The Bush League Critic

Well, it's done! My first series by Tad Williams is complete. I'll be honest - this was tough for me. I'm not going to be reading any more series in the near future.

Sea of Silver Light started off slow. Painfully slow... I'm-thinking-about-putting-the-book-down slow. But I stuck it out and was rewarded for my efforts with an ending to a series that was, well... O.K. The ending was extremely thorough and for the most part satisfying, but by no means spectacular.

The overall story was a great concept, but ultimately, Williams just tried too hard to do too much: too many characters, too many words, too many themes and too much exposition... way too much exposition. I had to read about the characters sitting around discussing what they were going to do, then I had to read about them actually doing what they had discussed, then I had to read about those characters giving a recap of what they just did for characters who weren't present when they were doing it. It was maddening at times!

I don't want to come off like this was the worst thing I've ever read; because it wasn't. Williams has good chops. A lot of his prose was great and the parts that were entertaining were fantasically written. The great parts just happened to be sandwiched between mind-numbingly dull, long expositions.That's why it was so maddening for me... the potential was there for something really good, but it never fully materialized.

The first two books of the series should have been trimmed down and combined into one book. There just wasn't enough story for four books. Three might have still been pushing it. Extraneous characters and storylines should have been eliminated, because none of the characters were developed enough to suit me. There were a shitload of somewhat cool, but ultimately, two-dimensional characters that just didn't need to be there. And for god's sake... kill a few characters off! It's not like you didn't have a surplus to work with.

I need to read something else by Tad Williams at some point (because I do think he has a unique style) but it probably won't be anytime soon, because - unless he has some stand-alone novels I'm unaware of - I'm not going to be ready for a long series anytime soon.