The Dragonbone Chair

by Tad Williams

Reviewed by Ruby

Simon is a simple kitchen boy in the Hayholt, the seat of power of Osten Ard. More to get him out of the way, he is sent to apprentice with Doctor Morgenes, the castle’s sorcerer, but that turns out to save his life. With the King dead and his eldest son taking the throne many things have changed for the worse. The younger brother has vanished and many people are saying he is plotting a rebellion; the north lands are becoming dangerous as highwaymen and creatures of fables are attacking and the mysterious and twisted Pryrates has the new King’s ear. When Simon discovers Pyrates has been consorting with the Sithi, an ancient race he is nearly killed, but Morgenes gets him away.

Now Simon is on his own in the wild, trying to make his way to the prince’s castle to bring him news of the darkness in the Hayholt. The only problem is Pyrates wants him and nothing will stop the dark wizard from getting want he wants.

I did not enjoy this book. I really didn’t like the style of writing and there were places that the story dragged. I’m guessing that since this book is the first in a trilogy that it was setting up for the other two but I didn’t find it interesting enough to continue reading the series.

There was a lot of story-telling and dreams and people complaining and travelling. There were also some action scenes but those were few and far between and really didn’t do anything to pick up the pace of the book.

Some of the characters were interesting but there were a lot thrown at the reader in a short amount of time, so that most of them were hard to keep straight. The ones that we actually got to know were okay, nothing really spectacular or memorable.

Grade: D