WAR OF THE FLOWERS, THE by Tad Williams - SIGNED FIRST EDITION BOOK
See all titles by Tad Williams
Theo Vilmos' life is about to take a real turn for the worse.
Not that it was ever that great
-- spending the last decade of his life as a singer in a succession of
not terribly successful Northern California rock bands isn't exactly a
dream come true. But what can Theo do? When his girlfriend Cat gets
pregnant, it seems like it's time to give up his irresponsible dreams
and settle down. Until now, Theo has always skated through life --
getting by on good looks and charm but short on accomplishments, never
quite fitting in. The only place that he's ever felt truly right, the
only world to which he's ever really belonged, is onstage, enveloped in
music, singing his heart out. But isn't that a pretty immature way for a
thirty-year-old to feel? Now Cat is pregnant and things are going to
change big time. Theo will be forced to change, too. So maybe this is a
good thing -- just what he needs. But, as Theo discovers, he hasn't hit
bottom yet, not by a long shot. He soon finds himself alone,
heartbroken, and plagued by a recurring nightmare -- and he can't shake
the feeling that these bad things are happening to him for a reason.
When he comes across a mysterious old letter from his grandmother's
brother, a man named Eamonn Dowd, and with it the key to a safe deposit
box, he decides to investigate. What he finds is an old handwritten
book.
Seeking solace and escape in a
cabin in the woods, Theo begins to read his great-uncle's book and
quickly becomes mesmerized. Dowd writes of another world -- the world of
Faerie -- but it is nothing like the familiar fairyland of childhood
stories. Caught up in the book's compelling tale, Theo begins to hear
strange sounds and experience odd fears. Then one night, all his fears
manifest when a horrifying thing tries to break through his front door
-- a terrible hunting-spirit in the body of a dead man. Terrified and
trapped, Theo is saved only by the intervention of a tiny, foul-mouthed,
winged sprite named Applecore, who transports him through a surreal
portal into the realm of Faerie. But this fairyland is even darker and
more bizarrely modern than Eamonn Dowd had described, similar to the
mortal world and yet dangerously different, and although he can't
imagine why, there are creatures in it who intend Theo Vilmos serious
harm. Chased by corpselike cave trolls and the undead spirit which had
pursued him from his own world, at the mercy of immortal beings whose
personal and political affiliations are bafflingly unclear, and with
only the reluctant sprite Applecore for a guide, Theo begins a journey
that will lead him from the palacetowers of the most powerful and
treacherous of the fair folk to the camps of rebel goblins and other
places beyond his imagining, on a search for the true meaning of his
life -- before those who seek him can cut it mercilessly short.