I guess I wasn't ready for such an elaborate plot. I was often lost and felt that so many unpronouncable, and therefor, unmemorable, names were being thrown at me, of people, creatures, and places, that I couldn't keep up. Critical information delivered as a tale of the history of the land by the wizard to the young boy, and a laundry list of names delivered as the folks coming to attend the funeral of the king, made it feel like a dry history lesson devoid of an emotional life. Events were described that the characters couldn't identify as real or dreamed, making it even more challenging to follow. I went the entire 44 chapters (33 hours) and there were definitely characters, sections, descriptions, and elements to love...in fact there were many elements that are also found in the Game of Thrones, but not being a frequent visitor of the Fantasy genre, for all I know, might be common to most fantasies. ( )

Love the world-building and character development. Good read. ( )

This was more what I was expecting when I first read ASOIAF. Some of the names were a bit of a stumbling block but I liked it. ( )

I can see its influence on George R. R. Martin ( )

Orphaned Simon grows up reluctantly in the kitchens and gardens of the ancient castle Hayholt, but his ordained future of brooms and pans is disrupted by a feuding royal family, a secret society, and the stirrings of a forgotten enemy to humanity. And there's elves. And dragons.

I really liked the first third of this novel, which featured kitchen-boy Simon running amok in a huge and empty castle-state. My interest started flagging as soon as Simon left Hayholt and started going through the familiar epic-fantasy motions (e.g. dark forests, immortal evil, elves). It also features some familiar Williams tics, especially the Pynchon-esque vocabulary, enormous cast, and abundant figurative language. (You could probably develop an elaborate drinking game just from the frequency of objects compared, in the novel, to either apples or bees.) On the other hand, Simon is a realistically muddled adolescent, and his relationship with the troll Binabik is non-cloyingly sweet. ( )