Shadowrise: Volume Three of Shadowmarch

The story itself has been excellent, but I my copy seems to have pages 469-516 printed twice, where pages 420-468 should be. Sadly I seem to miss a fair bit of the story in between there, and now I'm curious if anyone else has else has had this issue with their copies? If this is an oddity, and I very much need to repurchase the book, so I can find out what I'm missing in those 48 pages!

I have read the other reviews and they tell the story. What I will add is that this series is yet another superb and intricately complex adventure. Those who want an intellectual challenge in reading cannot pass up anything that Tad has published. I was a bit disappointed that the final volume of this story has become book 3 of 4. But I suppose it is worth the wait :)

Since the denouement of the story had to be split into two parts, this is the volume where many plots are revealed, characters regain (or acquire) some sense of direction and the full force of the looming threat becomes palpable. At once enjoyable and frustrating (having to wait another 8 months for the final volume), Shadowrise spends as much time on character development as advancing the plot. Politically sophisticated as all Williams books tend to be, the hidden agenda is finally clearly stated for those who may have missed previous dropped hints. Religion and religious beliefs are very much the centerpiece of this series, making this ancient world relevent to the real modern one. The complexity of the tale drives the length of the series, and the pace doesn't bog down even in murky shadowlands, so despite the impressive size of the Shadow books, they leave the reader only wanting more. Even though Williams pays homage to the tropes of the fantasy genre, his shaded characterizations and political acuity make his work stand out from the pack.

Tad Williams is a wonderful author with an extensive plot-twisting ability. Loved the Dragon Bone Chair and subsequent novels and can add the Shawdowmarch series to ones I will keep and re-read. Keep up the good works for years to come . . . Karra Gillingham

Shadowrise is Tad William's third and thus concluding novel of the Shadowmarch trilogy, begun in Shadowmarch and continued in Shadowplay. So in this final volume, wait, hold on, I'm being told Mr. Williams, clearly feeling a sense of fantasy author peer pressure, has decided that, yes, while this is the "concluding volume," it has in fact been split in two (hmmm, where have I heard that before), making the trilogy, in usual fantasy fashion, four books. At least. Maybe five. Who knows? In truth though, I've found the degree to which this sort of thing annoys me is in direct inverse relation to the quality of the books themselves. And I can't say I found myself particularly upset that Williams has extended Shadowmarch another five hundred pages or so. Or, you know, another thousand. Book one was a typical starter novel: relatively slow-paced so as to introduce character, setting, necessary background information, etc. and leaving the reader with more questions than answers. It had its issues, was a bit uneven in its treatment of character and various storylines, but I found it mostly compelling throughout and found that Williams' characteristically sharp writing more than compensated for the few flaws and found ways to make even the hoariest of genre tropes feel relatively fresh. Shadowplay picked up the pace quite a bit, evened out the quality among the numerous storylines, and improved the readability of several of the more annoying or weak characters from Shadowmarch. And Shadowrise continues in that same strong vein. Like the previous novels, Williams shifts point-of-view among several characters and plot lines, which are far too numerous and complex to go into at this stage of the series, save to say that narrative lines that seemed somewhat disconnected or even wholly separate are now starting to intertwine, in ways both expected and unexpected. The shifts themselves are fluid and easily followed, but more than in the others I felt a bit rushed through them at times and I found myself wishing Williams had let us spend some more time in each. Part of the reason for this, however, is that Williams is better here than in book one at offering up separate stories of equal narrative force. Part of what I enjoyed so much in Shadowrise is the way he does this in varied fashion. We follow several characters preparing for small-scale battle (and a few actual skirmishes), another character's lone (save for a talking bird) trek through a strange land, another character's singular focus on escaping her captor, another's first moves into the realm of political intrigue as well as romance and so on. Each strand is compelling and suspenseful though the means of evoking that interest varies greatly. While we're still working with some of the same-old, same-old fantasy tropes (twins, delvers, strange forests, etc.) as with the others, Williams puts enough of his own stamp on things and creates such fully fleshed characters that the standard forms don't d

I really think the Shadowmarch story has gotten even better in Shadowrise, volume 3 of what will be a 4 volume series. I am a huge fan of Tad Williams' Otherland series, and just like in that series, volume 3 is where it is all coming together. Volume 1 (Shadowmarch) has the benefit of the mystery and delight that comes from being introduced to an imaginary yet easy-to-relate-to world. Volume 2 (Shadowplay) expands the story and list of characters considerably, and the reader wonders if the disparate storylines will end being part of a coherent whole. Not to fear - volume 3 is slowly pulling in the net cast wide in volume 2. Whereas Otherland's final volume was a feverish dash to tie everything together, in this series Shadowrise appears to be answering alot of the 'why' questions. We are now comforted to see that it all makes sense (taking into account that it is a fantasy story, after all). So the concluding volume (expected by the end of 2010) can concentrate fully on drama and clever plot twists. I can't wait to see how this all turns out!