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Shadowrise (2010)

by Tad Williams(Favorite Author)

3.97 of 5 Votes: 3

ISBN

0756405491 (ISBN13: 9780756405496)

languge

English

genre

Fantasy

publisher

DAW

series

Shadowmarch

review 1: Overall, book 3 was the best so far. Williams kept the action going from chapter to chapter, and the plot almost never slowed down. This was the first in the series that kept me anxious about the characters and excited to jump to the next chapter. Halfway through I began to feel sorry for all those readers who quit in book 1 - because book 1 began dreadfully slow and was a struggle to finish. I stuck with it but many people didn't - to their loss. The story does pick up considerably in book 2 and is just awesome by the time book 3 finishes. Some have criticized that there are way too many characters in this series, and that none of them are fully explored. Others say most are cardboard cut outs. I disagree. Even minor characters like Pinimmon Vash and Skurn are fun to read... more about.Most intriguing was Williams' indirect commentary on world religions. In the world of this series, each race worships their own gods and goddesses. Each has their own temples to worship these gods and goddesses, and their own customs, histories, religious rights, etc. Many fantasy novels contain such world-building. In this series, however, each race essentially worships the same gods, just by different names. I don't know how religious Williams is, but is he implying that all religions on Earth are really all worshiping the same God? Christianity, Islam, etc.? Very interesting. What a clever plot to have the gods banished and awaiting their revenge on humanity. What Worked:- Skurn the talking raven. Why? Because he's the most enjoyable character in the book. Williams' description of this mangy, disgustingly brilliant bird in chapter 6 is first-class storytelling: "The big dark bird ate constantly, head bobbing up and down over some horror or other with the infuriating regularity a waterwheel in a strong current. And Skurn ate anything and everything - bugs out of the air, droppings of other birds off the trees, slugs, and snails and anything else too slow to avoid his horny black beak. Nor was he a tidy eater: his breast was always covered with a drying crust of whatever he'd eaten last, often with some bits faintly twitching. And his other habits were even more dreadful. Skurn was not careful about where he defecated at the best of times, but when he was startled he gave up all discretion: wayward droppings might splash on Barrick's shoulder or even into his hair. 'But us doesn't shit on you a-purpose,' Skurn pointed out after one such accident when he was startled by a falling branch."- Makewell's Men. This troupe of players was always enjoyable to read about. Nevin Hewney's jokes were hilarious, with several laugh out loud moments. Like in chapter 33 when they're almost caught by the Syannese guards. His ability to make up complete B.S. was hilarious:"Please sir, please!" said Finn. "This is my wife. We are taking her to the oracle's well to ask for a safe birth. None of our other children survived...""Yes," said Hewney from behind him. "My brother-in-law has suffered terribly. There is something wrong with his wife, the poor, corrupted woman - we think she is diseased. The last birth, a noxious black discharge came out of her with a stink like rotting fish..."Despite her fear, Briony almost laughed as the guard backed hurriedly out of the wagon."- Sulepis of Xis. Finally this guy does something interesting and attacks Hierosol and then kidnaps Olin. I was bored to tears with the autarch in books 1 and 2. I noticed that book 4 begins with a preface recapping Sulepis' rise to power. Wish this would have been included in earlier books. He's only now getting interesting.- Qinnitan. Daikonas Vo was a jerk. I hope he's truly dead from the poison she gave him.- Ferras Vansen is the hero of the book, IMO. He was loyal to Barrick all through the Shadowlands, then comes back and is now fighting to protect Funderling Town from the Qar invasion.What Didn't Work:- Most unnecessary character and plot line in book 3: Poet Matty Tinwright and his drama with Elan McCory. Matty was one of my favorite characters in the previous books, but here was boring. Even his work for Avin Brone wasn't that interesting, and just seemed to bloat the book. Is Avin Brone even relevant to the story anymore?- Rarely any scenes with Hendon Tolly. Seriously, we only know he's a really bad guy because in the 1 or 2 scenes he has in the book the author tells us he's bad. Or other characters tell us he's evil. Or he tells us himself. But we never see Hendon do anything. I was surprised to see him fighting the Qar along with his own soldiers. He's far too under-used in the story.- Most annoying characters: Merolanna and Sister Utta. This whole arc should have been cut.- While I like Briony's character, her time in Syan was boring. I couldn't wait to finish those chapters and get back to other characters. The betrayal by Ananka would have been better if we'd seen this from Ananka's POV. Instead, Ananka was a cardboard cut-out with no personality. So this betrayal didn't impact me much. Fieval's betrayal, on the the other hand, was cold and cruel. Hopefully he redeems himself in book 4.- Run-on sentences. Williams has a knack for LONG sentences that get jumbled and confusing. From chapter 22: "Occasionally something larger rattled invisibly in the reeds, and once he saw a huge stag look up from where it had been drinking at the river's edge, dark with a magnificent rack of silvery antlers, its silence and calm gaze making it hard for Barrick to believe it was only an animal, so impressive that despite his almost constant hunger it didn't occur to him until the beast was long gone that he could have tried to kill it." Way. Too. LongOVERALLExcellent book. Barrick's character changed quit a bit. It's sad to see him lost so long in the Shadowlands that he's forgetting his own past. Even his sister. From chapter 25: "The name meant nothing to him, but Barrick liked it better that way: he wanted no more reminders of the past. He could remember quite a bit from what Beck called 'the before' - names, faces - but the memories were distant and curiously flat, with little feeling attached to them, like the diminished ache of a very old wound. Even thoughts of his sister, which seemed as though they should mean more, seemed instead to be something that had been stored so long it had lost all savor. And Barrick was more content to leave things that way."This reminded me of Frodo in Lord of the Rings, in the very end how he's been through so much fighting and terrifying situations that he can no longer live with his friends and family. He doesn't fit there anymore because circumstances have completely transformed every part of him. I fear Barrick will be unrecognizable when Olin and Briony see him again. I also enjoyed Briony's little fragments of feeling for Ferras Vansen and the conflict with her feelings for Prince Eneas of Syan. From chapter 19:"He gently tugged his hand away from her, disguising his unhappiness a little by pushing his dark hair back from his forehead. 'But,' you are about to say. But there is someone else to whom your heart had already been given - maybe your troth even plighted in the temple.'No!' But it wasn't completely untrue - she did have feelings for someone else, as confusing and inappropriate and even ridiculous those feelings might be. But that person couldn't save her kingdom. Eneas could - if any human agency could perform such tasks."And from chapter 23:"Staring at his face, so sharp and intent in the lamplight, Briony was taken again by a strange, contradictory impulse. Ferras Vansen. Were you real? Did I see what I thought I saw - did I see your feelings as clearly as I felt I did? What if it was only a phantom of my own mind?"The amusing part is that as Briony thinks only Eneas can save her kingdom, Ferras Vansen is, at that moment, risking his life fighting under the castle to save just that. I can't wait until these two see each other again, and Briony learns how loyal he's been to the Eddon family.Lastly, the final scenes with Barrick and blind King Ynnir were very well-written. I wish there'd been more interaction between these two. Especially the funeral procession and the Qar subjects paying their respects to the dead king. Such a crazy list of creatures Williams imagined. Really gave the sense that the Qar were comprised of literally every kind of creature imaginable. Williams painted a mesmerizing picture of death and the place the Qar inhabited in space and time.From chapter 39:"The funeral of the Lord of Winds and Thought passed before Barrick's senses like a swollen, flooding river, the current crowded with subjects that had become unrecognizable. In that dark, murmurous room shapes assembled around the king's body, weeping, singing, sometimes making noises and gestures that Barrick couldn't connect with any human emotion at all, then after a space they dispersed again...And still they came. Rats, a thousand or more, a living velvet carpet that swirled around Ynnir and then were gone; weeping shadows; men with eyes as red as embers; even a beautiful girl made of broomsticks and cobwebs, who sang for the dead king in a voice like settling straw - all came to say their farewells."He saw that the procession was more than the individuals and what they had to say, or the movements they made to show their grief. Instead it was a collection of shapes and sounds in time, each separate yet as connected to the whole as letters in a word or words in a story. Time itself was the medium, and somehow - this was only a gleam of understanding, like a tiny fish in a stream, and to grab for it was to see it disappear altogether - somehow the People, the Qar, lived in time in a way Barrick's mortal kind did not. They were both of it and outside it. They mourned, but they also said, 'This is what mourning is, and how it should be. This is the dance and these the steps' To make either less or more of it would be to lift it out of time, like lifting a fish from the river. The fish would die. The river would be less beautiful. Nothing else would change."
review 2: This novel, this series, is such an epic wonder and delicious entrée that I just can't say enough about the quality within its pages. I'll preface that by saying that Tad Williams is by far my favorite author of all time and that if you haven't read him yet you are greatly missing out. The Shadowmarch series is a great place to start, or I might even refer you to Tad's Otherland series.Over the span of these novels I have become quite rapt in the characters of Briony and Barrick Edon and the well thought out and written workings of their world. The Shadowmarch books are a wonderful treat for those of us who loved Tad's Memory, Sorrow and Thorn series {because here Tad has truly returned to his fantasy roots} and I am greatly looking forward to reading Shadowheart soon!The crazy thing is that I have been so engrossed in reading Independent works like Mike Lee's StarFire, Melissa Simonson's Hazard Pay and Ivan Amberlake's The Beholder {as well as many other books by Breakwater Harbor Books} that it has taken me two years to complete my read of Tad's third installment. Tad is actually the only published author I currently read, but as I said, the best author of all time.Pick up Tad today, anything he has written, and you will hang on each word as your mind becomes one with his worlds. less

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Reviews (see all)

chuma

A very fun read indeed. I'm absolutely riveted at this stage and had no hesitation in buying the fourth book in the series. All the mysteries that have been set up in earlier volumes seem to be coming to a boil, but the plot moved in this book quite unlike what I'd expected in a "middle book".The strong characterisation (female characters especially) and intriguing mythos (as related by unreliable narrators and histories for the most part) continue to hold my interest.Unless Mr Williams screws up rather colossally (unlikely, given the evidence), the last volume should be full of payoff!

anand

I'm really enjoying this series. Williams has created a wonderful, moody world here, with all sorts of interesting critters that are well-grounded in folklore, yet refreshingly original. It never moves along at more than a leisurely pace, and I think there's definitely some trimming that should have been done (might have even kept it a trilogy, had that happened). All in all, this is quite an enjoyable ride, though. I've got book 4 on order and have pencilled in some time to read it in a few weeks. Looking forward to the wrap-up.

Janae

Is long winded and struggle to complete the series but I finally did.

Raiever

Good read.

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