Only the Shadow Knows

Shadowplay
Tad Williams
DAW

As I write this, I’m sitting at the gate in LHR waiting to board a flight. While I haven’t been travelling too much as of late, I am still managing to put in enough time at the airport to get some serious reading done. For this particular trip, I actually broke one of my cardinal rules of travel and brought along a ginormous 600+ pager. Yeah, yeah, -- not exactly a short haul friendly tome. On an overseas flight (where I can, ahem, check luggage), it makes the space argument a little less compelling, and frankly, this one was definitely worth the room in the carry on.

Shadowplay is Williams’ second book of the Shadowmarch trilogy. If you recall, I reviewed the first book for one of my initial entries for this blog (don’t go back and read it – WAY too long). While I really liked the opening effort, I think that the second instalment lived up to (and maybe even exceeded) the standards of the first. From the moment I picked it up, I didn’t really want to do anything but read. So what if I travelled a few thousand miles to go to the office this week? Work schmerk.

Book Two of the series picks up right where the last book left off. Unlike a lot of serialized fiction, Williams makes the assumption that the readers have been following along and very little time is wasted summarizing the plot. As for the content, it’s the usual fantasy fare -- anthropomorphic creatures, battles, magic and death. Really – what’s not to love? Three fellowship rings out of five.