Rating: 
Summary: Finally, Epic Sci-Fi as it was ment to be!
Review: Finally, EPIC level Sci-Fi. Something that has been greatly lacking in novels. No more of those little one novel books that begin and end between the covers and make one wonder if there will be more. This book trully is a wonderful start, and I plan on buying all four! (And it's hard to put into words how happy I was that there would be four books!). The storyline is interesting, and the commentary on the near future thought provoking. !Xabbu, the "primative" man who gives the most interesting insight into the world and human nature. Through him one relizes the damage of society. Then there is also Sam, or rather Samantha, making a comment on how one can be anything on the net. Heck.. each of these characters provides interesting thoughts upon this world. Like Jonas, the brain wiped tester of the system, who seems to carry with him a key to all of Otherland, but does not remember hardly any of it. Lost in a wold of technology, unable to figure reality from fantasy. For some reason people do not like the idea of an Epic Sci-Fi, which puzzles me I suppose. This story can be made complex (as it is) and can span many possibilities with such size. Plus, it insures a continuing storyline rather than a disjointed, broken one. No epic level sci-fi series has stood on it's own and been belivable. Heck.. even the Star Wars trilogy didn't, it always left a "to be continued" (or am I the only one who remembers how it was after "The Empire Strikes Back"?). The first novel in this series introduces the characters, really sets them up so that you know them and who they are... and it hints at the full plot and what is going to happen. But yet, with how the storyling has gone thus far, I am unsure how it will continue, for anything can happen! I give this book a 10 review, it is the first work I have read by Mr. Williams, and has inspired me to find more by him. I really had a hard time putting this book down, it was just too interesting! One can only hope for more in the series to be as long and as interesting! Anyways, this is a must read, so find a copy and read it if you have been looking for trully epic Sci-Fi!
Rating:
Summary: I really liked this book!!!!!!!!!!
Review: Otherland kept me reading all night long. It had a couple loose ends and I would have given it a 10 if there was more of Orlando. The book is about this world that is online and is so advanced that people get trapped in it. I thought the plot was interesting.
Rating: 
Summary: Don't bother
Review: This novel does have interesting characters. The various settings and the world of the near future that Williams imagines are very creative and well done. But the premise of a "Grail Brotherhood" spending billions of dollars on a secret project spanning decades of time with only one man apparently noticing is ludicrous. And he does not know what their objective is? Gimme a break. Lets see. The bad guys are all so old they can hardly function. They have an unhealthy interest in children. They already control the world. I am not going to read the second book but will go out on a limb and predict they want IMMORTALITY! I read 770 pages just so I could guess the objective? Never again with this author.
Rating:
Summary: What the...?
Review: Yet another story rehashed, given a new face, a cover, and thrown on to the shelves. The only imaginative component of the story was the voyage into cyberia, the rest of the "who did that and why" has been sung, said, and written by all those between the ages of 5 and 65. Disappointed in the book, expected much more from Tad Williams after the triumphant Memory, Sorrow, & Thorn trilogy and the creative Tailchaser's Song.
Rating: 
Summary: Slow but got better
Review: Otherland started out slow and uneventfull. Further as I read into it, it had gotten better and better. The facinating ideas in the book were just fabulus and kept me wanting to know what happens next. It's got me hooked untill the next book in the series comes out.
Rating:
Summary: Rip-off
Review: Does every author think they are Tolkien? No way does this story deserve 2500 pages. "Lengthy" and "epic" are not synonyms. "Trilogy" refers to three self contained stories, NOT one book just cut up into three volumes. Even George Lucas understood that! I have about had it with authors who turn one idea into a career instead of being creative. I will not buy Mr. Williams works again.
Rating:
Summary: A deceptive ending
Review: I was furious to discover that this was only the first of a series of books. While at times it was entertaining, at others it was ridiculous. Some of the story threads were so disjointed and convoluted that it was difficult to keep them straight during the several weeks that it took me to slog my way through it. Many of the storylines were imaginative and creative, however I can't get out of my mouth the bad taste created when I got to the last page only to discover that it was "to be continued". What a cheap marketing tool. At least be honest and put on the front cover that it is the first book in an ongoing series. I will not buy the sequel!
Rating:
Summary: Very good!
Review: I read Memory, Sorrow and Thorn as it was released. I was bowled over by the first book and found each of the subsequent two volumes to be progressively more lame. I fervently hope that does not happen here because this is the best science fiction book I've read in the last year or two. Although Otherland has a rather ponderous length, it did not read like a long book. The characters and situations were enormously inventive. Unlike another recent novel about virtual reality, Snow Crash, Williams' characters are lifelike; you care about them. They evolve and grow, and when they get hurt, you feel for them. I don't know how accurate any of the snippets of Bushman culture are, but they added additional richness to an already deep tapestry. One feature I particularly enjoyed was how Williams' brought all his disparate characters together; the plot lines converged seamlessly. I am eager to see the next volume!
Rating:
Summary: Another Tad Williams masterpiece
Review: Tad Williams wrote that " this was a horribly complicated book to write". I believe him but he did it beautifully. The story flows with all the smoothness usually found in Tad Williams's work. This book however links aboriginal folklore ( real or not) with high tech, hard science fiction that doesn't get bogged down trying to impress the reader with the authors smarts. Nice job Mate, I can't wait for the rest of the series.
Rating:
Summary: A fascinating examination of the future of VR
Review: What really impressed me about this work, other then its well-chosen prose and quality of presentation, is the obvious grasp of technical "reality" that the author appears to have. While much still belongs in the realm of science fiction, the future that Tad Williams imagines certainly seems to be one of the most captivating and "realistic" that I have experienced. Kudos on the beginning of a well-written epic, but I just hope I will remember to read the rest of the series...
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