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Publisher: Orbit (Time Warner UK) |
Release
Date: November 4, 2004 |
ISBN:1841492884 |
Awards:
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Format
Reviewed: Hardcover |
Buy
it at Amazon |
Read
an Excerpt |
Genre:
Fantasy |
Reviewed:
2004 |
Reviewer: Rachel A Hyde |
Reviewer
Notes: |
Copyright
MyShelf.com |
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Shadowmarch
By Tad Williams
For
fantasy devotees everywhere Tad Williams needs no introduction.
He has enchanted readers with his fantasy and SF and following his
powerful excursion into fairyland, The War of the Flowers, (also
reviewed on this site) he is back with a tubby epic fantasy. Southmarch
Castle is the home of the Eddons, the rulers of an independent kingdom
ringed around by plotting nations. But here also is the dread Shadowline,
which divides the lands of humans from those of the Qul-na-Qar,
the fairy folk who were driven back centuries before. With their
father King Olin being held hostage, twins Prince Barrick and Princess
Briony have to try and keep the realm together, but now the line
is moving, and strange beings are riding abroad. Soon they will
be under siege, not only from the Qul-na-Qar, but from powerful
rulers of other countries, none of whom are at all benign.
This is a big book in fantasy tradition, but does
it contain a big story? Not as big as the canvas it is painted on,
but there are many elements in here to praise. The character of
Briony, for one, fiercely feminist in a very male-dominated world,
but kind hearted and doing her best to rule. Also, the wonderfully
eerie and unknowable Qar, totally inhuman and demonic, therefore
are excellent villains. Williams has a talent for world building
and once again it shows, with his meticulous descriptions of the
Arabian Nights world of Xand, the medieval Shadowmarch and the underground
world of the Funderlings as well as others, barely glimpsed. At
times, the pace is rather slower than in his previous novels, and
sometimes a shade repetitive, but as the story creeps along this
does add to the feeling of realism that all of Williams' work has.
Like Robert Jordan and a few others the minutiae of daily life is
recorded in his books, making his fantasy worlds come alive in a
way that moving from one adventure to the next can never do. I will
be interested to see what happens in Volume Two.
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