The Dragonbone Chair by Tad Williams is the first in the four book Memory, Sorrow, Thorn fantasy  series (okay, this series is SORT of a four book series).  I've been through this series twice now, and I like it better the second time around.  This is an overall solid fantasy series and is a good choice for readers who don't want to read a ten plus book fantasy series.

This is the slowest book in the series because it has a lot of set up, but it does create an interesting contrast between Simon's previous life and his trials/adventures.  I remember struggling through this book the first time and enjoying it the second read-through because I could see a lot of interesting foreshadowing that I had not picked up on before.  

Williams typically likes to take his time to develop his characters and story line.  In this particular book, we do see pretty young characters who will eventually grow and mature as the series progresses.  For Simon, this series really becomes a coming of age tale, which was good for me because I found him incredibly annoying when first meeting him in this book.  Honestly, I do prefer more mature protagonists (see Terry Goodkind's Sword of Truth series), but Simon does make a lot of progress in this book (and a lot more in this series).

If this is your first time reading this book, the series gets much faster-paced with each book.  To Green Angel Tower is the best out of this trilogy, by far.  I had my husband read this series, and I think he really enjoyed it for the most part (and he's a tough cookie to win over with new authors that he's never read before). Four stars.