Product Description

Otherland, an incredibly complex and detailed virtual reality, has appeared. Surrounded by secrecy, it is home to the wildest dreams and darkest nightmares of its users and its creators. Vast amounts of money have been lavished on it. The best minds of two generations have laboured to build it. And somehow, bit by bit, it is claiming the Earth's most valuable resource - its children. The story begun in OTHERLAND continues in this, the second volume of an astonishing series which is destined to become a landmark in imaginative fiction.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #105770 in Books
• Published on: 1999-07-29
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 816 pages

Amazon.co.uk Review
Tad Williams made his name in fantasy with the immense "Memory, Sorrow and Thorn" trilogy (1988-93). His "Otherland" quartet, opening with City of Golden Shadow (1996), is mid-21st-century SF set in an ultra-sophisticated software universe containing countless worlds. This episode features a deadly nature reserve of giant insects, a poisoned Oz, a madcap cartoon reality, London as in The War of the Worlds, 16th-century Venice, Xanadu, ancient Egypt, the Odyssey's Ithaca and the Drones Club. Otherland is the playground of the monstrously rich and unscrupulous Grail Brotherhood, who hope for on-line immortality and are abducting children's souls into their VR system. Opposing them is the enigmatic "Circle", plus a handful of ordinary folk who've penetrated Otherland and are trapped there, floating from world to world on the digital river of the title. There's a spy in this group, though; Otherland's operating system is becoming unstable; the Nemesis program that hunts down software anomalies seems murderously out of control...

Williams writes fluently and evocatively, conjuring up a vivid succession of virtual realities as he manipulates numerous storylines inside and outside Otherland, climaxing with multiple cliffhangers. It's slightly frustrating, though, that halfway through the series we've learned little more--especially about the tantalizing suggestion that Otherland is a metaphysical threat to "real" reality--than emerged in book 1. Next volume: Mountain of Black Glass. --David Langford

Review
'True speculative grandeur' - TIME OUT 'A big colorful novel full of real-world conspiracy and virtual reality wonders, with characters worth caring about' - LOCUS 'Tad Williams proves himself as adept at writing science fiction as he is at writing fantasy. Best of all, however, are Williams's well-drawn sympathetic characters . . .' PUBLISHERS WEEKLY

LOCUS
`A big colorful novel full of realworld conspiracy and virtual reality wonders, with characters worth caring about'

Customer Reviews

Masterpiece
Although I am a big fantasy books fan, I usually avoid science fiction books, since a large percentage of them are just cyberpunk nonsense and very badly written and it is hard to get hold of a real masterpiece once you read the classic ones. Having read (and loved) the Williams fantasy books, I decided to give Otherland a try and never regretted it: the book stands among the (say 10) best I ever read (classic literature included).

Williams is really talented and the book is exceptionally well-written. The author takes great care to set up the characters and the background,while there are some great ideas in the book. Being a computer scientist, I am happy to say that this is one of the few books where even most of the wildest technology-related ideas manage not to sound silly and have an actual basis. Williams is perhaps a bit influenced by other SF books, but the result is a very original and gripping story that stands out from the usual SF stuff. Just one advice: be prepared that all four Otherland books should be considered as one book in four volumes, after finishing each one of them the story does not come to any kind of end, you must be ready to get the next one.

Surprisingly good..
I bought Otherland for around £2 second-hand (and knowing aboslutely nothing about Tad Williams) and I have to say it's much better than I'd expected.

I've been systematically avoiding Tad Williams for fear of disappointment (not being a huge fan of the newer Fantasy / Sci-Fi novels) but this one blew me away - it's superbly written with plausible plots and characters (a rare combination) in addition to some truly horrific and breathtaking moments. I swam through the book in three days and loved every last word of it.

I can understand the technological criticisms some have levelled at it but, as a programmer, I cannot personally see much which is not conceivably achievable (besides, sci-fi ought to be, at least in part, fantastic :) It *is* cleverly done though - not once in the book did it seem, in any way, to be a detached experience.

Is it flawed? Absolutely... almost all books are. However, the flaws it does have in no way detract from the experience of reading it. Give it a try - personally I hate the idea that I might have never read this one.

Otherland: Volume I - City of Golden Shadow
City of Golden Shadow, the first volume of Otherland, is a masterpiece - assuming that you can easily handle the fact that you'll need to buy the other three books 'and' aren't phased about having to read large novels. Tad Williams' takes a good, well used plot idea (a small Good vs a large Evil), adds in several seemingly unconnected and capaviting sub-plots, twists the idea on its head, and somehow weaves them together into a massive behemoth of a storyline.

This book was recommended to me by a good friend, and as a science fiction / fantasy fan I didn't hesitate in buying it. I read through the first few hundred pages without too much bother, but something snagged at me - while all the storylines were interesting and all happening at the same time, they were unconnected. It was like 'Die Hard' and 'Rush Hour' happening at the same time, both good films yet neither of them affected each other. They I hit a plot where two of the storylines interacted with each other, and although the encounter was brief, it made me rush through the rest of the novel. In the following chapter, another two of the storylines collided. I regret reading the book so fast now, with no other books in reserve.

If you aren't discouraged by having to read five hundred pages before the main 'trigger' of the storyline begins then this is for you, and you will find the rewards bountiful. If you like modern day, sci-fi, or fantasy novels, then the Otherland series will satisfy any and all of these urges.