A couple of times since I posted my piece on On Tad Williams & some Problems of Fantasy Fiction, I thought maybe I shouldn’t have done so. I mean, I wrote it more to occupy my time as I waited to leave our hotel in Miami (our flight having been delayed) and at the airport itself (where I finished the post). And then because I blog, I thought why not share such thoughts with the world?
It’s one of those odd things about being a blogger. If you have an idea which you find interesting, you feel you need to share it with the world.
I guess I kind of sort of regret having posted the piece, not because I said anything I want to retract, but because I don’t like coming across as too critical. I mean, for all the criticism I level against Tad Williams’ books, I did enjoy reading them. Even as I began the third book in the series, I find it enjoyable if overwritten (he could have condensed the first chapter’s twenty-five pages into fifteen and said all he needed to say).
After all, this is not literature, just good reading. And when I become too critical, I wonder if I sound like those who try to dissect movies they enjoyed, but didn’t measure up to their exacting standards.
I mean, some movies (e.g., Cast Away) almost demand that we think about them whereas others stop making sense when we do so.
So, perhaps, it’s best just to say that I find Tad Williams’ trilogy a good read, but not great literature. And acknowledge that it’s an accomplishment to craft an entertaining work of fiction, particularly fantastic fiction when one must create an entirely new world, people it with beings from one’s own imagination and give them a mythology and history that make the story seem more real.