How is a Tartan Like a Fantasy Epic?

The Dragonbone Chair by Tad Williams

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


More than one person recommended this book to me with the assertion that it was as good as Tolkien. So of course this influenced my reading, and as I read, I evaluated each chapter against Tolkien. It was easy to do because I recognized so many of the same elements; many of them were the same ones Tolkien himself took from the Scandinavian mythology. There was a lot of T.H. White in there,too. I kept score in my head, tallying up fantasy elements in two columns. There was Merlin/Gandalf/Morgenes, genealogies and the names of each character in all the languages of all the lands, a great forgotten army rebuilt on a forbidding mountain in the extremes of the known geography...

As the list went on,I might have come to the conclusion that the story was entirely derivative, except that it wasn't. Somewhere between pages two hundred and three hundred, the story gained traction, and suddenly I couldn't put it down. Despite the inevitable plot developments and recognizable elements, there were just enough unexpected events and pure inventions to keep me turning the pages in an obsessive rush to the end.

I began to think of epic fantasy trilogies like Scottish tartan. They are all plaid, composed of stripes of varying thickness, and even the color schemes are fairly limited. But each tartan pattern is instantly recognizable as unique to anyone familiar with them. Everyone has a favorite. Some are more elaborate than others, and the quality of the wool matters. But they are no less beautiful for all being plaid.



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