The Dragonbone Chair, The Stone of Farewell, To Green Anger Tower, by Tad Williams

These three books comprise a series called "Memory, Sorrow and Thorn". The first book took quite a while to begin to appeal to me, basically 150 pages. I considered putting it down in the beginning, for a number of reasons. First, because it seemed that it was that same kitchen boy turned hero story. Second, because it starts very slow and I was ready to infer this was going to be a series that drags on for thousands of pages and hardly goes anywhere.

Well, after that initial disappointment, I decided to keep going because a friend who's well-read in the fantasy department advised me against giving up. I'm glad I listened to his advice. Maybe I've gotten too used to how Raymond E. Feist writes fantasy and now tend to expect that kind of intensity and action that begins on page one when I read a book of this genre.

The series is not exactly about magic, like Feist's "Riftwar Saga", although it does have some of it. I would also say that it is not like Tolkien's "Lord of The Rings" in that it is not centered around a carefully crafted mythical universe, with many different and fascinating creatures, although it does have some of this element. The strongest point of this series, in my opinion, is what it does with military campaigns. Now, I'm not really fond of this kind of thing, but somehow I could not put down these books until I finished the whole series.

There are some very interesting races, like the Yiquanuq and the Sithi, who to a certain extent remind one of Tolkien's mythology. The interesting thing is that that's as far as it goes: they may bear some resemblance to races you've read about before, but they have unique and amazing characteristics all their own.

Apart from the emphasis on battles that permeates all the books, the most obvious and alluring feature for me was the strong focus on personal relationships, especially friendship and loyalty. The characters are very well-developed and very interesting and, ultimately, I think it was the love I developed for them that kept me turning page after page. I enjoyed this books immensely and highly recommend them to anyone who enjoys fantasy works.