The Dragonbone Chair – Memory, Sorrow and Thorn#1By Tad WilliamsSnappy ReviewI picked it up again, to see if it was as amazing as it was when I first read it. It was… And more. Bloody brilliant!SynopsisThe Dragonbone Chair is the story of Simon, a young kitchen boy and magician’s apprentice, whose dreams of great deeds and heroic wars come all too shockingly true when his world is torn apart by a terrifying civil war — a war fueled by ancient hatreds, immortal enemies, and the dark powers of sorcery. In Osten Ard, a land once ruled by an elvishlike race known as the Sithi, the human High King is dying. And with his death, a long-dormant evil is unleashed on the land as the undead Sithi ruler, the Storm King, seeks to regain his lost realm through a pact with one of human royal blood. Driven by spell-inspired jealousy and fear, prince fights prince, while around them the very land begins to die, poisoned by a sorcerous force sworn to annihilate the humans whose ancestors had driven the Sithi from their rightful home long ages ago. Only a small, scattered group, the League of the Scroll, recognizes the true danger faced by Osten Ard, only they hold the knowledge of times past, of threats fulfilled, and of a riddle of swords, which holds out the one small hope of salvation. And to Simon — unknowingly apprenticed to a member of this League, and unwittingly touched by magic both good and ill — will go the task of spearheading the search for the solution to this riddle of long-lost swords of power, a quest that will see him fleeing and facing enemies straight out of a legend-maker’s worst nightmare! The Dragonbone Chair is a fantasy tour de force, a treasure trove of reading for anyone who has ever wished to discover a world as rich and complex as Middle Earth and characters as memorable as any in the tales of King Arthur.