Tad Williams – War of the Flowers
In the great city, in the dimly lit office of a mighty tower, two deadly creatures meet. A dark bargain is struck, and the master of the House of Hellbore gives an order: “War is coming. The Child must die.”
Usually I’m not too keen on “single volume epics” – I like a good trilogy to get my teeth into, or something even more, like Stephen King’s mammoth Dark Tower series. But I couldn’t commit to a huge fantasy series just at the moment, and so just had enough time to read Tad Williams’s The War of The Flowers, which fit the bill admirably.
Tad Williams’s self-contained volume is based on the alternative world concept, and the world is an original one, with vibrant characters and a social hierarchy and nomenclature based largely on that of flowers. The hero, Theo Vilmos, a lackadaisical, failing musician who is at the older end of his youth, achieves maturity in this world that is populated by some very recognizable human evil in addition to some more exotic creatures, good and bad. I will not be forgetting the sprite Applecore in a hurry, for example.
With twists and suprises aplenty, The War of The Flowers is beautifully written, as you would expect from a Tad Williams novel, and the powerfully crafted writing helps to bring alive this world populated by studious ferishers, car driving horse-faced doonies, the Remover of Inconvenient Obstacles and a host of other minor and major fairies. Yes, I did say fairies, because this other world is in fact called Faerie, and its clever verisimilitude means that I for one will not think of Goblins or Fairies in quite the same light again, much as I deplore the Hellebore’s I see every day in the real world!
I am reading Angels and Demons at the moment, the prequel to The Da Vinci Code, so will be posting my review soon!