I remember reading Tad Williams as he wrote part of the Shadowmarch series as an online novel in the early oughts and that being a much more fascinating world. The Memory, sorrow, and thorn series references a sort of European-esque world. What was more intriguing for me, which could be flaw or charm, is the sense of time. The novel spans a year in which some main characters mature from their youth. Other characters are older, but despite the narrative moving from the youth's point of view, the older characters seem to have the same sense of things being so very long ago. The author didn't seem to have the insight of how things that seem so long ago to someone born recently seem so much closer to someone who lived through it.

It is apparently a well respected series, but -- without having reread Shadowmarch recently, i suspect it's better.