I’ve heard of this novel on and off for years. It’s alright. Unless there’s a major twist coming, this is standard standard standard epic fantasy. Suffice it to say that the main character, Simon, is an orphaned servant boy whose mother died in childbirth and doesn’t know his father, who has an unusual name. That’s not a dealbreaker, but I think it does sum things up.

I believe it was an inspiration for Game of Thrones, and I can see why. It has the same multiple point-of-view structure, a looming succession war, and a mythical evil returning to the frozen north.

One thing I am curious about: the king whose death kicks things off is called both John Presbyter and Prester John, who are part of real Christian myth and history. If it’s just being used as a creative starting point, it’s a strange one that doesn’t as far as I know have any relation to the character in the novel. I wonder if the story connects to real history in some way.

I was enjoying the book in a low-energy way for awhile, but I didn’t finish it. I might eventually, but it’s very long and has serious problems (below). I was skimming hard by the time I quit.

If you want epic fantasy, you could do much worse (that barrel has no bottom), but that’s about it.

The Problems

  1. I think the single smartest thing about Game of Thrones is the low-magic world, and I don’t think it’s a coincidence that the series gets worse as that becomes less true. The Dragonbone Chair is hyper-high-magic, and it takes up a lot of time, and it’s not interesting. Simon apprentices to an alchemist-type wizard who mixes potions and conducts experiments. There’s an evil-type wizard who tortures people and has a weird voice and scary eyes and corrupts the king. There’s a nature-type witch who lives in a hut with feet and turns into an owl and is wise and stern. There are elf-types (Sithi) and gnome-types (trolls, who talk like Yoda). There are dragons and prophecies and magic swords. The apparent ultimate enemy is “the Storm King”. It’s exhausting, and each new instance of hyper-high-magic just devalues all the previous ones a little bit more.
  2. It was 1988, so maybe people didn’t know yet that having multiple (!) gibberish fantasy languages and multi-page songs is against the law.
  3. The book overuses dream sequences to a catastrophic degree.
  4. I like The Silmarillion despite its flaws, and one thing I particularly respect is that Tolkien found the history interesting, thought we might too, and just told it to us. It would be a much worse book if everything was framed by characters saying it’s too late to get to the inn tonight, but I suppose I have time for one more story/song/round of questions. Anyway, that’s what happens in The Dragonbone Chair.