There’s plenty going on, but some of it does feel somewhat forced. Yes, because Stone of Farewell feels bogged down in plot. Ask me if I’m disappointed, my answer would be a vague ‘yes and no’. This review doesn’t flow as easily from brain to fingers to keyboard as the last one did. It’s taken a while to read, almost twice the time it took for The Dragonbone Chair, which is a longer novel. Stone of Farewell was, I’m saddened to say, the reason I didn’t continue with the series overblown books like this were why I fell out with fantasy and didn’t pick up another for many years. From what I could remember, Stone of Farewell was 800+ pages of history and legend – backstory, if you will – interspersed with the journeys of our heroes on their way to meet at the titular location. There are exceptions – the movie Empire Strikes Back and Joe Abercrombie’s Before They Are Hanged spring to mind – but I didn’t think this book was going to be one of them. Sequels can often fall into the trap of the law of diminishing returns not quite as good as the first one, sometimes a huge disappointment. The reason this is a problem is that I'm not sure if I have another two books in me so the setup may have cost me the resolution.After being overwhelmingly impressed with The Dragonbone Chair, I was a little reluctant to pick up its sequel, Stone of Farewell. It still feels very much like the pieces are being setup before the game. But substantially it feels like not a lot of the plot has been revealed and not a lot has really happened. Story/plot ratio: I've read two fairly large books now and so far: i) I know the difference between the various characters ii) I get the impression something is definately 'rotten in the state of denmark'.
'Even now in the south one of your closest allies has been killed'. 'Your all doomed anyway so I'll tell you 15% of my evil plan' - e.g. Villains seem to do quite a bit of bwhahahhaha exposition. This is often a challenge in the overly cliched fantasy genre so well done on that. Makes me think Mr Williams is very good at doing little bits of atmospheric writing (reminds me of the bit in book one where simon is heading into the dungeons of hayholt).Īlien race written well: In this book I think he did some great work in illustrating the very different outlook the Sithi have one the world and differentiating one set of humanoids from another. Ītmospheric writing the scene where Rachel is hearing something scratching at the door but is afraid to open it. Standout feature: The scene where something is scratching at the door. But it's only half way through the story and I'm not sure I have another 1600 pages in me. Nothing too bad and occassionally really good bits.
Summary: Another solid volume of enjoyable fantasy fair.
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