Shadowplay

Tad Williams' second books are always so freaking good. He of course still rights slow but the politics, love, and betrayal continue to ramp up.

The prince is continuing his journey in Qar territory, led by an uncontrollable urge to continue into ebony territory where he must face god(s) knows what.

The princess has been lead to “safety” by the master of arms, Shaso.

The Xis king is preparing to invade from the south and Qar are preparing to invade from the North and certain Gods have plans of their own. I know the the last books are going to be epic!

I took off a star because the last 100 pages or so started to really get boring to me when I'd rather end on a higher note, but a great story nonetheless.

Excellent followup to Shadowmarch! I really miss having fantasy elements and adventure in epic fantasy novels these days. So many are political intrigue novels that, while they are enjoyable as well, don't quite live up to my favourite because they simply don't have enough magical elements. My favourites are still the stories that take me to strange new lands, with magical (scary, cute or otherwise) creatures, where characters learn about themselves on a quest-like adventure. The trend these days is for novels in the vein of A Song of Ice and Fire and while I think they are excellently written novels, I do miss the more ‘typical' elements of fantasy that are a bit more obscure in those novels. I am glad to say that Tad Williams manages to mix both political intrigue, quest-like adventure and magic in this series to excellent effect. The ‘typical' fantasy elements are there, but don't feel cliched, but rather quite inventive. I feel that this second part in the 4 part Shadowmarch series was even better than its predecessor, widening the world, the mystery and the magic involved and as always creating characters that I just can't help but care about. Looking forward to the concluding 2 novels for sure!