OK, so I have been in a retro/classic reading phase as I wait for the last book in The Wheel of Time series my all time favorite (which I am sure is obvious because of my "name"), having re-read The Belgariad (David Eddings) and The Sword of Shannara (Terry Brooks), both of which were still enjoyable series. Then I picked up The Dragon Bone Chair by Tad Williams, the first in the "trilogy"* Memory, Sorrow & Thorn. (Named after the 3-swords of power the series focuses on.) When I was much, much younger I read the book, but never did go on to read the others, so I was looking forward to a new experience. Boy was I ever sorry.....
Holy crap is the "hero" ever useless!! I mean in the entire first book, The Dragon Bone Chair, of ~600 pages, he does one thing - 1 - that could be called mildly heroic; he bashes the skull in of a hunter who is trying to kill the Sithi (think, elf) he has trapped, from behind; then releases said Sithi from the trap. Every other thing that happens to him, and the book really should be called, Watch What doodoo I Throw at Poor Simon Next, he gets through by a combination of luck and someone/thing else saving his ass. I cannot tell you how many chapters were ended with him going unconscious from injury, fatigue or whatever!! Many of those times he wakes in a different place being cared for my his saviour. The dude could do nothing. NOTHING! OK, earlier in his sneaking around the castle he locates the missing Prince being held in a cell under the castle and gets his "Master" (the guy teaching him stuff) who organizes them to rescue the prince and get him out, that was mildly heroic. So two things that were mildly heroic in a book of 600 or so pages. This book is really all about watching the main character go through one crap situation after another and barely survive.
The next book, The Stone of Farewell, picks up with Simon and a few friends (read: protectors/saviours because he would have been long dead without them and would have had NO CHANCE of getting past the first 1/3rd of the first book without them) are in a keep held by the rescued prince and his followers. He gets a little soldier training before setting off with a buch of others to find one of the sword in the far frozen north. More crap happens and he does next to nothing to help, but then they get there and they find the sword but the iceworm comes out!! Aaarrggh we allz is gonna die! But no, our intrepid hero gets his hand on the sword and (mostly because if he does stop and turn to face the dragon he will fall off a huge cliff and die) he turns and faces the dragon, giving it a wound with the sword - but then getting knocked unconscious by the dragon as it passes him and falls down the cliff to crash throught the ice into the water below. Of course, this act gets him all kinds of props by the survivors and he is dubbed Simon, Dragon Slayer - even though everyone is pretty-sure that the dragon is not dead. That was the end of his doing anything really cool. He gets knocked unconscious some more and is there when others do stuff, oh and he has a nice vacation in a mystica Sithi city of curtains (no permanent structures of any kind, just colorful drapes everywhere) before setting off to find everyone else. In the mean time there is a huge massive, tragic battle back at the castle where the prince and about a dozen others barely escape with their lives. (No chance of heroics for Simon there!) Eventually the seperate groups congregate at the Stone of Farewell. Oh, and after the one time with the dragon, Simon never really uses the sword again for anything remotely cool.
The last books(s), To Green Angel Tower part 1 & 2, start at the stone and our hero getting knighted for his exceptional service to the prince. (Obviously, the prince was not there for his constant unconsciousness and being rescued constantly.) Simon even gets some training under the greatest knight of the realms, a historic figure who awes everyone, he's totally awesome even if he is around 70 years old. Well, young Simon takes of with the princess (she was in the other books, just not much to mention, though she was more heroic than Simon in most cases) so she can confront her father - the bad guy - and they promptly get in lots of trouble, captured and saved with Simon not even being able to take on some commoners after all of his cool knight training. Of course, they eventually get separated and Simon is left to wander dark tunnels by himself going slowly mad (basically). Even in the climatic confrontation with the big-bad(s) it is not Simon who saves the day, but the princess. Simon is basically helpless doing exactly what the big bad(s) wants. Heck, what really saves the day is that one big-bad fails in his bid to control the other big-bad which gives the princess enough time to shoot her father with her bow. Then, just because Simon ends up being a descendant of an old royal blood-line he gets to be co-ruler of the kingdom with the princess; King Useless and Princess I Shot My Dad. Bloody wonderful!!
Why did I stick through it, you might ask? Well, I was just waiting for the time the hero would get to be heroic, thinking it had to happen...right?!? Of course, once I go into the last book(s) it was just pure stubbornness on my part - and it had become a bit of a masochistic situation I just couldn't break away from. It got to be humorous in Simon's ineptitude. He didn't need to become the greatest warrior or anythign like that, I would have settled for at least kind of cool/capable.
To me this would be like playing in a Rolemaster game, where the characters are all made to be below average and never really get past 1st or 2nd level - in other words: useless.
*I use trilogy because while there are only 3-named books in the series the last book was so big it had to be broken up into 2 physical books, To Green Angel Tower part 1 and part 2.
