Rating: 
Summary: A Terrific Series
Review: When I first started the first book, I found it pretty confusing because there are so many characters that get introduced, but once I got into it I couldn't put it down. This is a great series that I felt became better with each book. As long as these books are, the ending was so good I wanted it to keep going.
Rating: 
Summary: A good Sci-Fi Mystery
Review: Although this book is very huge, I found myself interested through-out. Don't expect an action-packed novel full of twist and turns and cliff-hangers. This epic is a strraight forward sci-fi mystery that gets it's complexity from the content of the virtual reality world that is a part of the plot. The plot is simple. A brother of one of the main characters falls into a coma after being in this virtual reality world. The main character then teams up with other people to find out what happened. Their journey takes them into the vr world that claimed her brother. This is where the complexity lies. The vr world in so intruiging that you keep reading just to find out more about it. There's also other side plots that will tie in to the main plot later in the other books. The reason i gave it 3 and not more is because i'm more of a horror book fan and use to more action. But i was pleasantly surprised that I enjoyed this huge novel even though it has very little horror content. I will read the second,,well actually you have to read the whole series because this book purposefully ends with no resolution. So if you want to find out the true mysteries behind Otherland, then you have 3000 some odd pages left to read. Enjoy.
Rating:
Summary: A Great Break from Traditional Fantasy
Review: I bought it on july 10, and just finished it on july 22. The whole time i read this book, i couldn't get the ideas out of my head, and was anxious to get back to reading. The book seems to infuse different styles; it is sci-fi when the characters are on the net, and it is something like a murder mystery when they are not. As such, the pace of the complex story tends to accelerate during the net scenes, and drag a little in real life (RL) scenes. The first couple hundred pages were amazing, the last couple hundred were just as good, but the middle was a little slow. Fourtunatley, each chapter takes the viewpoint of a different main character, so the slow spots don't last too long. Overall, it was a great read, and i'm going to go buy the next book right away. =)
Rating:
Summary: Complex, intriguing and never ceases to amaze!
Review: OTHERLAND. Tad Williams' four chunky looking but fantastic books, starting with the City of the Golden Shadow, will seek to catapult you forwards in time, into the near future. Complex, intriguing and never ceasing to amaze, this series will launch you into an adventure of high-level global conspiracy. Otherland is a playground for the rich and influential, a multifaceted, virtual reality simulation where fantasies are made terrifyingly real. Only the Earth's wealthiest and most powerful preside over it and huge amounts of money have been lavished on it. But for all its glamour, Otherland also houses a terrible secret - it is feeding on a valuable resource that the Earth has to offer - it's children. Against the huge odds, some ordinary people become heroes in their fight to reveal the blatant truth about Otherland. The characters in these books are full of personality and are definitely worth caring for. Renie Sulaweyo is a South African university teacher. She is the breadwinner of her family and has always strived hard just to get by. When her young brother is suddenly and mysteriously struck down by a bizarre illness, Renie sets out on a mission to bring him back. Through her investigations, Renie stumbles on a secret that she is not meant to know... !Xabbu is a Bushman from a disappearing African tribe. A student of Renie, he journeys with her as they forage deeper into the dark secrets of Otherland... Paul Jonas is an infantry from the trenches of WWI who is lost in both time and space. He flees from his pursuers to a castle in the sky. Through countless frustrations and riddles, he tries to find out his true identity although it does not come easily to him... Orlando is a young teenage boy who is living with a life-threatening disease. In the virtual reality world, he is Thargor, a barbarian and famed fighter. But being frail does not mean that he can exclude himself from solving the mystery of Otherland... Mister Sellars is an odd, crippled man who is held prisoner in his own home by the government. By being one of the most mysterious characters in the book makes the reader wonder who he really is and what connection he has with Otherland... Getting through these books takes time and a whole lot of determination. As abovementioned, this series is incredibly complex and will not be everybody's taste in reading material. City of the Golden Shadow has a seemingly slow moving plot at the beginning, but for those who love fantasy and science fiction, the Otherland series will soon get you glued reading until you reach the last full stop.
Rating: 
Summary: Ugh.
Review: The plot of this book is decent, the story well-crafted and well planned out. Unfortunately, Williams takes so long to get to the point, I found myself yawning through this slow-moving piece of rubbish. Williams is a decent writer in some respects, but he rambles. He goes on and on about irrelevant things, causing the reader to lose interest in what he is saying. The whole series is fairly dull because of Williams' lack of ability. I'm sorry, but I cannot reccomend this book to anyone who doesn't want to daydream as they read it.
Rating:
Summary: SF Computer VR story
Review: This book is part of a 4 book series. It follows a group of people, some bad some good, on a journey that takes place mostly in Virtual Reality. The good guys are trying to help a lot of children; while the bad guys are trying to become immortal. While all of this sounds like it has been done before, it's never been done quite like this. It is a good read. I would reccomend reading all 4 books. At least try the first and see how you like it. The last one is probably my favorite.
Rating: 
Summary: Fairly good story...TERRIBLE writing
Review: I'd like to preface this review by saying that I am a science fiction fan, and a writer. I have read the Sword of Shannara series, the Thomas Covenant series, the Fellowship of the Ring, the Jordan series, the Goodkind series, the George RR Martin series, a few of the Piers Anthony series...get my drift? Having been exposed to some pretty good sci-fi writers, and having gotten a recommendation to read the Otherland series, I dug in eagerly, searching as I am for another good series. I am, unfortunately, still searching, and I feel s if a part of my life was wasted :) While Tad Williams certainly tells a good story, he is a truly awful writer, and it surprises me that one with such poor wordcrafting skills could find himself on the Bestseller list (well...maybe not, but that's a diatribe for another time). His sentence structure is choppy, his word choice, at times, wrong, and his imagery a jarring cacophony. His characters think a little bit too much, and we are privy to each one of those, sometimes irrelevant, sometimes plain stupid, thoughts. One image in particular occurred near the beginning. A graveyard had been blown up, and a tiny coffin, presumably that of a child, was unearthed. The character's thought? "Baby learned how to wave bye-bye." - or something to that effect. Needless, and greedy in its attempt to pull on heartstrings, and perfectly descriptive of the lame use of words prevalent in this book. I cannot recommend this book. While the story and the concept are fairly good (the reason I gave a two and not a 1), the need to wade through a tide of mud and muck makes it not worth it. I will not read the rest of the series, and if you have not started...you should not. Pick up one of the series I mentioned, or look under some of the recs found under some of those series here on this site. But avoid getting gagged by this one. Yuck.
Rating:
Summary: Great book if you can get past the page numbers
Review: I recently read this book and quite enjoyed it. Despite it's hefty size it provides an excellently realized story and setting that really allows the reader to become involved with the plot. After having read this I find myself wondering what our world would be like if our internet were advanced to the point where one could literally plug himself into the internet and interact with every thing on such an advanced level. Warning to all potential readers...this is only the first book, and they all keep on getting longer. Unfortunatly the first book does not end cleanly, which means that in order to get to an ending you have to read the whole seires. If you have the stamina to get through it by all means read it, if not, try something a bit lighter.
Rating:
Summary: Gets boged down, by page #'s
Review: This is not a bad book for what it was, but it suffers from a typical flaw of this author--too long. Also I found the plot to resemble almost an Acid Trip with no liniear set pattern that I could figure out. When I brought this book I was under the impression that it would be a rousing adventure tale about heroes trapped in a VR universe. Ok, i'm sure it is however I slugged by way through up to page 300 and nothing of any consequence had happened as yet. Now I became a Tad Willams fan after reading his Merrory, Sorrow, Torn trilogy and while those book were just as long at least they kept you interested. Overall-I'm sure it would have been good had I stuck with it, however I just didn't have the time, so if you want a book you can really be interested in don't buy this book.
Rating: 
Summary: Difficult to get into, but very intriguing.
Review: This first book in the series of four is likely to draw you in with its stylish cover, and interesting plot-synopsis on the back. The book sounds good, because there seems to be a very decent and imaginative plot behind it. Because of this, you'll start out enthusiastic about reading it, most likely. It isn't difficult to chew through the first 100-200 pages, but you may find little reason to continue. I know that I actually stopped reading just shy of 200 pages, put the book down for about a year, then picked it up again, starting from the beginning. I found myself stalling significantly after about 500 pages, and then I slowly made my way to 600 before it really caught my attention again. The book is designed in such a way that you're not really sure what's in store, but you know it's going to take a long time, and it isn't necessarily going to be action packed. There is a lot of skipping around between characters, and literary beating-around-of-the-bush. You'll find suspensful and intriguing foreshadowing, only to be satisfied a few hundred pages later, because of the book's slow pace, and meandering plot. However, when it really comes down to it, the book is very good. The characters are all quite original, ranging from a young hacker/net-geek with a terminal illness, to a mysterious, elderly burn victim, living on an airforce base. The whole concept of virtual reality will also likely draw you in, as this is the series' feature. There is a nearly infinite number of possibilities for Otherland's universe, and this book certainly has a good number of surprises and resolutions hidden away for the reader to sink his teeth into. That said, it also doesn't reach much of a conclusion by the end, forcing you to read the next in the series. Tad Williams has a very descriptive writing style, but I found that it was neither too wordy, nor overly complex. Aside from the sometimes-crawling story, the book is easy to read, while being very satisfying at the same time. If you commit to finishing this book (and the series), I think you'll end up enjoying it. Because behind all the side-tracking and less than to-the-point storytelling, there is a very solid cast of characters, matched by an epic plot. Come the third book in the series, you should be well on your way to uncovering the mystery that is Otherland.
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