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A review by isauldur
The Heart of What Was Lost by Tad Williams
5.0
Below, my review is split into two parts. The first gives my general thoughts on the book, and the second details spoilers and major plot points. Be warned.
Part One: Overview
This novel, to my understanding, was written as a bridge between the original Osten Ard novels and the new trilogy that is currently in the process of being written/published. And it's some of the finest writing I've read in a very long time. Even if we were to ignore the fact that I have a full trilogy to be familiar with the world of Osten Ard, this book feels vivid and clear, and certainly it feels much longer than it actually is, but in the best way. Tad Williams, whose work I only found in the summer of 2017, is perhaps now one of my favorite authors. He never gives me what I expect, but more and better, and every time I finish reading one of his books, I feel as if I'd come back from vacation. This book is no different, though this vacation is a little darker than the others.
The Heart of What Was Lost details the last battles between Rimmersmen and the retreating Norns in the wake of the ending to Memory, Sorrow and Thorn. We see some familiar characters come back, such as Isgrimnur and Suldig, and we get to meet new people, namely two Perdruinese soldiers and some Norn characters.
There is little I can say about the novel without spoilers, so I will simply say that I'm glad that I found Tad Williams's work so late, so I won't have to wait as long to dive back into the world he created. This novel fits perfectly with its predecessors in both the series and fantasy in general. While not entirely a stand-alone, it's fairly independent of the previous trilogy and very different. This was a return to a familiar world without a re-read of a familiar story. Certainly one to read if you like fantasy at all.
Part Two: SPOILERS and In-Depth Discussion
After I'd finished about 50 or pages of the book, I thought that the two Nabbanai soldiers, Porto and Endri, were the weakest parts of the novel, but by the end I realized what they really were: people in war. We know something about them, enough to make us cheer for them, but they remain simply troops, two names in the crowd of soldiers that's assaulting Nakigga. Through their eyes, we see the field, the front lines, the crude fighting on the ground. They're no fancy lords with lineages or orphans with secretly important parents. They're regular people who got dragged to war. By the time I read the final page, I cried for them both. Endri's death was a little predictable, but I think it actually was supposed to be. At the end, you realize that their story was never about two men who become friends during war. It's about two men in this war. The ending, where Porto must deal with a spell-revived undead Endri is harrowing, and a very sad ending to be sure, but memorable.
My favorite part was that the Norns were finally given some depth as a people. In the original trilogy, they were not much different from orcs in every other fantasy: mere minions for the good guys to have a horde to fight. But here, we see them as they are, and they are indeed people. Heck, they're even human. Viyeki, my favorite character in this book, is a lesser noble in the ranks of the Norns, a builder, and at the beginning of the novel, retreating with his master and many of his kind. By the end, he's conflicted by the choices his superiors made, and unsure of his own future. General Suno'ku is what we've come to expect from a villain commander, but more. She has valid hatred for humans and wants nothing but their destruction. However, others inside of Nakigga see that this irrational hate would result in the extinction of the Norns. We see that there are good and bad people even among the villains, and we get to sympathize with them. By the time the two sides start to negotiate, it's very hard to know who to root for. It was very great to see this mysterious race of people finally be given some development as more than just "bad guys."
Finally, I was left with a strange sense of loss. The Norns survive as a race and the humans retreat after a landslide blocks the gates to the mountain, so, in a way, both sides end up with half victory. But something was lost. Porto lost a friend, the young man Endri that he befriended during the war. Viyeki lost his certainty and sureness of how his society works. This novel was absolutely vivid and interesting. It showed places of Osten Ard that we've never seen and introduced us to characters we never thought we'd meet. This is a short, but heavy, novel, and I can say for certain that I am eager to see where the story goes after this with The Witchwood Crown.
Part One: Overview
This novel, to my understanding, was written as a bridge between the original Osten Ard novels and the new trilogy that is currently in the process of being written/published. And it's some of the finest writing I've read in a very long time. Even if we were to ignore the fact that I have a full trilogy to be familiar with the world of Osten Ard, this book feels vivid and clear, and certainly it feels much longer than it actually is, but in the best way. Tad Williams, whose work I only found in the summer of 2017, is perhaps now one of my favorite authors. He never gives me what I expect, but more and better, and every time I finish reading one of his books, I feel as if I'd come back from vacation. This book is no different, though this vacation is a little darker than the others.
The Heart of What Was Lost details the last battles between Rimmersmen and the retreating Norns in the wake of the ending to Memory, Sorrow and Thorn. We see some familiar characters come back, such as Isgrimnur and Suldig, and we get to meet new people, namely two Perdruinese soldiers and some Norn characters.
There is little I can say about the novel without spoilers, so I will simply say that I'm glad that I found Tad Williams's work so late, so I won't have to wait as long to dive back into the world he created. This novel fits perfectly with its predecessors in both the series and fantasy in general. While not entirely a stand-alone, it's fairly independent of the previous trilogy and very different. This was a return to a familiar world without a re-read of a familiar story. Certainly one to read if you like fantasy at all.
Part Two: SPOILERS and In-Depth Discussion
After I'd finished about 50 or pages of the book, I thought that the two Nabbanai soldiers, Porto and Endri, were the weakest parts of the novel, but by the end I realized what they really were: people in war. We know something about them, enough to make us cheer for them, but they remain simply troops, two names in the crowd of soldiers that's assaulting Nakigga. Through their eyes, we see the field, the front lines, the crude fighting on the ground. They're no fancy lords with lineages or orphans with secretly important parents. They're regular people who got dragged to war. By the time I read the final page, I cried for them both. Endri's death was a little predictable, but I think it actually was supposed to be. At the end, you realize that their story was never about two men who become friends during war. It's about two men in this war. The ending, where Porto must deal with a spell-revived undead Endri is harrowing, and a very sad ending to be sure, but memorable.
My favorite part was that the Norns were finally given some depth as a people. In the original trilogy, they were not much different from orcs in every other fantasy: mere minions for the good guys to have a horde to fight. But here, we see them as they are, and they are indeed people. Heck, they're even human. Viyeki, my favorite character in this book, is a lesser noble in the ranks of the Norns, a builder, and at the beginning of the novel, retreating with his master and many of his kind. By the end, he's conflicted by the choices his superiors made, and unsure of his own future. General Suno'ku is what we've come to expect from a villain commander, but more. She has valid hatred for humans and wants nothing but their destruction. However, others inside of Nakigga see that this irrational hate would result in the extinction of the Norns. We see that there are good and bad people even among the villains, and we get to sympathize with them. By the time the two sides start to negotiate, it's very hard to know who to root for. It was very great to see this mysterious race of people finally be given some development as more than just "bad guys."
Finally, I was left with a strange sense of loss. The Norns survive as a race and the humans retreat after a landslide blocks the gates to the mountain, so, in a way, both sides end up with half victory. But something was lost. Porto lost a friend, the young man Endri that he befriended during the war. Viyeki lost his certainty and sureness of how his society works. This novel was absolutely vivid and interesting. It showed places of Osten Ard that we've never seen and introduced us to characters we never thought we'd meet. This is a short, but heavy, novel, and I can say for certain that I am eager to see where the story goes after this with The Witchwood Crown.