Flames Rising Project Manager, Monica Valentinelli, was delighted when Tad Williams agreed to an interview for Flames Rising. This interview gave Monica the chance to ask Tad “the” burning questions she’s always wondered about. Monica has reviewed a few of Tad William’s books for Flames, you can read her Shadowplay review and her War of the Flowers Review.

Tad Williams opens up about his writing style, favorite villains, and his new young adult fantasy series co-authored with Deborah Beale. So sit back and read along about veteran science fiction and fantasy writer Tad Williams, in this engaging interview.

Shadowplay is the second book in the Shadowmarch series, written by veteran novelist Tad Williams. Truthfully, I have not read Shadowmarch, the first of the three books in this trilogy—but I have read almost every other book that Williams has ever published. Picking up Shadowplay was an experiment, in the sense that I wasn’t sure whether or not I would need to read the first book. The result?

Shadowplay has very little recap from its predecessor—you can glean the details as you read on—and the first hundred pages proved difficult to me as a reader simply because I hadn’t read the events leading up to the scattering of the royal Eddon family and the takeover by the Tollys.

The War of the Flowers is written in such a way that you forget the fae archetypes that run amuck in this novel. Williams’ quality of writing gives a visual feel to the book that lets you revel in the myriad of faerie types he describes. Sprites, pixies, hobgoblins, tommy-knockers, ferishers, selkies, goblins, trolls, poleviks and nixies are just a small part of this tale. Each type of faerie has been distinguished from its archetype in such a way you feel that Williams collected several as if they were fragile butterflies. Not so breakable are the trolls. While ugly and useful for their strength, their endearing quality is that they are named after their favorite childhood “toy.”