The War of the Flowers/YMMV


 * Complete Monster: There are several truly despicable characters here, but probably the worst are Hellebore's two sons- biological son Anton, who is the fairy equivalent of a sociopathic Mad Scientist, and the adopted Terrible Child, who, as his name suggests, is pretty much an avatar of pure evil.
 * Developing Doomed Characters: As with all of Williams's DoorStoppers, it takes 100+ pages for the action proper to get started.
 * Harsher in Hindsight: Williams was tempted (possibly pressured) to remove the initial attack by the dragons because of something that happened during writing: 9-11-01. The similarity is striking and, for some, unpleasant.
 * High Octane Nightmare Fuel: The irrha. There's a lot of High Octane Nightmare Fuel in this book, really, but the irrha definitely takes the cake.