Brothers of the Wind by Tad Williams

Mortals have come to Asu'a from the west with dire news: the dragon Hidohebhi has descended from the mountains to wreak destruction and death on innocent farmers and settlers. The immortal Sithi usually pay little heed to the doings of mortals, but, recognising that the dragon presents a threat to everyone, the fiery and proud young prince Ineluki rides out to confront the beast. His steadier, calmer brother Hakatri rides with him, but the power of the dragon is greater than they could have feared. Their quest to slay the beast takes them far across the lands of Osten Ard, and their adventure is chronicled by Pamon Kes, Hakatri's faithful servant.

Brothers of the Wind is a stand-alone prequel to Tad Williams' masterwork of epic fantasy, the Memory, Sorrow and Thorn trilogy, and its currently ongoing sequel quartet, The Last King of Osten Ard. Set more than a thousand years before the previous books in the series, it chronicles an important event from the backstory to those novels. It is also a short, self-contained work which can be read as a standalone.

Williams is best-known for his immense doorsteppers of books. Case in point, the final Last King of Osten Ard novel was recently deemed unpublishable in a single volume and has been split in two. However, Williams is also a skilled writer of shorter fiction, in which his always carefully-crafted prose and finely-honed characterisation is also given an impressive sense of pace and focus. That could be seen in The Heart of What Was Lost, his 2017 short novel released as a prequel to The Last King of Osten Ard, and can be seen even more here.

Brothers of the Wind can be read as a tragedy. It has two lead characters, Hakatri and Ineluki, both seen through the eyes of Hakatri's servant Pamon. We get a much clearer view of Hakatri, whilst Ineluki - destined to become the Storm King of Memory, Sorrow and Thorn - is a more transient figure, flitting in and out of the story according to events and his changeable mood. Seeing mythical characters from one series, described in awe or terms of legend, as real flash-and-blood characters in another can be deflating, but the POV device Williams employs here lets us both get to know Ineluki better without damaging or reducing his mythic power.

The novel is divided into several parts. In the first part, the brothers seek out the great dragon to slay it, only to be comprehensively defeated. They find themselves wandering western Osten Ard in search of allies, lore or weapons that can help them in their quest. This part of the book is fascinating, as we see lands we know much better from the earlier novels in a more primitive state of existence: the people of Hernystir before the kingdom becomes known as that, and many more areas where the Sithi are still extant. Williams is a great travelogue writer and worldbuilder, and his skills here are put to good use, painting this earlier era of Osten Ard's history in as much colour and detail as his larger books.

In the latter part of the novel, the great dragon is once again confronted, but the consequences of that confrontation have wide-ranging affects. Those who have read the other books will get glimpses of the path that Ineluki sets out on that will lead to the events of the Storm King's War, but others will be more concerned with the relationship with Pamon and Hakatri, which takes an interesting turn. The story turns into one of a servant caring for his master and having to make hard choices on behalf of another, sometimes in ways that hurt himself.

The sheer size of the average Williams novel allows for a relaxed pace, sometimes too relaxed (the very first Osten Ard novel, The Dragonbone Chair, famously takes the better part of 200 pages to get moving), but Brothers of the Wind (****½) moves faster and with greater focus. It starts off as an adventure and gradually turns into a tragedy of genuine moving power, as well as foreshadowing events in the other books in the setting. The novel is available now in the UK and USA.

The third volume in The Last King of Osten Ard, Into the Narrowdark, is due for publication in July, and should be followed by The Navigator's Children.

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Shocking no one, the next Tad Williams book will be published in two volumes

In news that will not be a surprise to anyone, the final volume of Tad Williams' Last King of Osten Ard series, The Navigator's Children, will be published in two volumes.

This is a matter of history repeating itself. To Green Angel Tower, the final volume of Memory, Sorrow and Thorn, Williams' prior work in the same world and possibly the longest epic fantasy novel ever written (and around the fifth-longest SFF novel of all time), was split into two volumes in paperback. The final book in the Shadowmarch series was also split into two volumes for publication, Shadowrise and Shadowheart. Williams deliberately paced his Otherland series as four volumes, fearing the same thing would happen again, and very nearly extended that series to five books as the final volume came in so long, but they were able to keep it to four.

At the moment it is unclear if the two volumes will be published as "Part I" and "Part II" or if they'll have to be retitled. Tad is currently rewriting and editing The Navigator's Children with a view to Part I being published in 2022 and hopefully Part II six to twelve months later.

Williams' next novel, Brothers of the Wind, a prequel to the entire Osten Ard saga so far, will be published this November.

New Tad Williams novel gets cover blurb

The publishers have confirmed a blurb for Brothers of the Wind, Tad Williams' next novel set in the world of Osten Ard.

This isn't the concluding novel in the Last King of Osten Ard trilogy, The Navigator's Children, which is expected later (Williams has already completed the novel and has been revising it for some time), but a new, short prequel book set a long time before the events even of The Dragonbone Chair (the first novel in the Memory, Sorrow and Thorn trilogy).

Pride often goes before a fall, but sometimes that prideful fall is so catastrophic that it changes history itself.

Among the immortal Sithi of Osten Ard, none are more beloved and admired than the two sons of the ruling family, steady Hakatri and his proud and fiery younger brother Ineluki - Ineluki, who will one day become the undead Storm King. The younger brother makes a bold, terrible oath that he will destroy deadly Hidohebhi, a terrifying monster, but instead drags his brother with him into a disaster that threatens not just their family but all the Sithi - and perhaps all of humankind as well.

Set a thousand years before the events of Williams's The Dragonbone Chair, the tale of Ineluki's tragic boast and what it brings is told by Pamon Kes, Hakatri's faithful servant. Kes is not one of the Sithi but a member of the enslaved Changeling race, and his loyalty has never before been tested. Now he must face the terrible black dragon at his master's side, then see his own life changed forever in a mere instant by Ineluki's rash, selfish promise.

Kes and his master will range the world, risking countless dangers and meeting both mortals and immortals of many kinds as they try to undo the tragedy that springs from Ineluki's fatal pledge. During this journey, the seeds are planted for events that will culminate centuries later in the Storm King's War in Memory, Sorrow, and Thorn and the dreadful Norn Queen Utuk'ku's assault on humanity in The Last King of Osten Ard.

In the end, Pamon Kes must question everything about his life - and risk everything, too - as he struggles to save his beloved master, Hakatri. But will anything Kes does be enough? Or has Ineluki's rash promise already set the entire world on an unstoppable course toward destruction?

Brothers of the Wind was previously scheduled for release in June 2021, although the UK publishers and several online bookstores are now showing it for release in November 2021, with The Navigator's Children to follow in October 2022. These dates are likely placeholders and I hope to confirm those soon.