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Things are certainly ratcheting up in To Green Angel Tower: "We harness the great fear. In every land, brother is turned against brother. Plague and famine and the scourge of war turn men into raging demons."

Yikes! This message brought to you not by the Osten Ard Chamber of Commerce, but by a vile priest/sorcerer who isn't even the most powerful bad guy (or gal) populating the world of Memory Sorrow and Thorn, whose third volume, To Green Angel Tower, is such a whopper a single mass market paperback couldn't contain it.

Big, bursting, and possibly for the first time containing some real bloat, the third volume of Tad Williams' first trilogy is, in the end, utterly brilliant in its hugeness.

It occurred to me that this might be the best fantasy series ever written. Should I really be feeling these sorts of revelations in this, my third reading? Tackling the massive (more than 1,000 pages in trade paperback) concluding book in the trilogy, I've flipped my thinking about which is the best book in the series (it's this baby, not middle volume Stone of Farewell as I had always felt), and somewhat surprisingly, enjoyed this reading of the series most of all.

The construction of this series, the cast of characters and their perfect jigsaw-puzzle fit in the whole, the genius of all this that on the surface seems not that original at all but wriggles into new shapes right in your hand, really hits you when you step back to appreciate it. Williams' deft touch with minor characters pays off time and time again. Many folks who seem disagreeable or a bit villainous initially, such as Rachel the Dragon and Guthwulf and the self-loathing monk Cadrach, find redemption or play key roles. The familiar twisted in new ways, a remarkably layered story overall, very good writing � there are so many riches here in this series that served as the perfect link between traditional and modern, more brutal, fantasy.

The first half of this book has enough that just kicks ass, in an action sense, that it's easy to overlook the subtle shades of emotion that fill in every between-battle crack, that give meaning to the suffering and humanity to the striving.

"And to what purpose?" a character thinks during a battle. "Less than a man's lifetime has passed and here we are again, making more feasts for the vultures. Over and over and over. I am sick with it."

So many clever, meaningful interludes like this in a narrative that is unashamedly a slow burn. By this time, you know this world is rich and that Williams wants to feed you every last spoonful of it. This approach eventually does result in the low point of the series, contained in the book's second half (or To Green Angel Tower Part II in the mass market paperback). Yes, Simon does wander in tunnels (again) for an incredible length of time (and page count) here, during which Williams' writing becomes pedestrian, as if even he can't wait for the sparkling climax. Williams could have hit delete on a lot of this, but that journey does take us, in time, to a remarkable place and a wonderfully written conclusion that's satisfying in just about every way.

I think only early readings of The Lord of the Rings have filled me with this much awe, wonder, love, and sadness. And I was a much younger man then; I'm glad I can still feel all that.