Tad Williams is not exactly a noted Tolkien scholar but he is, without a doubt, one of the most imaginative science fiction and fantasy writers to set his own pace in the wake of Tolkien’s monumental shadow. Williams launched his career with the extremely innovative Tailchaser’s Song in 1986 and he has been repeatedly breaking the mold for science fiction and fantasy stories ever since.
Like Tolkien, Williams loves to play with the idea of a realm of Faerie that lies just beyond the horizon of human experience. Williams even played a Tolkienesque role as narrator from the Fairie-folk’s point of view in his book The War of the Flowers. There can be no doubt that Tad Williams wants to challenge the traditional points of view we consider to be staples of science fiction and fantasy.
So I was pleasantly surprised when Tad’s wife Deborah contacted us with an invitation to interview him. Tad’s latest book, Shadowrise (which touches on the Faerie mystique again), was just published last month. Our interview should have gone out then but too many other things got in the way.
Still, I’m pleased to say that the entire 3-page interview with Tad Williams is now live. We of course talked about more than just the book (in fact although the article was inspired by the book’s release we at Xenite.Org figured it would be fun to draw Tad into discussion of many other topics).
So please forgive my using a Tolkien Studies blog to promote an article with a non-Tolkien writer but if you’re at all familiar with Tad Williams’ books I think you’ll agree there is a certain sensibility in broaching the topic of our interview with him here.
Enjoy!