I was excited by the title A Stark and Wormy Knight. I was expecting lighthearted, fun short stories, and I feel as though I owe Tad Williams a re-consideration. I read Memory, Sorrow and Thorn, and though I was a bit impatient with it at the time, in retrospect it's one of the few fantasy novels set in a dark ages or low middle ages era, rather than high middle ages. It also incorporates religion in a way that felt appropriate to a middle ages setting, on a monotheistic basis, which is also rare. So it deserves some credit for that, and even though I only recall the broad outlines, I think perhaps it deserves a second look as well. Nevertheless, I almost haven't wanted to re-read the series, since I think perhaps it has improved in my mind as my memory faded... though that feels like I'm being unfair.
I tried Otherland and found it somewhat distasteful. I couldn't get past the overarching premise, so I stopped at Mountain of Black Glass. It also had the issue I find with David Farland's Runelords series, which is that antagonists switch sides and you're supposed to cheer for them or feel sorry for them so often I just give up waiting for the next doublecross and lose interest entirely.
I read Shadowmarch (the first novel only) and didn't continue to the end of that series either.
I can't deny that Mr. Williams has interesting ideas, but I have trouble making it through his series, so wasn't sure if it's an issue with the writing style, the worldview, the characters or whether I had just built up some kind of block.
So I thought a collection of short stories might be a way to evaluate my enjoyment of Mr. Williams as an author, and I liked the title, which had a Terry Pratchett feel to it.
I did not enjoy A Stark and Wormy Knight at all. Not just for the stories themselves, which have a very negative, nihilistic tone and do not (even in the title story) achieve the lightness the title suggests. But primarily for the lazy way in which it was assembled. The collection is an obvious collection of trunk novels, thrown together with little thought, little editing and a great amount of apathy. Mr. Williams appears to have dug through his desk, picked out a bunch of stuff he couldn't finish or which died off hallway through, blew the dust off and sent them in to be sold to fans of his work without so much as a cursory review.
I don't like making such strong statements about a book. I try to read books that I plan to enjoy, but the lack of interest on the part of the author makes me feel that Mr. Williams is taking advantage of his fan base to make a quick sale. Each story which was "original to this collection" was very sloppy. The other stories, gathered from previous publications were for the most part weak, not consistent in tone, nor showing an interesting variation or progression of tone. They were what I expect to find in Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine (which, by the way, I often enjoy for what it is, though second in my mind to Alfred Hitchcock Mystery Magazine), but were not what I expect from a bestselling author putting together short stories for my enjoyment.
Many of the stories were written for theme collections (Hellboy, Twilight Zone, Jack Vance) and it shows. They don't have a lot of "Tad Williams" feel to them, and instead feel like middling quality knock-offs.
The best stories were And Ministers of Grace, which I had originally read when it appeared in Warriors, edited by George R.R. Martin and Gardner Dozois, and which was okay in that collection. It kind of begins in the middle, and is not particularly successful at conveying a true subjective perspective of a religious fanatic, which seems to have been the intent. The Stranger's Hands is kind of neat, but overdoes the explanation at the end instead of letting the reader reach their own conclusion. It also appeared in a collection edited by Gardner Dozois, so perhaps Mr. Williams benefits from a strong editor.
The balance of the stories seem to strive for a clever twist, which tends to be telegraphed and belaboured. Most of the stories would be right at home in a magazine for aspiring creative writers... and probably not as the premiere story.
The two that I found weakest (and most offensive) were the two original to this novel. Bad Guy Factory is apparently a script for a comic book. Again, it starts in the middle, ends in the middle and has no significant story arc. Mr. Williams has helpfully left number signs as fillers for the artist to refer to other panels, as though to show us that he couldn't be bothered to polish up this story and make it ready for publication, so we shouldn't be too hard on him in our evaluation. I've read comic book scripts by Alan Moore, and this isn't even close. It has virtually no artistic detail nor interest in the flow and structure of the panels. Maybe it's an unfair comparison, but just because Mr. Williams puts some words in ALL CAPS doesn't make it effective writing for a comic book. The story ends with a series of panels supposed to represent an in-comic website. If I may quote:
"Page 22 (This is going to be a page representing the PLUSDOTCOM website: It should LOOK like an ENTERTAINMENT SITE--LOTS OF PICTURES, POINTLESS GRAPHICS, Etc. I'm rewriting it because the original was written with DC references, characters, etc. It will have a tie-in to the story, and we'll probably have one page each issue. Here's the first article, just as an example.)"
That was one of the allegedly re-written panels, and it's about as detailed as panel art instruction gets. Another panel reads "PANEL TWO: TALKING and WORKING around the COSTUMING TABLE while THROWBACK stands on a LOW STOOL".
I might have been more forgiving if there weren't all the nods of acknowledgment in-story indicating that this is unfinished, never published and shouldn't be evaluated as a final product. Except it's being sold as a final product and I find that offensive.
Black Sunshine is just as weak and sloppy. It's supposed to be written as a TV movie or something, because for Mr. Williams it was just so vivid with the soundtrack. It confuses references to years (sometimes 1974, sometimes 1976), and for a guy who hears the soundtrack so vividly in his head, screenplay instructions such as "Something contemporary begins to fill the car as we CUT TO:" doesn't seem to bear that out. These songs he hears so vividly aren't (for the most part) songs I'm familiar with. Those I do recognize don't add anything to the story for me. Screenplay background is sparse, characters are blankly drawn, dialogue is poor. Twist ending doesn't carry any weight since we weren't invested in the characters to begin with. Again, it's not an example of a good writer at his best by any stretch of the imagination. (The plot is kind of like a poor take on a teleplay for Dreamcatcher by Stephen King. A good example of how dreck for a good author is still miles ahead of most of the stuff churned out by weaker authors).
So A Stark and Wormy Knight, instead of giving me a reason to give Mr. Williams' novels another chance, has instead cemented in my mind the idea that this is an author who cares little for his readers or the quality of his work. I don't think I'll be picking up another Tad Williams novel, and I'll leave Memory, Sorrow and Thorn in my memory, since I doubt I'm going to find any improvement if I look at it again.
Good warning...
ReplyDelete