Book Review: "The Navigator's Children"

The last book in Tad Williams "The Last King of Osten Ard" is a magnificent, beautiful, and inspiring piece of epic fantasy fiction.

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Warning: Full spoilers for the book ahead.

I first read Tad Williams’ Memory, Sorrow, and Thorn when I was in high school, and I remember being utterly swept away by it. It’s one of the few fantasy series that I’ve returned to again and again, and it has never failed to reward a reread. When I heard that Williams was going to return to the world of Osten Ard with a new quartet, I was beyond ecstatic, and I blazed my way through each volume as it was released.

Now, at last, we have the conclusion to this magnificent sequel series, and in The Navigator’s Children Williams has once again demonstrated why he is one of the greatest and most talented writers working in the fantasy genre. In this sprawling and mammoth volume, moreover, he also shows that there is still a great deal of energy and potency in epic fantasy, for all that this particular subgenre seems to have fallen a bit out of fashion in recent years.

The book begins in a moment of crisis for everyone, regardless of where they happen to be in Osten Ard. The Hayholt is little more than a smoldering ruin, Simon and Miramele both believe that the other is dead, Queen Utuk’ku prepares her final revenge on everyone she believes has wronged her and sought to destroy her people and her family. Various other characters, Norn and Sithi, Hernystiri and Erkynlander, and everyone else, find their loyalties and beliefs tested. In short, this is a helluva book, and boy does it pack a punch!

Williams, as always, has a keen command of narrative, and he keeps the story moving along at a brisk pace, shuttling between a sprawling cast of characters comprised of Norns, Sithi, and humans, all of whom have their part to play in the great battle between Utuk’ku and the rest of sentient kind. There are moments of heartbreak, to be sure and, even though I know that Williams isn’t the kind to kill off characters that we love just for dramatic effect (looking at you, George R.R. Martin), the title of the series does suggest that Simon might be the last person who rules over a united Osten Ard. The novel doesn’t entirely answer this question one way or another, but it’s clear that the days of the High Ward as it used to exist are numbered. Less clear is whether this is a good or a bad thing, and I appreciate Williams’ willingness to not answer this question definitively one way or another. Not only does it save room for a sequel–which, given one of the later chapters of the book, seems more likely than not–but it’s also an accurate reflection of the political difficulties and ambiguities of our own world.

In less capable hands than Williams it would be easy to lose oneself in the midst of all of the various points of view, but he always takes care to ground us and to keep us firmly rooted in his world and with his characters. Even those who are villainous, including the sneering and duplicitous Pasavalles, are richly and keenly developed. However, for all that he yearns to bring the High Ward to its knees and destroy everything Miramele and Simon have sought to build, he pales in comparison to the Norn Queen and her world-obliterating intentions.

Indeed, it’s my considered opinion that any great epic fantasy saga has to have a powerful villain, and they don’t come more powerful and more tragic and doomed than Utuk’ku. As the oldest being in all of Osten Ard she bears a heavy burden, and she has never been able to shake off her enduring hatred of the mortals who killed her son. The Navigator’s Children, however, shows just how far she is willing to go in her efforts to gain revenge: rather than allow the world to go on, she has decided to unleash the horror of Unbeing on everyone and everything.

Yet for all that she is decidedly maniacal and unflinching in her desire to bring about the vengeance she has so long sought, there’s also something a little sad about Utuk’ku. This is a creature, after all, who saw the downfall and destruction of her former home, the death of her son, and the conquest of her new home by the same upstart mortals who took away the one person she seems to have loved. All of this isn’t to say that her actions are in any way justified or excusable, but Williams is wise to show us the complexity that lurks behind the villainy, as well as showing us how it could be that her own people could allow themselves to be ruled by such a mad creature.

It’s for this reason that the actions of Viyeki and his daughter Nezeru are all the more impactful. Both of them have been raised in the restrictive and rigid culture of the Norns but, as we’ve seen throughout the series, they are willing to ask questions, difficult as doing such a thing might be in a culture that privileges and emphasizes obedience above all things. In doing so, they play a key role in paving the way to a new future, one that will, hopefully, be a more just and peaceful period than the one that preceded it.

Obviously there is a lot of existential conflict in The Navigator’s Children, but this is a work of fantasy that also works because of Williams’ ability to meaningfully explore and interrogate interpersonal relationships. Sometimes, these are the ones between family members–between, say, Tzoja and her daughter Nezeru, or between Simon and his grandchildren Morgan and Lillia–but at others it’s about relationships between those of different races. The romance between Nezeru and Morgan, for example, is one of the most thought-provoking and touching in the series, and I was glad that it got the emotional resolution it deserved.

As with so many other of Williams’ epic fantasy works, history plays a major role in the story. The weight of the past weighs heavily on all of the characters and the races of which they are a part. Simon and Miramele, of course, feel this particularly keenly, and among other things they grapple with whether the High Ward should be dissolved rather than held together. One gets the feeling that Utuk’ku’s long tyranny over the Norns–and her willingness to destroy her people rather than let her go on without her–has shown them that all political entities must grow and change and that it is better that it be done methodically than at the point of a sword.

In the end, The Navigator’s Children proposes that there must always be a reckoning for the wrongs of the past, that it is a mistake to continue living on as if they had never happened. The enslavement of the Tunekada’ya by the Norns, the forging of the High Ward through battle and bloodshed, the long estrangement between the Sithi and the Norns, all of these find their resolution by the end. There is loss and heartbreak–one of my favorite characters dies–but in the end one also gets the sense that the arc of the universe does, at least in the realm of fantasy, bend toward justice and peace.

As a reviewer on Goodreads so aptly put it, Williams has always been a deeply humane writer, by which the author means that there is always reason for hope and the actions, and intentions, of the heroes do actually matter and can make the difference between victory and terrible defeat. Game of Thrones or House of the Dragon this is not. In Williams’ view of the universe–at least as this has been expressed through the various tales set in Osten Ard–people do good things because they are good and they need doing, not for some cynical attempt to grab power. Even Utuk’ku isn’t some vengeful little ingrate like Joffrey or Viserys but, instead a being who has endured centuries of endless torment and guilt until her mind is overthrown.

I just happened to finish reading The Navigator’s Children at the same time as I watched Gladiator II. Though they are obviously very different texts–one a big-budget epic blockbuster and the other a doorstop of an epic fantasy novel, they are both continuations of beloved stories that are now several decades old. Unlike its big-screen counterpart, however, The Navigator’s Children, and The Last King of Osten Ard more generally, never lets the shadow of the original trilogy subvert its own intentions and its own identity. We come to love and appreciate the new characters just as much as we do the ones from the original series (if you don’t love Simon and Miramele and Tiamak, then I don’t know what to tell you). What’s more, these characters–particularly Prince Morgan and the half Norn/half human Nezeru, grow and change and develop as the series goes on, grappling with weighty questions such as identity and love and heartbreak and what it means to live with uncertainty.

The Navigator’s Children, like the very best of epic fantasy, both offers us an escape from our world and encourages us to critically examine and think about the weighty questions we face as we gaze down the road toward our own uncertain future. It manages to be many things at once: a warning about the dangers of authoritarianism, a treatise about the nature of history, a utopian tale of good and justice triumphing over evil and cruelty. As he has for so long, Tad Williams offers us epic fantasy in its purest, most achingly beautiful form.

It’s needed now more than ever.