'A tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing'... they made me memorize that Shakespeare quote in 8th grade, and what do you know, it finally became handy, as a perfectly apt description of this story.

The narrator Pamon Kes is not just an idiot, his idiocy is of the worst kind--self-induced. He is not stupid, but he is basically a house elf. Not only in the potterverse sense of elf servant brainwashed into enjoying his enslavement, but also in the sense of house slave as opposed to field slave, because he is so slavishly grateful to his masters for elevating him above his laborer fellows that he will take the side of the oppressors every time. Sure, as the story goes on people try to gently point him in the right direction, and he shows signs of beginning to think for himself, but he never quite gets there. Despite (or possibly even because of) Kes' excessive and nonstop bootlicking his 'masters' all come off as not just unrelatable, but also snooty, stupid, indolent, useless, apathetic, and/or corrupt (read the book to find out which character is which ;7 ) And sure, it's kind of amusing to watch him try so hard to make his 'masters' look so wonderful only to have it backfire and make them look like even bigger assholes. But it also makes for a book almost devoid of any interesting characters and makes the story really hard to get into or care about.

The 'sound and fury'--the awesome Tad Williams' brand of evocative, atmospheric descriptions--are here, but take some time to get started. The beginning of the book is kind of stilted, but that wears off eventually and the book becomes very readable. But that's not enough to make it a satisfying read, because these places and events, as beautifully described as they are, are all pointless. Epic-sounding adventures begin but then culminate in (literally) stick-in-the-mud underwhelming action. People go searching for miracle cures, find something that works partially, and then instead of investigating further why it works and why it doesn't, just wander off like moody toddlers. Urgent visions from the future appear and then turn out to be messages so generic and pointless that hallmark would consider them too dumb to put on their cards. It's very puzzling why anyone would waste the effort of sending such a vision across time and space. And ultimately no one learns much of anything and no character growth or change happens. I mean, we are told that so-and-so was changed after such-and-such, but actually everyone is the same asshole they were before, it's just that their dysfunctional lives, families, and societies are catching up to them.

TLDR: Nowhere near the quality of Tad William's other novels. No epic action, no wonder or mystery, no heartwarming moments, no interesting characters. Nor does it add anything significant or new to the lore of the world of Osten Ard.