War of the Flowers

Just finished War of the Flowers by Tad Williams. I'm kind of a sucker for him, so I was excited to see some books by him I hadn't read yet when I was at the bookstore the other day. This one is just one book; he tends to write multi-part epics, each volume being over 500 pages. Wordy. But, if you like sci-fi and fiction, he's quite fun to read, so I like the length.

This one is about a 30-year-old guy whose life is going horribly and then he's suddenly whisked off to an alternate world that's all fantastic and stuff. He gets all wrapped up in that world and its various societal changes and impending war, and it turns out that his help is needed to save the world! (surprise!) The whole time he's being pursued by evil forces, including an unstoppable "Terminator"-like creature.

Williams introduces many characters and plot thickeners, and deftly ties them all together. I felt like he did that perhaps too well in this book. As I approached the climax of the story, I realized there were still a couple plot thickeners he hadn't resolved yet... and lo! here they come to help resolve the story. So, I wasn't very surprised by the resolution. It was still satisfying though.

Pretty fun stuff, a long but swift read.