last King of Osten Ard”?
Tad Williams: A number of things, but primarily that I had hinted at the painful history between them and the Sithi and Norns in the first books, and so it was a fertile area to explore. I knew, for instance, that many of the “monsters” and other strange creatures of Osten Ard had Tinukeda’ya blood — to use the ancient word: we’d probably call it DNA — since way back in MS&T, but never discussed it. (I may have hinted in a few places, but I’d have to go back and look for specific instances.) Also, the debt owed to exploited peoples is kind of a current topic, so it seemed like useful subject matter. And it all fitted in with various things about the history of Osten Ard and the Garden that I wanted to expand.
Ree Ree, a Chikri; one of the new creatures seen in Osten Ard. Drawing by Tad Williams.
Treacherous Paths: In this volume, we see a faction of Sithi called The Pure, and a group of Vao, or part-Vao creatures, called The Hidden. We also see creatures called Pengi, Qallipuk, Chikri, etc. When you were writing “MS&T”, did you have an inkling that these groups existed, or was this something that took many years to develop in your writerly brain?
Tad Williams: As mentioned above, I knew from early on in the MS&T days that many of these creatures were related by connection to the Vao and the Garden, and that there were probably others not mentioned in the first series. The Qallipuk are new to this series, but I’ve been thinking of a river-equivalent of kilpa for a while, and when I saw some programs about Welsh catfish and the Indian goonch, I knew what I wanted to use as the basis for the new critter. But, yes, I always knew that there were creatures in Osten Ard that were more human — or at least humanoid — than they first appeared, and that the reason was a crossover of the Garden into various Osten Ard biomes (to use a science-word as a shortcut). Almost all my monsters and non-human creatures in my fiction, from the Sithi to the dragons and unicorns in Ordinary Farm, start out as me trying to figure out how such a monster or unusual animal would survive and how it would actually function in a “real” world.
The trick, of course, is to make it fit into a fantasy setting and feel like a fantasy trope, not science-fiction.
If the trick fails, then the next trick is to leave town before the readers can get online to denounce you.
[End of interview. We’d like to thank Tad and Deborah, as always, for their time.]
his month marks the conclusion to HBO’s fantasy series Game of Thrones, based on the A Song of Ice and Fire series of novels by George R. R. Martin, which themselves take many elements from Tad Williams’ classic fantasy series “Memory, Sorrow, and Thorn”. “MS&T”, written in the mid-1980s to early 1990s, tells the tale of a fantasy world beset by political intrigue, while in the frozen north, supernatural creatures plot to destroy mankind.
Martin weaves much of his own tale into A Song of Ice and Fire, but many of his story elements are closely based on Memory, Sorrow, and Thorn; particularly the Stark children and their fates.
The following contains spoilers for both series of books.
The characters of Bran Stark and Jon Snow seem to have been based on Simon Snowlock from Memory, Sorrow, and Thorn: like Bran, Simon spends many hours climbing castle walls, and later, after a devastating injury (Simon’s from being burned by dragon blood, Bran’s from being pushed from a tower), both acquire spooky, prophetic visions. Simon dreams of spinning wheels, of titanic trees, and of birds, while Bran dreams of titanic trees and birds.
“You know nothing, Simon Snow!”
Similarly, Jon Snow shares many plot elements with Simon Snowlock: his parents are dead, and he’s been raised as an orphan, but he secretly (but unwittingly) has a claim to the throne of the realm. Unknowing of his heritage, he journeys to the north to fight against the otherworldly creatures, befriending wolves, facing dragons, and bandying words with a dwarfish companion (in both series, the dwarfish companion is later put on trial and his own lover testifies against him).
Martin’s female characters, Arya and Sansa Stark, seem to have been borrowed from Marya in Memory, Sorrow, and Thorn. Marya is split into two Stark girls: the tomboyish, cross-dressing Arya, and the more regal Sansa. In MS&T, the noble girl Marya disguises herself as a boy, learns to fight with swords and bows, and begins traveling with a wolf companion. One slight difference is that Marya’s uncle’s sword, Needle, in ASOIAF becomes Arya’s sword, also named Needle.
Marya’s adventures are also clearly mirrored by those of Sansa Stark: seduced by a handsome young nobleman, she is raped, and goes from one gilded cage to another: Marya goes from being imprisoned by Count Streawe to being imprisoned by Earl Aspitis Preves. Likewise, Sansa Stark becomes the plaything of Lords Littlefinger and Bolton.
The April 28th episode of Game of Thrones yet again solidified the parallels between the two series; in the episode, Arya kills the supernatural Night King, the leader of the northern creatures, by plunging a sharp object into his chest. This perfectly mirrors MS&T, in which Marya kills the supernatural Storm King, leader of the northern creatures, by plunging a sharp object into his chest. In both series, the single blow is enough to destroy the magicks of the Storm/Night King entirely.
With just two episodes left, it is likely, just like in MS&T, that Jon Snow will take the throne, deposing Cercei Lannister; Cercei (if she follows MS&T’s Duchess Nessalanta), will take poison rather than admit defeat. The hound-helmed Hound (aka Jegger the Queen’s Huntsman) will die, but not before proving himself with one last kill.
In Memory, Sorrow, and Thorn, prophecies are tricky prospects, and this clearly influenced A Song of Ice and Fire, as described in this video:
Williams’ latest novel, Empire of Grass, was published just this week, to rave reviews. It remains to be seen, however, how much inspiration George R.R. Martin will derive from the new volume. It is clear, though, that Martin owes a great deal of debt to an earlier author.
his month marks the 30th anniversary of The Dragonbone Chair, first volume in the immensely influential “Memory, Sorrow, and Thorn” fantasy series written by Tad Williams. The first volume was published on October 25th, 1988, and it soon became a national bestseller, inspiring fantasy authors George R. R. Martin, Patrick Rothfuss, and Christopher Paolini to write their own hugely successful series, and in the process changing the landscape of fantasy fiction.
Cover of The Dragonbone Chair, the first volume of “Memory, Sorrow and Thorn”.
Writing for Barnes and Noble, Aidan Moher states, “Williams’ trilogy is quietly one of the most influential fantasies of the past 30 years, and is, in large part, responsible for the resurgence in the mainstream popularity of fantasy via HBO’s Game of Thrones, the television adaptation of Martin’s hugely popular A Song of Ice and Fire novels—after all, Martin credits Williams’ books as a primary inspiration.
“On the surface, Memory, Sorrow and Thorn sounds like a paint-by-numbers secondary world fantasy: there’s an ancient evil threatening the medieval-flavored land of Osten Ard, a boy with a mysterious past, a scrappy princess, an evil prince, a dying king, and more magic swords, dragons, elves and dwarfs than you can shake a wand at (even if they’re referred to by different names.) It never eschews these tropes—though at the time they were less tiresome, as fantasy-readers reveled in the post-Brooks/Donaldson revitalization of secondary world fantasy. Instead, Williams’ trilogy feels like a surgically-precise dissection of those tropes.”
The Dragonbone Chair was followed by sequels Stone of Farewell (1990) and To Green Angel Tower (1993), and nearly three decades later by The Heart of What Was Lost (2017), The Witchwood Crown (2017), and the forthcoming Empire of Grass, The Navigator’s Children, The Shadow of Things to Come, as well as a few stand-alone stories, each set in Williams’ world of Osten Ard. Williams will be honored as the Writer Guest of Honor at the 2019 World Fantasy Convention.
As a way of celebrating the 30th anniversary of this seminal series, artist Jessica Steinke has created a beautiful illustration from The Witchwood Crown, showing the sleeping Queen of the Sithi, Likimeya y-Briseyu no’e-Sa’onserei. (The full resolution version of the piece is available on DeviantArt).
Steinke writes, “Since I read MS&T 20 years ago for the first time, the aesthetic concept of the Sithi have been a constant factor in my art and a most rewarding motiv. So I wanted to contribute something for the 30th anniversary of Osten Ard that could be shared with all fans out there. I’m looking forward to all future Osten Ard tales and many more Sithi to sketch.”
We at Treacherous Paths are honored to showcase Steinke’s beautiful art work as the fantasy world celebrates 30 years of Williams’ Osten Ard novels.
oday, legendary Science Fiction and Fantasy writer Tad Williams, author of the “Memory, Sorrow, and Thorn” novels as well as the “Otherland”, “Shadowmarch”, and “Bobby Dollar” series, participated in an “Ask Me Anything” Reddit chat with readers. During the AMA chat, he revealed the cover of his latest novel (sixth in the Osten Ard series), Empire of Grass, which will be published in May 2019.
The new cover, as with all previous full-length Osten Ard novels, was painted by the uber-talented and award-winning Michael Whelan. The beautiful cover art features one of the elvish-like Sithi at the edge of Aldheorte Forest, surrounded by ruins of one of the lost Gardenborn cities. Behind the trees, grassland can be seen. Since the cover has been disseminated, we at Treacherous Paths can present it here.
There has, of course, been some speculation about which one of the Gardenborn settlements is depicted in Whelan’s painting. Nine great cities were named in Williams’ original Osten Ard novels: Nakkiga, Enki e-Shayosaye, Da’ai Chikiza, Kementari, Hikehikayo, Asu’a, Mezutu’a, Jhina T’senei, and Tumet’ai were named as the nine. But Nakkiga and Tumet’ai are now covered in ice, Mezutu’a and Asu’a are deep underground, and Jhina T’senei was lost under the waves. Da’ai Chikiza and parts of Asu’a were previously depicted by Whelan in earlier artwork, as was a smaller settlement, Sesu’adra.
The full cover artwork, including the wrap-around (showing the backside as well), can be found at Michael Whelan’s official site.
During the Ask Me Anything Reddit chat, Williams was asked by many long-time readers about his plans for the upcoming novels (which include Empire of Grass, The Navigator’s Children, and The Shadow of Things to Come, among other projects). The questions from readers included some spoilers for The Heart of What was Lost and The Witchwood Crown, both new Osten Ard novels published in 2017.
One reader asked, “Norn society changed a lot during this time span, with an obvious example being the mixing with mortals but several other things can probably be included. Is it fair to say that this process is due to the change of leadership from set-in-her-ways-for-millennia (ultra-conservative if I may) Utuk’ku to a little more flexible Akhenabi and maybe some others?”
Williams responded: “The long-term direction of Norn society will definitely be an important part of the third volume. Hard to say more without spoiling all the little hints smuggled into the first two volumes.”
Another reader, named Novander, writes, “I was reading Memory, Sorrow and Thorn around the time I was starting university and didn’t want my screen name to be something horribly goth and edgy anymore, so I stole your word for November in Osten Ard, which may be part of my legal name now. So my question is, you cool with that?”
(We at Treacherous Paths sincerely hope Novander’s last name isn’t Holyfield).
Another reader, a Christopher Paolini, writes: “Dude! It’s been ages! (Life has a way of throwing curveballs at us all.) I really enjoyed The Heart of What Was Lost, and I’m finally — FINALLY — starting in on the Witchwood Crown. My questions are these: Given the size of your main novels, how do you go about tackling them, both before and during the writing? As I remember, you tend to be pretty methodical in your approach. What habits have you found helpful? What’s your day-to-day process like? Also, what was it like returning to the world and characters of Memory, Sorrow, and Thorn after so long?
Williams responded, “Hi, Christopher! Yes, it’s been ages — please give my love to all your family. My day to day process is very much about preparing to write as much as writing. I like to spend a lot of time figuring out — by trying lots of thought experiments — how to move the story forward appropriately, and what kind of scenes would make good reading. I spend a lot of time lying down thinking. Some would say I am merely napping, but that’s a terrible, unfair lie. (I only spend part of that time napping.) Returning to Osten Ard has been an unexpectedly rich and satisfying experience for me, which is why I no longer say I won’t do this kind of thing. In fact, I’m planning to write more Osten Ard after this set of linked projects, although I don’t know if that will necessarily be the next thing I write.”
A fourth reader writes: “Ok, my question: are we going to see what happened to Prince Josua? I’m not expecting a happy family reunion or anything, but… He’s not just gone, is he? Also, the ending to Witchwood Crown… Holy shit. How’d you pull that judo move? I never saw it coming…”
Williams responds, “Question one: I guarantee we’ll find out quite a bit more about what happened to Josua. More than that I cannot say now. Question two: Good! Thank you! That makes me feel all warm and fuzzy inside. We writers love to deliver an honest shock every now and then, and it’s especially difficult with my readers, because they’re smart and they’ve read a lot of books, so they’re often trying to outthink me and guess what’s going to happen.”
More of Williams’ AMA thread can be found here.
Today legendary speculative fiction authors Tad Williams (“Memory, Sorrow and Thorn”), George R. R. Martin (“A Song of Ice and Fire”), Deborah Beale (The Dragons of Ordinary Farm), Nina Kiriki Hoffman (A Fistful of Sky), Peter S. Beagle (The Last Unicorn), and many others appeared at WorldCon 2018 in San Jose, California. Here are some photos of the event, some taken at the Tachyon Publications kiosk:
Deborah Beale, Nina Kiriki Hoffman, Tad Williams.
George R. R. Martin, Tad Williams. Photo credit: Deborah Beale.
Tad Williams, Peter S. Beagle. Photo credit: Deborah Beale.
he Witchwood Crown, Tad Williams’ latest Osten Ard novel, has been nominated by Goodreads, in the category “Best Fantasy novel of 2017”. Other nominees include J.K. Rowlings’ Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them, Neil Gaiman’s Norse Mythology, and Robin Hobb’s Assassin’s Fate.
Williams’ return to the world of Osten Ard after a more than twenty-year gap has been lauded by critics, with Den of Geek calling the novel “a rich world populated with characters that compliment each other,” while SFFWorld.com states the novel is “a weighty, emotional, and engrossing launch” and is “highly recommended”. Barnes and Noble calls it a “triumphant return to a beloved Fantasy world”. Even Kirkus Reviews, no fans of Williams’ previous works, calls The Witchwood Crown “stunning” and “virtually un-put-down-able… an instant fantasy classic”.
The huge volume, more than 700 pages in length, was written from 2014 to 2017. Set 34 years after the end of the last Osten Ard novel, To Green Angel Tower, The Witchwood Crown continues the story, as Simon and Miriamele now rule the land over which they successfully won a war more than three decades ago. Although they have rebuilt the kingdom of Osten Ard, their lives have been shattered by personal loss. And now the shadow of a threat moves once more, as their old enemies, the immortal Norns, stir again in the far north.
The Goodreads Choice Awards is a major book award decided by readers. Goodreads members may vote for their favorites. Voting for the first round will end on November 6th.
Here is a great report on Tad Williams’ latest book signing, held at University Book Store in Seattle.
his coming week marks the long-awaited return of bestselling author Tad Williams to his fictional world of Osten Ard. The Witchwood Crown, the first volume of the ominously-named “The Last King of Osten Ard”, will finally see release on Tuesday next week, after a year of delays and over 20 years of readers’ requests for this book.
I already have my copy, of course. It arrived in the mail just last week, courtesy of Joshua Starr over at DAW Books (thanks Josh!). It is actually the fourth version of the novel I’ve seen, for I previously read and reviewed three earlier versions of the book: an early, very rough manuscript which Tad Williams kindly sent me in May 2015; a heavily-revised manuscript from June 2016; and an Advance Reader Copy (ARC) in January 2017.
Beautiful new Osten Ard maps!
I received these early versions of the book because it was my rare privilege to be asked by Tad to be part of the team reviewing The Witchwood Crown manuscript for mistakes, a process I very much enjoyed because I absolutely loved the previous novels ever since I first read the first Osten Ard novel, The Dragonbone Chair, in November 1988. I also later helped as a consultant for the new Witchwood Crown maps. A pictorial map I drew back in 1992 served as the basis for the beautiful new maps created by mapmaker Isaac Stewart. And near the end of the process, I also worked on the Appendix in the back of the book. That itself was an adventure. I also served on the team that reviewed the shorter Osten Ard novel The Heart of What Was Lost in 2016.
I was quite honored to serve as a beta reader; I also feel I did a good job pointing out continuity errors in the manuscripts. The truth is, I had plenty of practice: for 40 years, I was an avid television-watcher, and I grew up in an era (the 1970s and 1980s) when American television writers weren’t always so careful about the continuity of their worlds.
Chuck Cunningham disappeared without Joanie or Richie ever noticing their brother was missing.
As a television viewer, it always bothered me immensely, for example, when on The Cosby Show Cliff and Claire Huxtable claimed they had five children when previously they had stated they only had four, and when oldest child Chuck Cunningham suddenly disappeared from Happy Days without his family, or anyone else, ever noticing he was gone. “Why didn’t someone on the show say something?” I wondered. “How hard would it have been to mention Chuck was away at school?” As I grew older, I realized that most television writers of that era didn’t care about continuity. But my past irritations about the limitations of fiction helped me become a better continuity-checker, I think. You won’t find any examples of Chuck Cunningham Syndrome in The Witchwood Crown, I promise.
The Witchwood Crown is large, say those who have held it, though not quite as heavy as a small child. The 721-page volume now sits proudly on my shelf, its onyx cover a stark contrast to the gleaming white covers of the earlier novels in the Osten Ard saga: The aforementioned The Dragonbone Chair, Stone of Farewell (1990), and of course To Green Angel Tower (1993), which holds the distinction of being one of the longest novels ever written.
In 2016, in the throes of writing two novels at the same time, Tad wrote:
Been a really interesting last couple of days for me, work-wise, although nobody would have known it to look at me, since I spent most of it on my back, staring into space or with my eyes closed. Thank God Deb and the kids know that I’m actually doing something when I look like that, and I am not dead so nobody has to call the EMTs.
I have about eight or nine plot/history/worldbuilding issues that I have to commit to before I finish the rewrites on the first new Osten Ard novels (one short and one long), but all eight or nine or eleven or whatever are such broad and complex and interrelated clouds of ideas that I have to focus at a much more granular level than I did earlier in the process, nailing things down in their final forms instead of “I’ll figure that out later”. I have to know how all the details actually work because these nexes or point-clouds I’m considering all affect each other and the whole rest of the story, plus the invented world history behind the whole thing.
For regular Tad readers, when I say that I have to work out the entire history of the Sithi and Norn people from back in the Garden up to the present moment of the new story — some fifteen thousand years’ worth, probably — and integrate it with not only what is going to happen in the new books (The Witchwood Crown and The Heart of What Was Lost, which will come first) but of course everything that happened in a million words of MS&T, you may understand why although I’m lying on my back, I’m also clenching my teeth.
15,000 years of history, Tad wrote. This is an interesting number, for several reasons. The Sithi and Norns, Williams’ near-immortal characters, live for thousands of years. Clues peppered throughout the text of the original Osten Ard novels indicate that the main Sithi characters, Jiriki and Aditu, are less than 500 years old: they are youngsters among the Gardenborn. And yet their great-grandmother, Queen Amerasu, was born on one of the great ships which brought the Gardenborn to Osten Ard. And Amerasu’s great-grandmother, Utuk’ku, is still alive in The Witchwood Crown.
Williams previously stated that Queen Utuk’ku Seyt-Hamakha was around 10,000 years old during The Dragonbone Chair (for those doing the math, this would make the Norn queen roughly 10,037 in The Witchwood Crown). Almost nothing is known of a time prior to Utuk’ku’s rule of the Gardenborn in Venyha Do’sae, the immortals’ lamented Lost Garden, outside of a short, strange passage in The Heart of What Was Lost, which states:
“When Hamakho was dying,” the magister said, “he drove his great sword Grayflame into the stone threshold of the Gatherer’s Temple in the very heart of the Garden. But when the time came to board the ships, no one could pull Hamakho’s blade from the threshold, so it was left behind, another sacrifice to the Unbeing that claimed our homeland. But my forefather Yaaro-Mon prised this gem from the sword’s pommel […] The carving depicts great Tzo, our beloved city on the shores of the Dreaming Sea, lost with all the rest to Unbeing when the Garden fell.”
The appendix of The Heart of What Was Lost lists Hamakho Wormslayer as the “founder of the Hamakha Clan and ancestor of Queen Utuk’ku”. It is clear that Tad Williams is not just writing a sequel to the original Osten Ard books, he is carefully examining the roots of the Gardenborn, and expanding his mythology. It is possible that by the end of the new series, the mythopoeia of Osten Ard will cover the 15,000 years Williams mentions.
He also writes:
And of course, as everybody knew was going to happen, I’m already troubling those few, kind, long-time readers who are giving me feedback on the early drafts, because nobody is going to agree with me on every explanation of something that already existed, or new developments for my old Osten Ardians. These are characters that have been in people’s heads for thirty years in some cases, so anything unexpected is going to feel like a violation.
As one of those draft-readers, it is gratifying to see the changes Tad made to The Witchwood Crown (and The Heart of What Was Lost) based on our feedback: storylines revamped, lands renamed, bird species revised, characters renamed, and histories re-examined. Williams is an author who truly cares about preserving his old mythology while still expanding his world. He says:
[E]ven if one comes up with solutions everyone likes in these situations, there’s always the struggle to not let the cracks show. I remember reading the follow-ups to Dan Simmons’ Hyperion and (maybe because I’m another writer) feeling pretty certain that I could see places in the later volumes where he was trying to explain discrepancies between what he was doing now and what he’d done earlier; in fact, I felt pretty sure he was trying to retcon a lot of stuff that he hadn’t expected to ever touch again. (“Retcon” means retroactive continuity — it’s when you explain something later in a way that might not have been anybody’s original intention. A good example of this is how they keep trying to come up with believable reasons why nobody recognizes Superman when he puts on a pair of glasses and calls himself Clark Kent.)
Anyway, the What in this case (trying to retcon my own work in a believable way) is not as interesting to me right now as the How, because I’ve found that the only way to work with all these issues at speed (since I can’t get on with the rest of my work without solving them) is simply to grind away at it. That means clearing my mind as much as that cluttered mess can be cleared, then pursuing all different configurations and possibilities through as many ramifications as possible, examining them, reworking them, refitting with different combinations and emphases, all in detail. Then trying another set of possibilities, and another, and so on, over and over, through each nexus-point where plot and history come together. And doing that is very much like trying to meditate, at least for me. Trying to make a clear space. Trying to follow a single idea (however ramified) through until I’ve exhausted its possibilities, without being distracted.
So Tad Williams is aware of the damage an author can cause by expanding a mythos in writing sequels; while he mentions Dan Simmons, perhaps the most obvious example of sequels causing damage to a beloved world is George Lucas’ ill-advised Star Wars prequel abominations, which introduced Midi-chlorians and talking rabbits into a once-beloved franchise. But it is my opinion, after reading four different versions of The Witchwood Crown, two versions of The Heart of What Was Lost, and having read the previous Osten Ard novels The Dragonbone Chair, Stone of Farewell, To Green Angel Tower, and The Burning Man countless times, that Tad Williams has been successful in expanding Osten Ard without damaging the existing mythos, in a way that George Lucas wasn’t able to do with his own sequels.
After 24 years of readers’ expectations, Williams had a Sisyphean challenge in front of him: how could he write for new readers, while still trying to please existing readers who had spent over two decades wondering what had happened to the characters at the end of the story? Not everyone will be pleased by the answers the author provides, some of which may prove very unpopular, but at least there are no flat-out contradictions, such as George Lucas’ strange decision in Revenge of the Sith to kill off Padme just after Leia’s birth when previously Leia said she could remember her mother.
Ultimately, I believe The Witchwood Crown will please most readers. I’m certainly pleased by the result, and I’m already looking forward to reading the next volume, Empire of Grass.
ritish book reviewer Bridie Roman reviewed Tad Williams’ latest Osten Ard novel, The Witchwood Crown, in SFX magazine this week, praising both the plot and the characters of the new series. Roman writes that the novel, sixth in the Osten Ard saga, has “a compelling plot filled with characters you genuinely care for.”
The Witchwood Crown, which will be released on June 27th, is Williams’ triumphant return to the world of Osten Ard, after a 23-year absence; it will be the first volume of a three-book series called “The Last King of Osten Ard”. The novel takes place 33 years after the conclusion of Williams’ New York Times bestselling novel To Green Angel Tower. Williams says he avoided writing further novels in Osten Ard because after 3,000 pages, he felt there were no more stories to tell in that world:
I said for years that I wouldn’t write a sequel to anything or even re-visit a world unless I had a story first, a story that cried out to be written. And for years Osten Ard was in that category, although I had thought a bit about the [Chronicle in Stone] project. Then, when I sat down one time to list off for Deborah (my wife and business partner) all the reasons I had no more stories about Simon and Miriamele and Binabik and the rest, I realized that I had left most of the main characters still very much in the bloom of their youth, and that after decades of life and growing responsibility—which I had undergone myself since I wrote it—they must all look at the world very differently. That set me to thinking, and within one night the first rudiments of the story for “The Last King of Osten Ard” (the title for the whole series) had begun to take real shape. So every moment I was aging, and moving from one country to another, and becoming a parent, and so on, I was actually creating a plot for new Osten Ard books without realizing it.
Bridie Roman states in the review of The Witchwood Crown that Tad Williams “has a fantastic way of writing characters so that they are both utterly vexing and entirely enjoyable at the same time.” Roman specifically singles out the new half-Norn character, Nezeru, as one of the stand-out new characters, calling the half-blood warrior the embodiment of “the flawed character archetype of which Williams was very much a genre pioneer.” SFX gives The Witchwood Crown 4/5 stars.
The Witchwood Crown will be followed by Empire of Grass and The Navigator’s Children, along with a standalone novel, also set in Osten Ard but chronicling a period 500 years earlier, tentatively called The Shadow of Things to Come. This will bring the number of Osten Ard books to nine (previous books in the saga included The Dragonbone Chair, Stone of Farewell, To Green Angel Tower, The Burning Man novella, and The Heart of What Was Lost). When complete, the Osten Ard saga is likely to surpass 6,000 pages and 2,000,000 words.