Book Review: The Witchwood Crown (The Last King of Osten Ard, #1) by Tad Williams
Cover art illustrated by Michael Whelan
The Witchwood Crown by Tad Williams
My rating: 4.5 of 5 stars
Series: The Last King of Osten Ard (Book #1 of 4), The Osten Ard Saga (Book #4 of 7)
Genre: Fantasy, High Fantasy, Epic Fantasy
Pages: 736 pages (Hardcover edition)
Word Count: 350,000 words
Published: 27th June 2017 by DAW Books (US) & Hodder (UK)
It is with a heart of joy I proclaim The Witchwood Crown as an exquisite return to the world of Osten Ard.
“You have a fine voice. Remember that music is a noble charge, even a dangerous charge, because it can pierce a man’s heart when a spear or arrow cannot.”
Unlike many longtime fans of Memory, Sorrow, and Thorn trilogy, I did not have to wait long upon completing To Green Angel Tower to have the capacity and means to read The Witchwood Crown by Tad Williams. The Witchwood Crown is the first book in The Last King of Osten Ard series, and it was first published 24 years after To Green Angel Tower, the last installment of Memory, Sorrow, and Thorn trilogy, a trilogy hailed and praised by many as one of the finest in the fantasy landscape. If you are not new to my reviews, you would know I share this sentiment. Similar to how Memory, Sorrow, and Thorn trilogy is one of my priority series to start and finish last year in 2023, The Last King of Osten Ard quartet is one of my priority series to read this year. And to make sure I’m prepared, I have read the bridge short novel titled The Heart of What Was Lost as well before starting The Witchwood Crown. I strongly recommend you do that if you haven’t started this series yet. My reading experience was certainly enriched by this decision. And although I do not think The Witchwood Crown was as incredible as The Dragonbone Chair, this is still a slow-burn and powerful first book in the next chapter of The Osten Ard Saga that will remind fantasy readers and fans of Memory, Sorrow, and Thorn why Tad Williams is one of the best writers in the genre.
“They have left us a world, but have they left us enough wisdom to protect it?”
First things first. A few names of the main characters from the first series will be mentioned in this review. I will keep things vague regarding what happened to them in the first trilogy, but you will most likely know that they survived Memory, Sorrow, and Thorn trilogy. There is no reviewing this book and series properly without mentioning their names because some of the themes of The Witchwood Crown are aging, family, legacy, death, and passing the torch to the younger generation.
Thirty years have passed since The Storm King’s War ended. Osten Ard has been at peace ever since with its new rulers. But age weighs upon the leadership of our returning main characters. Simon, Miriamele, Binabik, Duke Isgrimnur, Eolair, Tiamak, and more are old. Simon’s dreams have deserted him, and his old allies die one after another due to aging. Betrayal and assassination threaten. His son and heir, John Josua, is years dead. And his grandson, Morgan, is a complete wastrel of a brat. But the calmness of peace is about to be shattered. In the frozen North, in Nakkiga, the mountain fortress, Ineluki’s ally, the Norn Queen, wakes from her deep, decades-long sleep and tells her followers that she will sleep no more. Humanity must be destroyed. Her sorcerers will bring a demon back from death, and her warriors will seek the world for living dragon’s blood… And finally, the greatest artifact of all, the Witchwood Crown, will be hers.
“How could the priests say that death came as the great friend when instead it came like an army, taking what it wished and destroying peace even years after it had withdrawn?”
If you’ve read Memory, Sorrow, and Thorn, you would know what to expect from the writing and storytelling structure. Most of the first 200 pages of The Witchwood Crown are focused on Simon, Miriamele, and the characters explaining what has happened in the three-decade time jump between the two series of Osten Ard Saga. Additionally, one of my favorite things about this portion is reading Simon and the returning characters from the first trilogy reunited and reminiscing about their past. These pages were so lovely and bittersweet for me. And I can imagine this section lacking significant impact if you haven’t read Memory, Sorrow, and Thorn. Once again, I strongly recommend you to read that first and The Heart of What Was Lost before reading The Witchwood Crown. You will thank me later. But back to my point, Tad Williams is well-known for his beautifully written slow-burn narration. The Witchwood Crown is not an exception. This novel is a return to Tad William’s storytelling and writing style at his best.
“With Sludig’s arrival, he felt as though a circle had closed and something was completed. The old friends, who had known each other since the days of the Storm King’s War, were quickly lost in reminiscence, talking of old terrors and of equally distant moments of joy and wonder. The beloved voices washed over him.”
Even though The Witchwood Crown is a more bittersweet and darker start to a series compared to The Dragonbone Chair, it doesn’t mean the novel itself contains a ton more battle scenes. If we’re speaking about action scenes, this 350k-word novel most likely has the fewest action scenes out of every book in Osten Ard Saga so far. And as much as I love this book, I feel like I must give a bit of caution. The journey of redemption and discovery in a darkening world found in The Witchwood Crown is not what I would deem suitable for newcomers to epic fantasy.
“My people are saying that to meet an old friend is like the finding of a welcoming campfire in the dark… Just the sight of your face warms me, Simon.”
I don’t think The Witchwood Crown would have worked as much as it did for me if it had focused merely on the returning characters again. It is precisely because Tad Williams decided to introduce and focus on both the returning and new characters that The Last King of Osten Ard exhibited the potential to be superior to the first trilogy. And that statement, too, remains to be seen. But I’m hopeful. I loved what Tad Williams is doing with the overall narrative in The Witchwood Crown. The way I see it, this book works as a long setup installment necessary for the rest of the series to shine. However, while the slow pace and the large cast of characters were positives for me, they can easily be a downside for newcomers to the epic fantasy genre. We’re talking about more than 15 POV characters on top of many supporting characters and locations to remember, after all. The sweeping scope in The Witchwood Crown is bigger than before. The characters are well-realized, the dialogues are engaging, and there are many names and lore details to remember. From humans, giants, dragons, trolls, Sithi, Norns, and dwarves, characters from every continent in Osten Ard are much more involved in the narrative now. The dynamic, chemistry, and conflict between the new and returning characters made the quality in The Witchwood Crown shine brighter, and I wouldn’t have it any other way.
“People tell you what to do. You do your best, but you don’t always succeed. Then one day, you realize that you’re the one doing the telling.”
Because we have more than 15 POV characters in The Witchwood Crown, it is not efficient for me to talk about each respective character’s details. Whether you like these characters or not, I can safely say every one of them was captivating. At least, that’s how it went for me, even if a few of them did take some time to get used to. Obviously, it was easy for me to feel invested in reading Simon, Miriamele, Binabik, Eolair, Isgrimnur, Tiamak, the Sithi, and Viyeki again. These are some of the returning key characters from Memory, Sorrow, and Thorn trilogy and also The Heart of What Was Lost. Loss and the passage of time may have changed—or not so much in the case of Simon—and weighed upon them, but my attachment to them through The Storm King’s War remained intact in The Witchwood Crown. I am not as old as Simon in The Witchwood Crown, but his constant longing for the past and the companion of his true friends are something I can relate to deeply. Reading Simon reflecting on his past and meeting his friends again brought me joy and a feeling of sadness in equal measure. But the new characters… these are the determining factors of The Witchwood Crown.
“Miriamele’s letter had made him think about their lost son—a grief no less painful for being familiar—but it had also reminded him of his own childhood, when the castle had seemed as big as the world and when nobody had paid much attention to the comings and goings of a mere kitchen boy. The memory gripped him and would not let go.”
As I said, if you enter The Witchwood Crown expecting most of the story to be told from the perspective of the returning characters, you will be disappointed. Exposure and pages-count wise, the new POV characters outweighed the returning characters. Morgan, Pasivalles, Tzoja, Nezeru, Jarnulf, Unver, and more. And let me tell you, none of these characters can be considered overwhelmingly good in nature. Most of them have their own design and schemes to achieve. Or, in the case of Morgan, an absolute brat that you want to slap non-stop. I won’t lie. Morgan is one of the most infuriating and spoiled brats I’ve ever come across in the fantasy genre. He will, as intended, test your patience with his stupidity and extreme selfishness. His behavior toward Simon and Miriamele should’ve earned him some prison time or beating. Fortunately, the story told from his POV is one of the most unputdownable in the novel. And in a similar way to how Simon had Binabik to accompany him in The Storm King’s War, Morgan, too, has Snenneq as his friend. The appearance of Snenneq made it easier to tolerate reading Morgan’s antics. And here, Morgan will constantly be forced to learn the hard way so he, hopefully, can develop into a better person.
“Making those errors may be the only way they will learn the lessons we did, my dear one… Certainly for all Morgenes or Rachel tried to teach me, it never quite made sense until I had ignored their good advice and done something impressively stupid instead.”
One of the finest additions to The Witchwood Crown is something Tad Williams implemented in The Heart of What Was Lost: the perspective from the Norns. In fantasy series, personally speaking, it is almost always refreshing to have POV chapters from the villains. Doing this can result in more emotions and complexity for the villains, and I am pleased to find out that this is reintegrated into the narrative. Viyeki’s story and his dilemma with the humans were fascinating to me. More importantly, I absolutely loved reading the storyline and development of Nezeru and Jarnulf as they are accidentally paired with Makho on a mission for Hakatri’s bones. I did mention in this review about the minimal actions in The Witchwood Crown, but when they’re there, they are well-placed and brimming with tensions.
“In truth, ruling anything, let alone the largest kingdom in the history of Osten Ard, was a process of learning about and reacting to hundreds upon hundreds of small problems, some of which would quickly become larger problems if left unsolved, and then persisting with them until they had been solved or at least reduced from crisis to mere irritation.”
Having read many fantasy books and series now, I can vouch with confidence that with The Witchwood Crown, Tad Williams proves once more why he is a master in world-building and immersion. We learned more about the Sithi, the Norns, Ruyan the Navigator, and many more. There is something magical about Tad Williams’s prose that always makes me want to take my time reading his books. His prose is worth savoring. It took me two weeks to read The Witchwood Crown; for comparison, that is as long as the days I need to read To Green Angel Tower. Although it is true I felt the book was slightly longer than it should be for the first book in the series, every time I opened the pages of The Witchwood Crown, I felt instantly engrossed in the world and predicament of the characters. It is a slow-burn narrative. If you are reading Tad Williams’ books, you should know that by now. But if you are like me, a fan of his writing and experiencing escapism into another world, The Witchwood Crown will be worth the read.
“The world was full of people quite certain they already knew the answer to every important question. The older Eolair got, the more he valued men—and women, too, most definitely—who thought for themselves, who asked questions, who were not satisfied with seemingly easy answers to difficult problems.”
Overall, it feels good and amazing to be back in the world of Osten Ard again. I am worried about the fate of the characters as it feels like darkness is about to engulf the world of Osten Ard again. My instinct says Empire of Grass, the sequel to this book, will have a relatively faster-paced narrative filled with more conflicts, betrayals, and tribulations. I am excited to find out about that. But for now, if you are a fan of Memory, Sorrow, and Thorn trilogy, you are doing yourself a disservice by not reading The Withcwood Crown. It is so beautifully written, enchanting, bittersweet, and magnificently immersive.
“It is when we are apart that I most realize how fortunate we were to find each other, though all the world was against us.”
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