Rating: 
Summary: Very good! Only a couple of details....
Review: When I read the first one and finished it I could not wait for the second book to come out, and then when it did, I pounced on buying it and absorbing it. I found this to be a very good book- but not as close to greatness as it's predecissor, "The City of Golden Shadow". This has the same amount of plot weaving that makes it a mastery of the plot, very detailed charecters that give depth and life into the book and imagery that comes alive. The only thing I have to complain about is that it was a little too dweary at parts. It lagged a little but not much compared to the big book that it is. Otherwise I've no complaints. Awsome book!
Rating: 
Summary: ...We Keep Spiralling Down the Rabbit Hole....
Review: After reading through the first of the series, I couldn't wait to read the second one...and I wasn't let down with this! Otherland: River of Blue Fire never lets go of the complexity and intellingence of the first piece of this giant puzzle. In this one, our characters from CoGS are all stuck in Otherland, traveling through the different simulations and continuing to fight to survive. More new realizations fall into place as this magnificent story continues! Soon everything will clear up and we will understand it all, and Tad Williams is doing a wonderful job! This book continues a fabulous story and keeps showing us Tad's tremendous talent for writing! Five stars, without a doubt, and now, on to number three, with hope! Otherland: Mountain of Black Glass!...
Rating:
Summary: Amazing
Review: Watch out becouse things that you can find in this book can really happen... I don't know if I can be happy about it or sad. One thing is for sure: the whole story or better the whole concept of the story works horribly real! It makes me wonder if my life is real or somebody just dreamed it up...
Rating:
Summary: Wonderful book.
Review: This book more than makes good on the promise of the first Otherland book, "City of Golden Shadow." The plot's engaging, the characters are sympathetic, and the storyline deftly parcels out adventure, high drama, mystery, comedy, and tragedy. Some chapters in particular are masterstrokes of imagination. Williams makes nods to the big figures in SF, fantasy, and literature (Tolkien, Lewis, Gibson, Coleridge, Wells, Homer, the list goes on...), while making his own insightful contribution to modern fiction and the modern condition. For a while I had given up on SF/fantasy these days...no good heroes, tired plots, asinine 'existential' prattling. Williams has restored my faith in the genre, and how! Definitely worth the read...can't wait to get my hands on the next volume.
Rating:
Summary: THE Virtual Reality series
Review: Otherland is the Virtual Reality series which every sci-fi or fantasy writer dreams of writing, but can't because the concept is too huge, too complex. Well, Tad Williams has done it and done it very well (so far). The second book in the series which Williams more correctly describes as 'one long book released in four volumes' is just as good as the first. We're treated with a buffet of VR's both based on reality and based on fantasy. William's imagination really kicked into high gear with this one, and we begin to learn what Otherland was meant to be while at the same time wondering what it is becoming. I started this series in paperback, but now I can't wait, it's Hardcover for me the rest of the way.
Rating:
Summary: Immense
Review: Very involved, the seemingly repetitous "worlds within the net" are slowly coming together to form a bigger picture.
Rating:
Summary: Nothing but the Good!
Review: Tad Williams is my hero. Just when I thought he couldn't top City of Golden Shadows I was surprised by River of Blue Fire. In this novel, Tad, broadened and strengthened his main characters and introduced us to new and interesting characters. The cliffhanger technique at the end of the chapters irritated me into reading continuously. The Grail Brotherhood's ominous presence seemed a little toned down in this book as if he were moving the bad guys around in order to make a potentially juicy part for Dread (which would delight me). Sometimes I would have to go back in the book because I had forgotten a character. The introduction of new characters was a bit awkward because it took so long to introduce them, unlike City of Golden Shadow where new characters were written in throughout the novel; therefore, when a lenghty bit of plot involved them it didn't bore or seem out of place. All in all this novel was great and kept me going through the morning on my long bus trip to work! I can't wait to read number 3. I hope to meet Mr. Tad Williams on his tour!
Rating:
Summary: Close but no banana.
Review: After reading the first book City of golden shadow, i just _had_ to buy the whole series, which i did. The second book, River of Blue Fire is quite well written, and it engulfs you with the virtual worlds that it contains, from Flying people, to bug filled planescapes. But the drawback is that the book is becoming more and more repetitive as Renie & co jumps from one virtual environment to another, sometimes you lose the feeling that they actually are _in_ a simulated world, althought it is questionable whether this is a good thing or not, i don't like the idea of the whole book begining to slip away from the real world into otherland entirely. Yet the imaginative writing of the author is really applaudable. After reading the first book of the otherland series I lifted my head and told people that I was going to get connection through my neck as Tad Williams illustrated. After finishing River of Blue Fire, i just didn't have the lust to jump on the third book.. At the 200th page of the third book, i found out that i was reading just because i got so accustomed to the characters, not that the book got my interest entirely. Who knows, maybe it will work the opposite for you. Lastly, it is a lovely book to read.
Rating:
Summary: Just as good as the first one.
Review: I have just finished reading The River of Blue Fire, the second book in Tad Williams' Otherland series. The first book is City of Golden Shadow. The series is meant to be read as one book and is only devided into four parts for practical reasons. Williams has created a great cast of characters of which the main two are Irene "Renie" Sulaweyo and her student/friend !Xabbu. The story is set in the middle of the twenty-first century and focuses on a future version of the Internet. Renie is an instructor of virtual engineering in South Africa and !Xabbu is a desert Bushman who has come to the city to study. Renie's younger brother Stephen gets into some trouble on the net and ends up in a coma. Renie is frustrated because the doctors can't do anything to help him and begins to investigate. River of Blue Fire spends most of it's time following the characters on the net through all the different worlds they stumble into. All are quite captivating. We are also told more about the people they are up against and things look even more hopless than before. Although the story follows many characters and threads it is a very good read. Fans of Sci-Fi and Fantasy will most likely like it but anybody who wants a captivating story should give it a try. The series spans four books, three of which are now available. The third one is Mountain of Black Glass and the fourth is Sea of Silver Light.
Rating:
Summary: Gripping, intense, long.
Review: This book pulls you in just like the first one, with an almost unending stream of plot revelations and new mysteries. It seemed to go at a faster pace than the first book, and was just as good or better. DON'T READ IT WITHOUT READING THE FIRST BOOK. Pauls unending flight from Finney and Mudd (aka The Twins, Finch and Mullet, Tinman and Lion) is intense and frightening. And the reader continues to root for Renie and Orlando and the other make-shift heros like they were personal friends. Masterfully written and highly recommended
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