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The War of the Flowers

By Tad Williams

(23)

| Hardcover | 9781841491271

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Critics

The Best Reviews: Tad Williams, The War of the Flowers

"A great stand alone fantasy" Minor league California rocker Theo Vilmos feels he is at the bottom of the food chain when matters turn worse when he loses his pregnant girlfriend. Thirty, alone, and his music going nowhere, Theo feels down. He decide ... (read full critics)

thebestreviews published on Fri, 17 Sep 2010

The War of the Flowers

Caught on the cusp of thirty, wannabee rock-star Theo Vilmos is drifts through life in San Francisco, his career in slow decline. His latest no-hope band is imploding, his day-job sucks. Abruptly, slow decline becomes sky-dive as his girlfriend misca ... (read full critics)

infinityplus published on Tue, 31 Aug 2010

3 Reviews

3 people find this helpful

Good stand alone fantasy

When I first started this book I have to admit that I wasn't that caught up in it, but I think that may have been whatever mood I was in at the time, because when I returned to it the next day I practicully devoured it.
The basic plot revolves around a journey from our world ito the world of F ... (continue)

When I first started this book I have to admit that I wasn't that caught up in it, but I think that may have been whatever mood I was in at the time, because when I returned to it the next day I practicully devoured it.
The basic plot revolves around a journey from our world ito the world of Faerie. The main protagonist Theo lives a pretty ordinary, but not very happy life until one day a faery called Applecore turns up and brings him to the land of Faeire where he becomes involved in political plots.
The world that Williams creates in this book is a very believable one. Normally I don't really enjoy those "crossing into other worlds" type of books, but this is a really good read. The reasons for the cross over are definite and the world of Faeire is by no means full of happy laughing unreal characters. Instead the faerie folk live realistic lives, aided in certain cases by magic.

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Dee said on Jul 20, 2007 about the Paperback edition | Add your feedback

I really liked this one, it was an original sort of universe, and very funny too. There were some great twists in it, and it is definitely one I can re-read with pleasure :) It's great to find a really good fantasy novel that is not part of some trilogy......

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Pia said on Dec 4, 2010 about the Paperback edition | Add your feedback

The faerie lords are at war, one of them has a pretty mischevious plan regarding the parallel world of humans and Theo, our unwilling human hero, is at the centre of the plot.
He finds himself suddenly plunged into faerie world where different laws rule and where technologie and science are so ... (continue)

The faerie lords are at war, one of them has a pretty mischevious plan regarding the parallel world of humans and Theo, our unwilling human hero, is at the centre of the plot.
He finds himself suddenly plunged into faerie world where different laws rule and where technologie and science are so incomprehensible to human eyes that they can only be catalogued as "magic"... but then faeries think just the same of our physics and mechanics!
The faerie world Williams depicts is very different from the setting we are used to: their society is similar to ours, with a big city, trains, buses, class racism. It is exactly a mirror of our society diseases: it is unjust, corrupted, fouled by political scheming and ambitions, but it also is energic, powerful, with hidden layers of unseemingly resourceful people.
The characters are quite well described, all along the book you come to know Theo Vilmos as well as yourself! The irony and cynism of the reluctant hero, and his sagacious comparisons with our world's assumptions about faerie world make this book very enjoyable, also thanks to the action, fast and well developed.
I've fallen in love with Theo Vilmos! He is so handsome and has such a humour, what a guy!
He is so realistic: I think the initial chapters are wonderful! Mr. Williams has suceeded in describing perfectly Theo's sorrows and loneliness, his struggle to find a path and build a new life, the difficulties of his mental wanderings and his existential doubts, so common among real people but so rarely put in such a linear way in a book (let alone a fantasy one!).
When I read this book I was in a very very difficult moment of my life and I found in Theo's dolorous eventful life a mirror of my own problems, a resonance with my own life so totally unexpected that it was almost unbelievable but also of great comfort.
My thanks to Mr. Williams for his great job of putting in words our real lives in a fantasy world.

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Alice Bridgwater said on Jun 3, 2009 | Add your feedback