I better stop with this metaphor before I get in to deep.Īnyway Otherland is interesting enough and well written enough that I'll look around for Volume II (River of Blue Fire) when it comes out in paperback next year. It's like long foreplay, which can be good, but when you have to wait several months before getting to the really steamy parts, the foreplay has to be a bit more than just good to keep the memory alive or the steamy parts (that's volume II) have to be really, really hot. The really hard question is whether the book is worth reading or not, I'm really not sure because the book has one more problem the plot never really takes off until the very end. I guess that you are getting the picture here. The background milieu is fairly detailed and interesting, but not interesting in and of itself. The plot is interesting, but not gripping. The characters are nice and deep enough that I care about them, but I couldn't really identify with them. While I can't put my finger on any real faults in the book, I can't point to anything really fantastic or amazing in it either.
TAD WILLIAMS OTHERLAND CITY OF GOLDEN SHADOW SERIES
It's so easy when a series is so clearly good (like Nights Dawn by Hamilton) or when it's clearly bad (and I luckily can't think of any real stinkers off the top of my head). This somewhat ups the stakes when one has to decide whether to recommend a book or not. The answers will only be found in Otherland.City of Golden Shadow is the first volume in Tad Williams Otherland series.Įight hundred pages in a rather small font and only the first in a series. Is he part of The Grail Brotherhood? Does he oppose them? Or, as he sits like a spider at the center of a vast web, does he have ambitions of his own? However, youth and frailty are not enough to get you excused from saving the world.Īnd Mister Sellars, a strange old man on a military base, a prisoner of both the government and his own body, may be the greatest mystery of all. As he flees from the bloody battlefields of World War I to a castle in the sky, and onward to lands beyond imagining, he must not only evade his terrifying pursuers, but solve the terrible riddle of his own identity.įourteen-year-old Orlando is also the invincible barbarian Thargorm, but only in his imagination. Paul Jonas is lost, seemlingly adrift in space and time. With the heart of a poet and the soul of a shaman, he will journey with Renie on this quest into the very heart of darkness. Xabbu is a Bushman, come to the city to learn skills which may save the spirit of his tribe. When people around her begin to die, she realizes she has stumbled onto something she is not meant to know, a terrifying secret from which there is no turning back. But when her young brother is struck down by a bizarre and mysterious illness, Renie swears to save him. Renie Sulaweyo, a teacher and the backbone of her family, proud of her African heritage, has fought all her life simply to get by. But every age has its heroes, and unusual times call for unusual champions: Fewer still are willing or able to take up the challenge of this perilous and seductive realm. Only a few have become aware of the danger. And somehow, bit by bit, it is claiming the Earth's most valuable resource -its children. The best minds of two generations have labored to build it. Incredible amounts of money have been lavished on it.
Surrounded by secrecy, it is home to the wildest dreams and darkest nightmares. Reviewįirst book in New York Times-bestselling author Tad Williams's cyberpunk fantasy series - "Tad Williams is the brightest and best of the fantasists." ―Neil Gaiman, author of American Gods
Otherland is Tad Williams's finest hour, an astonishing work of fiction that is truly destined to become a classic. But a blood-chilling conspiracy involving the world's most powerful individuals now threatens to shatter this world to its very core. The first in a four-book series, City of Golden Shadow is a complex suspense novel of the near future, where virtual reality has expanded to encompass all aspects of society and national, physical, and mental boundaries are limited only by the virtue or darkness of the imagination, offering an entirely new level of freedom to people in all walks of life. Now, DAW Books is proud to present Tad Williams's groundbreaking new masterpiece, his most compelling work to date Otherland a bold new vision of an all-too possible tomorrow. New York Times best-selling author Tad Williams has become a force to be reckoned with in the publishing world, as is evident from the enormous popularity and critical acclaim for his spectacular Memory, Sorrow, and Thorn series.
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