The Witchwood Crown – guest review by a friend …
was fortunate enough to acquire an uncorrected proof and would like to share my review below.
The High King and Queen of Osten Ard are on a tour of their country, visiting their friends and allies in Hernystir and Rimmersgard. But not all who welcome them are friends… Suspect activities, dark rumours, and eventually an encounter with the deadly and secretive Norns call the royal entourage home early. Meanwhilst, their allies the Sithi are mysteriously silent. And that’s just the beginning of the story. A story that draws on all the wonders, and all the terror, of this magical world.
The Witchwood Crown is the continuation of the trilogy “Memory, Sorrow, and Thorn” and the short novel published earlier this year: The Heart of What Was Lost. But it isn’t necessary to have read those to read this book. Whereas the old trilogy is a buildungsroman, and much of the early story is told through the eyes of the hero, this time there are multiple, equally important, storylines from the beginning. This makes sense, since many of the mysteries of the world were revealed in the original trilogy, and the author can’t pretend that old readers haven’t already lived through those discoveries. New readers are introduced to Osten Ard gently, and in a way that isn’t tiresome to old fans.
Naturally, old characters are reintroduced in this book, though they have aged more than three decades. But there is at least an equal part of new important characters. We get to see the Norns up close and personal, and we also get more insight into the Thrithing clans.
The theme of the story has changed from the original trilogy of the kitchen boy thrown into adventure to discover his own self, into a more familial and pensive approach to the goings on. The King and Queen keep a close eye on their offspring and subjects, though admittedly the King has to be reigned in a bit by his spouse.
The secrets and mysteries that drive the plot are uncovered slowly and carefully. Not many realisations are acquired without much resistance. After all, why should we believe the world is different than what we have always known?
I love this book (and the previous ones) for the care and nourishment poured into them by the author. A well-developed world allows for a convincing story, however magical it might be. The characters are also supremely real and easy to like.
The publication of the next book, Empire of Grass, cannot come soon enough!
©by Kenan, fellow regular @ http://www.tadwilliams.com/forum
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.
The Witchwood Crown – Teaser Quote I
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Tad Williams Q&A: Writing That Long-Expected (by Everyone but Me) Sequel
n TadWilliams.com there is a new Question and Answer session regarding the author’s long-awaited return to the world of Osten Ard.
Williams, the author of more than twenty science fiction and fantasy novels, will be returning to his beloved realm of Osten Ard at the end of June, with the release of The Witchwood Crown, the first volume of a new series of books called “The Last King of Osten Ard”. The novel takes up the story more than 30 years after the characters were last seen in the classic Osten Ard novels.
Tad was asked about how he felt returning to his old world and the old characters; in the Q&A session, he says he had forgotten “how much effort and thought [he] had put into Osten Ard in the first place, so many years ago. Layers upon layers.” (Those layers are no surprise to longtime readers, who have compared the Osten Ard novels to the layers of an onion: peeling one layer reveals another).
He also reveals why it took him so many years to return to the world:
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.
So Williams’ aging has helped inspire the new books.
We at Treacherous Paths were honored to be mentioned in the Q&A session, the full version of which can be read here. The Witchwood Crown will be released on June 27, 2017. It is available for pre-order on Barnes and Noble, Amazon, and other booksellers.
TOR.com publishes excerpt of Tad Williams’ “The Witchwood Crown”
nline Science Fiction magazine TOR.com today published an excerpt from The Witchwood Crown, Tad Williams’ upcoming new Osten Ard novel.
The 4000-word excerpt, found here, is told from the point of view of Jarnulf, a new character described as a pious Rimmersman travelling in the far north of Osten Ard. Jarnulf encounters one of the Hunë, an ice giant, a race that fought for the Norns in Memory, Sorrow and Thorn.
This is the second released excerpt from The Witchwood Crown; the first, from the Foreword, and describing a scene with Tanahaya, one of the Zida’ya, was released via video format in September 2015 on Read For Pixels, and is available on YouTube:
A glorious return to Osten Ard
do not start this review the usual way with the book but with myself. I was one of the first human beings in the whole wide world who knew that Tad would return to Osten Ard. The thought that there would be more stories in my favourite parallel universe overwhelmed and excited me in a fashion I never thought news about fiction could.
Later I was one of the first readers of The Witchwood Crown, giving comprehensive feedback on each new version. Now I write a review on the ARC I got from the publishers. I still feel like in a dream – this is surreal.
All this shall make transparent where I come from. Expect a eulogy.
So. The long awaited and highly anticipated sequel to Memory, Sorrow and Thorn. News from the vast world I keep going back to for 25 years now because I love it so much. It features a mind-swirling amount of characters: old and new, awesome and annoying, funny and frightening. And multiple places: familiar yet changed like the Hayholt. Others described in much more detail like Nabban. Those that never before had featured like Elvritshalla. And of course Nakkiga where the old enemy stirs again.
Tad masterfully manages to revive the old heroes although it took me a few chapters to feel close to them again. Simon and Miriamele, Eolair and Tiamak after all are not the same people I know – 33 years of story time have passed since I last met them.
A reunion scene brought tears of joy to my eyes, and from that moment on I was emotionally engaged with The Witchwood Crown as I am with Memory, Sorrow and Thorn.
The multiple plots burble along like mountain spring creeks: there are trade wars, unrest in the west, fights for power and territory in the South, the occasional bloody fight – all the stuff expected from a civilisation on the brink of enlightenment and it is a joy to see it unfold in Osten Ard. Plus fearsome monsters and fairies, demons and a hilarious troll. All this is wonderful to behold while the real mysteries are slowly growing in a few passing paragraphs and the occasional subclause. A beautifully composed set-up for a great story. I would have been perfectly happy with that book and would have praised Tad über den grünen Klee for it. And I did not notice that it did not truly accelerated my heart rate for page after fast turned page… until it did.
The last 200+ had me reading until dawn. Tad shifts gears and… major stuff starts happening. The thing is hitting the other thing. Like big time.
This showdown had me respectively gasping in surprise, shouting: Finally!, laughing with joy, holding my breath for two pages straight, slapping my head, shedding more tears and smiling woefully at the very end. An incredible rollercoaster ride that made me crave for more the moment I turned the very last page. I’ve said it elsewhere and I say it again: I have not read a final act that exciting and surprising since George R.R. Martin’s A Storm of Swords.
And I mean that literally.
A lot has been said about the similarities between MS&T and GRRM’s A Song of Ice and Fire. Martin himself names the former a major inspiration for his own epic.
While he was writing TWC in 2014 I talked to Tad about stories and tropes influencing each other in general and these two in particular and he said he “would like to keep the conversation going.” And darn, he fricking did. Iconic scenes from A Song of Ice and Fire are mirrored in The Witchwood Crown and I yayed every single one of them. This seesaw between two masters of story telling is an additional treat in this awesome book.
I am so much looking forward to reading the final version of The Witchwood Crown come June 27th. At last it will be a beautiful proper hardcover book with a shiny envelope. We’re all in for such a treat!
Tad Williams discusses New! Osten Ard! Novels! (Part 2)
ere is Part 2 of our video interview with legendary fantasy and science fiction author Tad Williams, author of the now-classic “Memory, Sorrow, and Thorn” series; the questions from the interview were submitted by readers from TadWilliams.com and Westeros.org forums.
In this interview, Tad Williams discusses his new Osten Ard novel project, including his thoughts on Tolkien, whether or not new areas of Osten Ard (such as Nascadu and Khandia) will be seen, as well as whether or not he regrets killing off characters (and if he’s ever tempted to resurrect some of them). He also discusses the problem of the Norns, and how challenging it is to write sympathetic characters who do monstrous things.
Williams also discusses both Binabik and Duke Isgrimnur, two beloved characters from the original series, as well as a 45-foot crocodile in the swamps of the Wran. The Witchwood Crown, the latest Osten Ard novel, will be released on June 27, 2017.
New video trailer for Tad Williams’ “The Witchwood Crown”
enguin Books has just released a new video trailer for Tad Williams’ The Witchwood Crown, the fifth volume in his international bestselling Osten Ard saga. Over epic music, the camera pans over legendary artist Michael Whelan’s illustrations of the Great Swords of Osten Ard: Memory, Sorrow, and Thorn.
The Unwrapping of Smarch Gifts
ad Williams – or as we, his friends on his message board call him: The Dogly One – turned 60 last week. Reason enough for us to send him some presents as he has gifted us with his stories for so long. We plotted for months on a hidden part of the message board and also brought Tad’s wife Deborah Beale in to the conspiracy. She took the following pics of the unwrapping:
Happy to have prezzies …
Yes exactly, this is the main one.
Don’t hurt yourself!
What might this be?
Too bad this is so blurry. It says Norn Porn in beautiful black rhinestones, made by cyan who planned this for ages and ages …
Hmm.
This utterly beautiful witchwood knife was made by Sojourn.
Yes, you might keep the bubble wrap as well.
Frankie is definetly mad but does he deserve this?
This is my favourite. Tad fondly looking at the festschrift we all made for him. A book with stories, art and pics of the many Smarchmoots in the last 15 years …
Cover art by Kia.
No, there won’t be pics of every page.
HAPPY BIRTHDAY DOGLY ONE!