Tad Williams is one of my favorite authors.
He is also arguably the greatest wordsmith of our time. The man simply knows how to bring together a group of words to convey emotion and story. He also uses a lot of words, painting a gorgeous setting or highlighting a character’s motivations or enacting a battle sequence. From the first time I read The Dragonbone Chair, I knew Tad to be something special and unique in the fantasy genre.
Imagine my curiosity at how Tad would approach a medium where less words is actually more…
Tad has written several short stories. I’ve only read one of them, the story in Legends. It was a long time ago and I do not remember much from that anthology. I was excited to see him included in Warriors, the forthcoming anthology edited by George R. R. Martin and Gardner Dozois, because even though I’ve forgotten story particulars after all these years, the feeling Tad leaves behind remains.
Tad didn’t disappoint this time out either.
In fact, he overcame all of my expectations for the entire Warriors anthology, with the short story titled And Ministers of Grace.
Here’s why.
The premise in And Ministers of Grace is an ancient one, one that has plagued philosophers and theologians since Plato and Aristotle. Tad has written a science fiction piece, centered around two planets—Archimedes and Covenant. Both are extreme in their beliefs. Archimedes is filled with a populace of Rationalists, those who only believe what they scientifically can understand. Covenant is populated by Abramites, those who listen to and lead their lives by the scripture of the Spirit.
As you can imagine, these two sides are in a bitter war with one another that spans worlds.
In the middle of the conflict, Tad has created one of the best characters I’ve ever read—Lamentation Kane.
Kane is a holy assassin for Covenant, a Guardian on a mission of utmost importance: Infiltrate the capital city of Archimedes and kill the Prime Minister. When the Spirit is taken away from him though so he can complete that mission, Kane enters a spiritually gray area where right and wrong begin to bleed together.
Like many of the great short stories of science fiction’s past, And Ministers of Grace highlights current social and cultural differences in our own world, in this case the extremism that seems to be so prevalent.
That is what I like about it most.
Tad is a highly-intelligent man, a writer who brings that into his work. But that is not the only aspect to this new novella. And Ministers of Grace brims with vigor and excitement from beginning to end. Tad has created a very real world of conflict that in many ways mirrors our own, and through that creation Kane walks, a competent killer using all means at his disposal to complete his quest. The realities of both worlds feel real to me as I see them in our own; the science that allows Kane to transform his body into a killing machine was fascinating to behold and just plain cool.
It is an extremely creative piece.
Yesterday Robin Hobb mentioned how George and Gardener took her short story and chiseled it down to a finely-cut diamond. I see this in Tad’s short story as well.
I think And Ministers of Grace will be at the top of those novellas people love in Warriors.
I can’t wait to hear what others have to say!
I think this story is somewhat problematic. On the one hand, Tad Williams is a very good author and, as I’ve said before, if he hadn’t gone down the epic fantasy route earlier in life I suspect he’d be now regarded as the American Neil Gaiman. He has that same versatility of settings and ideas, but I think is somewhat underrated because of his attachment to the epic fantasy genre (although I rank OTHERLAND as his best work).
This story is interesting and shows that Williams should do a full-on SF space opera (or interplanetary adventure) at some point. In terms of tone and attitude the story actually reminds me of Richard Morgan, with the badass cyborg (sort of) warrior thing going on. However, the philosophical/religious angle fell a bit flat, probably for reasons of space (Williams, as we can tell, likes to sprawl a bit with his narratives), and I couldn’t work out exactly what he was trying to say. Mindless religious devotion is bad? Extreme ultra-atheism is also bad? They should meet in the middle somewhere? Difficult to say.
A solid story, but for me not as good as Hobb’s or Martin’s, or Williams’ previous short story (in SONGS OF THE DYING EARTH), which was utterly brilliant.
I don’t know either, Adam. Is it important for him to take a stance, one side or the other? I’ve only read the novella once, but it seems to me Tad was moving away from the religious extreme angle.
But the Rationalists seemed to have no redeeming culture, no redeeming personal qualities.
Maybe that’s the point. The truth is in the middle? I could see Tad making a stance in the middle.
I really hope this is a prequel to a much larger story.