Rating: 
Summary: Way too verbose -- needs a drastic crew cut
Review: This massive series started out very well. It got out of control. There are too many 'important' characters we have to keep track of over interminable diversions, and we only need the introductory things about their personal lives given at their introduction to us, not long digressions about their upbringing and early traumas while in the midst of all these dangerous situations in the Otherworld. Waste of time and newsprint. After the first volume, I would have given it five stars, but each succeeding volume subtracts a star. Some of the virtual worlds are very imaginative and well depicted -- like the Gormenghast house -- others are just stupid -- like the gigantic kitchen (which is actually stolen from a famous cartoon). After long periods of obfuscation, where the reader is just as confused as the protaganists (who can never get a straight answer from anybody), you just want to cry "HOLD!" Well, at the end of this one you at least find out who Paul Jonas is. It would not have detracted at all from the suspense if we (and he) had known that 950 pages earlier. Totally pointless agonizing not knowing why all these weird things are happening. This mega-novel really needs drastic pruning -- I mean something like 75% of it! Then it would be a classic of its genre. It is quite well written, but as with Stephen King books, I wish word processors had never been invented and authors had to write on expensive parchment with goose quills so that they could practice good economy.
Rating: 
Summary: Bloated and self indulgent
Review: This review is an open call for editors to once again return to practicing their craft. Many writers are by natured delighted with the sight of their own prose and it's is an editor's job to hack and slash all those lovely words back into a decent story (or at least to send the writer back to do their own hacking and slashing.) Mountain of Black Glass might have been about 100 pages in length if anyone had bothered with a simple concept like pacing and action moving the story line forward. As it stands now this book is not only boring it actually bordered on being silly. All these tours of one virtual reality after another with the characters in jeopardy, with little or nothing to gain from the adventure. I love long stories with multiple plots and interesting characters which is why I began Otherland in the first place. After reviewing my notes on the last 5 or 10 500+ page novels I've read I've realized that they're all bloated with what at best amounts to well written filler and at worst is simply meaningless drivel. I'll probably eventually read book number 4 and I have confidence that Mr. Williams can bring his story to a successful conclusion. I just wish he'd settled for a two book series instead of a 4 book series, because my guess is that's all the material he really had.
Rating: 
Summary: A Turn for the Better
Review: Mountain of Black Glass is the third volume in Williams's "Otherland" tetralogy. The fourth and final volume, Sea of Silver Light, is scheduled to be published in hardcover at the beginning of next year (March 2001, UK date). I read "Mountain" immediately after finishing George R.R. Martin's A Storm of Swords, and must admit I had some difficulty becoming interested again in Williams's parade of virtual worlds after Martin's gritty and intelligent tour de force. Still, after only a few hundred pages - hmm, wonder why that sounds sarcastic? - I found myself enjoying "Mountain" quite a bit more than its prequel, River of Blue Fire. The problem with "River" was as simple as it was devastating: there is no plot development to speak of and the entire book is simply one long, ineffectual succession of different virtual settings. In terms of narrative, it is, bluntly put, bad. But although this flaw has, in part, spilled over into "Mountain", this third instalment has one important redeeming feature: as the book progresses, the themes introduced by the first (and quite excellent) volume are taken up again and things start to move forward once more. If you are able to more or less forget "River" and can still manage to be convinced by Williams's creation, "Mountain" is rewarding. Not awesome, not masterful, but rewarding. And that's in spite of the extraordinary but quite incomprehensible ending. Bottom line: if Williams's and Martin's next volumes were to be published more or less at the same time (fat chance!) I'd change the order of reading them around. First Williams, then Martin. That way, you go from good to very much better. Bottomer line: Martin is writing his masterpiece. Williams is drafting.
Rating:
Summary: Worse Than Trudge
Review: I was afraid that nothing would happen. In River of Blue Fire, nothing happened. The characters ran through world after world, aimlessly. Nothing happened that was significant, plotwise. Mountain of Black Glass, sadly, carries on with this tradition. Except for the final fifty pages, nothing important happens whatsoever. At the end of City of Golden Shadow, Williams left us with a group of characters searching for Paul Jonas. It takes two books to simply unite them. It takes Williams more than 1000 damn pages of self-indulgence to move the story along that one little itty bit. The story throughout both books is stuck in a loop, which is broken down as follows: 1) Paul Jonas moves to new world. Mysterious woman visits him and says "This may be the last time I can visit you Paul, it is getting unbearably hard for me to visit you". Paul meets character Y who could help him, but Y doesn't feel like talking, or Paul gets chased out of world by same bad guys (Twins) before Y can talk. 2) Renie, !Xabbu, and friends move to new world. Renie loses consciousness. Explore new world and survive new environment. Renie listens to !Xabbu tell long boring story. Renie loses consciousness. Encounter bad guys. Renie loses consciousness. Move to next world. 3) Martine gives tacky "progress report". Nothing she says is of any interest or importance. 4) Dread gets mad, thinks about killing somone, and plans world domination. Cops inch forward in their search for Dread. 5) Orlando is sick. Feel great for a few hours and does herioc deed. Falls sick again. 6) Go to 1. This book is trudge, reading through the same damned story loop over and over. But it's a bit worse than trudge, since at least in River of Blue Fire things were believable. But now, one of the key bad guys (Dread) just happens to be born with a magical brain power that gives him the super ability to take over the most complicated computer networks in the world. That's phoney enough, but the fact that Dread is sitting around through 1000 pages trying to take over the network without using his power until he decides suddenly at the end of the book to use it. Williams never gives us a reason why Dread never used his power before. The true reason Dread doesn't, is so that Williams can tell his boring story without Dread interrupting it. Thereby giving him 2 novels for us to waste our money on waiting for some resolution, and giving him 2 novels worth of space so he can indulge himself in creating worlds based on his favorite stories. City of Golden Shadow is close to a masterpiece. The sad truth is, the next two books are pointless and can be summed up in a paragraph. So feel free to skip Volumes 2 and 3 (but go to the store and quickly read the end of Volume 3). Now that Williams actually had something happen at the very end of book 3, however ridiculous, it is probable that Volume 4 will be forced actually pick up the pace of the series. There are a couple redeeming features of the book. Some of the subplots are interesting: the Christabel/Sellars subplot, the Pirofsky subplot, and the Ramsey subplot. But what about interesting main plots? That's what is important, and thats what MoBG lacks.
Rating: 
Summary: Still going strong
Review: Tad Williams is still on track with his extremely long story "Otherland." Volume III is almost as good as the previous installment. I perhaps did not enjoy the individual adventures of the heros quite as much but this was made up for by the fact the the main story is advancing at a quicker pace. This book is not for all taste. The story is not padded but it is long. Williams creates an entire unviverse and about a dozen complex, detailed characters. Some readers my find the story progressing to slowly, (I would have liked for the last 150 pages of this volume to move a little more quickly, but why quibble.) Much is revealed and some questions finally get answered (but even more questions are created so there's plenty to look forward too.) But don't read this book until you've read the first two, the synopses at the begining of this volume would be incomprehesible to anyone who hadn't actually read the first two parts.
Rating:
Summary: The best in a powerful series
Review: Tad Williams has long been a key player in the world of Science Fiction and Fantasy writing. He is perhaps best known for his debut novel, Tailchaser's Song, which has become a staple read for any animal lover. His highly ambitious Otherland series, however, attempts to rewrite his reputation as a Tolkien-esque soft fantasy writer, of which he is still one of the best, and succeeds wholly. Otherland is not Science Fiction, nor is it Fantasy, but a perfect blend between the two that is stunning in its beauty, frantic in its pace, and ocean-deep in its characterization. This book, the third in the series, to which a fourth sequel has been promised, can not be said to have a main character. Indeed, all the key players tell the story from their own point of view at one time or another, sometimes leading to confusion, but more often causing a longing to find out what is happening to the other characters, while one set is out adventuring. If you want a synopsis of the plot, you'd do best to read the reviews on the first two books, as little new can be said without giving too much away. Suffice it to say that, finally, and all readers of this book unite in their thankfullness for this fact, some of the mysteries ACTUALLY GET SOLVED in this installment, including the secret of where Jonas comes from, and what the Grail Project is in the first place. But, despite the overwhelming satisfaction these revelations bring, you'll be far too swept up in the rapidly-moving plot and exscuisitely crafted worlds to feel anything but a burning desire to find out what happens next, and what new, strange, wonderful place Tad William's delightfully hyperactive imagination will bring the characters too next. Indeed, as this book drags them through a universe that consits of one, unending house, a strange, half-finished world, a rendition of ancient egypt that places the founders of the Otherworld as gods, and finally, to ancient Greece in the thick of the Trojan war, with a look at Homer's saga so intimate it made me want to (and, actually, do) go out and read the Iliad, you'll not even notice that the late twenty-first century setting of the "Real World" is as inventive and internally consistant as they come in Science Fiction. So much so, in fact, that one might find oneself taking on the linguistic mannerisms of the inhabitants of the future. If there is one problem with this book, it is that it ends. Abruptly. And, just like any drug addict, the reader is left with a craving for more, and the torture of having to wait while Tailchaser's father crafts the final, and hopfully climactic, installment. Please, mr. Williams, sir, don't make us wait much longer!
Rating: 
Summary: I saw It Coming a Book Away.
Review: When I read the first Otherland novel I was truly transported. It was wonderful and I anxiously waited for the next book. Having waded suspiciously through the second book, I arrived at the third. 150 pages and it went on the shelf. Now I'm just annoyed. I have been strung along. I got tired of saying to myself, "OK, something significant's going to happen." Or, "What I just read has developed the story in some way I don't yet understand...Tad will play on it later." Don't get me wrong, I love an Odyssey. I just like to have the interstices more meaningful. The characters seemed to dry up in all the fluff. I'm a pretty hardy reader. Heck, I didn't even put Larry Niven's Ringworld Throne down (what an awful waste of time and trees that was). In the words of Popeye: "I've had all I can stands and I can't stands no more!" Sorry Tad. :(
Rating:
Summary: Furthering my torment...
Review: I was so excited to finally receve this book that I couldn't read it for two weeks. I had imagined all types of scenarios for these characters that I had begun to weirdly connect to. Finally, I picked the book up and found myself once again drawn into an engaging story by Mr. Williams. The beginning of the book left me waiting for more. However, I remember thinking the same thing about his first book in this series and I realized that he had added that element into this book. He had begun to develop the characters more and breathe life into characters that seemed bland. For instance. there are two characters that I assumed to be inconsequential, Emily and T-4b. In fact, I was waiting for them to be killed off or lost in the huge Otherland network. Emily, we eventually learned, had a good deal to do with Mr. Jongleur even more than we could imagine. While T-4b found himself being the hero on more than one occassion in the book (all the way to the end). The ever dubious Paul finally gets his answers, but we are still left with more questions. I think that this book could be read more than once. There is so many people and places to remember that I am sure I am not the only one that found myself stopping and saying "hunh!" Just as I thought, he made Dread figure greatly into the book. He shoud have given us some more. Again, I refer back to his first book and his need to explain everyones actions and state of being. I felt he sugar-coated Dread's past which is rather interesting and integral to his psyche. His sociopathic and ultimately demonic existence did give our troupe a good run for their lives and was truly the most nail-biting part of the book. Lastly, I can't wait for the next book and I encourage anyway taking on this novel to read all of it! Don't skip anything because Tad Williams doesn't waste words! Enjoy!
Rating:
Summary: I LOVE Tad Williams
Review: I bought the first of his Otherland series I believe two years ago.. and went through them as fast as you'd go through picture books. They are the most incredibly thought provoking, fantastical, and ingenious books that I have ever read. This last book is no different. Even after finishing it nearly a year ago, the story, characters and incredible twists and turns are avidly preserved in my mind. To not experience his creativity and expertise by buying these books is a shame. I can't wait for the fourth book!
Rating:
Summary: Immense
Review: Very involved, the seemingly repetitous "worlds within the net" are slowly coming together to form a bigger picture.
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