Shadowmarch (Tad Williams)

Shadowmarch
(The Shadowmarch series, Book 1)
Tad Williams
DAW
Fiction, Fantasy
**** (Good)

DESCRIPTION: Long eons ago, the Qar - mysterious races of shadow and mist and elder magicks - ruled the lands, until mortal men drove them to the distant north, beyond the Shadowline that now marks the edge of their domain. The ancient castle of Southmarch stands nearest this line, the seat of the Eddon family and the most powerful of northern kingdoms. Over the centuries, tales of the Qar faded to legend, especially in the realms further south, who cannot feel the northern darkness breathing over their shoulders. With their brief lives and short sight, men forget the old days and the ancient hatred between mortal and immortal, human and faerie... but the Qar remember, and even today their undying anger burns hot and bright as ever. Soon, they shall stir from their northern fastnesses, carrying that flame to burn all that lies before them.
Prince-Regent Kendrick and his younger siblings, the twins Briony and Barrick, sit upon an increasingly unstable throne in Southmarch Castle. Their father, King Olin, was kidnapped by the bandit-king of the southern city of Heirosol; his ransom demands have put even more stress upon a political situation ripe for disaster, with northern nobles already vying for the crown if the young regent should make a single misstep. Rumors tell of the spreading grasp of the Autarch, the cruel god-king of the ancient city of Xis, reaching ever closer to Southmarch. Princess Briony can only watch with despair as Kendrick attempts to shoulder their father's reputation and responsibilities, while her twin brother Barrick slides deeper into his dark moods and darker dreams. When Kendrick is murdered in his own bedchamber during a visit from one of Heirosol's envoys, it first seems a simple political assassination, meant to cleave the already fractured Eddon family, but soon it proves much more than that. The Shadowline begins to move. Qar walk openly on mortal lands. And ancient forces, long forgotten by mortals, begin to stir, forces that could destroy not only Southmarch but the fragile world of all men.

REVIEW: I first encountered Tad Williams through Tailchaser's Song, and his Memory, Sorrow, and Thorn trilogy has long been my favorite high fantasy trilogy. But, as some of his more recent works have left me cold, I was reluctant to pick up Shadowmarch until I found it deeply discounted. Some of the old Williams magic returns, as he weaves a tale in a fascinatingly layered and magical world, with distinctive characters telling their own bits of the greater story. It starts out slowly, and even when things pick up there are several meandering stretches as Williams indulges in "sight-seeing" side-trips around the edges of the plot, but I've come to expect that from high fantasy. One of the more annoying point-of-view characters nearly cost it a half point, as did one of the more out-of-the-blue revelations. For the most part, though, it held my interest, and even if this new world didn't "click" for me like Memory, Sorrow, and Thorn's Osten Ard, I've missed having a nice, thick fantasy series to lose myself in. I'll have to track down the second book.