Rating: 
Summary: Couldn't Finish It!
Review: Well, I know I'll get flamed by everyone for saying this (given how well it seems to be getting rated) but, I just couldn't finish this book! Don't get me wrong. Most of this book was very good (and for that I give it three stars), but for the life of me, starting about half-way through, I just couldn't bring myself to pick it up any longer. I had lost interest. I can't even explain it, as (after a slow start) I was hooked into the intrigue of the story as well. I think I finally stopped reading after the WWI soldier (can't even remember his name anymore, I first read this when it first came out several years ago) found himself on Mars or some such weird location, someone help me out there? Anyways, at that point I just became bored with the story. Never went back to it. Given that this is now a 4-book monster series, I'm kind of glad I didn't. Again, don't get me wrong. Mr. William's first series (Memory, Sorrow and Thorn) was excellent, although by the end of that third book, again I was starting to lose interest. Can't pinpoint the problem, I just know that his writing style doesn't seem to be able to hold me for more than a few hundred pages at a time, even with a fantastic start.
Rating: 
Summary: Read this book!
Review: This is one of the best books I've read in a long time! Tad Williams writing is so descriptive you often forget that you are actually curled up on your couch reading and not running around caught up in the adventures that Renie and !Xabbu are going through. Make time to read this entire series, even if you don't spend much time reading. Fans of any genre will enjoy the detail and depth that this story has.
Rating: 
Summary: What a Disappointment
Review: I loved the Memory, Sorrow and Thorn series so much that I read it twice. I also enjoyed Tailchasers Song. So it was with gret enthusiasm that I began Otherworld. Of course the mystery of it engaged my curiosity immediately, but once the novelty wore off, there was little to actually keep the story going. The characters were boring, uninspiring and failed to engage my interest. The story line was haphazard and seemed to attempt suspense, all which led to nothing. Finishing the book was a chore not a pleasure. I really hope that his next attempt is much better.
Rating:
Summary: Fabulous Setting for a Modern Fairy Tale
Review: "City of Golden Shadow" begins the 4-volume "Otherland" series. These four books constitute a single narrative, chopped into four essentially arbitrary chunks, so this review addresses the whole series - not just the first volume.Otherland tells of the cyberspace adventures of a group of people in the late 21st Century, when people use virtual Reality (VR) as casually as we use Windows today. The heroes of the story separately get a glimpse of a new form of VR that they've all had a glimpse of - something far more realistic than anything they're used to. Their search for this more advanced system brings them together and leads them into danger, because the creators of the new system don't welcome intruders. As often with Science Fiction, the book rests entirely on its exotic setting - and what a setting it is! You will see the trenches of World War I, London during the War of the Worlds, an ordinary backyard enlarged 100 times, and dozens of even more amazing places. Williams puts a lot of care into each new cyberspace location, and he makes them seem very real. Many readers will delight in exploring Otherland and learning its mysteries. Anyone who expects more than that will be disappointed. The plot consists of little more than a series of cliffhangers designed mainly to move the action through the setting and show it off, and the two-dimensional characters exist to solve the puzzles that move the plot forward. In this conflict between 100% good and 100% evil, no one on either side ever wonders what's right or wrong, ever makes an unexpected choice, or ever wrestles with doubts about the past. Almost 4,000 pages long - 30% longer than Proust's "Remembrance of Things Past" - but an easy read nevertheless, Otherland makes a nice vacation from more serious reading.
Rating:
Summary: Cyberpunk on steroids. . .
Review: After reading the series "Memory, Sorrow and Thorn" several years ago, I mentally noted Tad Williams as fantasy-writing force to remember. Even though that series fit the stock formula fairly well, it did it with panache. The heroes were not morally squeaky-clean and were a little rough around the edges. That is to say, they were living, breathing people who would have fit in with the masses of humanity in any era. They were Everyman thrust into extraordinary circumstances. So, when I saw that Mr. Williams' next series strayed from the realm of fantasy, I feared that he might be over-reaching himself. I was a fool to have worried. Although I have only read the first book of "Otherworld" so far, I have to place Mr. Williams in that small group of writers (Jules Verne, Stephen Donaldson, Robert Silverberg, Gene Wolfe, and a few others) that have been able to produce masterworks in both the fantasy and SF genres. And what SF it is! For a half-baked synopsis, we are thrust into the middle of the 21st century, where the entire planet Earth has become an electronic global village for those of enough means to afford it. What we think of as today's world-wide web has grown beyond all bounds and has practically taken on a visceral presence. To those with good enough equipment, the net has supplanted the physical world as their place to shop, to sight see, and to seek pleasures undreamed of in real life (or, RL as it is known to the citizenry of the day). Of course, as is always the case, much of the world's population still lives at a third-world level while the super wealthy have managed to transcend even the bounds of the known net to devise their own fantastic playland, known to the few who are aware of it as Otherland. The creators of Otherland are performing some evil deeds that somehow involves trapping pre-teen and teenage hackers in a state of stasis for some yet unknown sinister purpose. The story centers around a group of friends and relatives of some of the kids imprisoned in the net, others with axes to grind against the founders of Otherland, and a few rouge constructs loose in the net that are out to bring down the powers that be. I don't think I've given anyway any secrets that will decrease your enjoyment of the book. Does this sound suspiciously cyberpunk, or what? But, it is cyberpunk with panache. Mr. Williams shamelessly mixes in a little "Jack in the Beanstalk", a little "Alice in Wonderland", a taste of Philip Jose Farmer's "Riverworld", and just enough "Martian Chronicles" to know it's there. It is cyberpunk with a sense of humor, but also with a sense of dread. As is the case with George R. R. Martin's "Song of Ice and Fire", this is not a series for everyone. It is intense and some characters come to rather gruesome ends. It is not quite as graphic as Mr. Martin's series, but there are some unsettling moments. Having said that, I will also say that it's no more frightening than anything else in the genre, so take that as you may. Also, like Martin's series, each book is a segment of the larger whole, hence the book ends with a cliff-hanger. I don't know about you, but I prefer this to a contrived resolution at the end of each book just for neatness sake that could blow the whole flow of the story. The main characters are sometimes a little rough, but are sympathetic. They have their times when nothing will go down better than a cigarette and a beer, but they also have their moments of nobility. The advances in computer networks and virtual reality are a reach from today's technology, but are plausible (a main requirement for high quality SF). And, I say this as a career systems engineering professional. There is only one instance of *deus ex machina* concerning the character Dread, but it does help advance the plot so nicely that it can be overlooked. There was one section of the book that almost stuck me as being cartoonish, but I felt a tad (groan. . .) of vindication when Mr. Williams used the same adjective in the synopsis of this book that appears in the second book of the series. The high points so far outweigh the low that I feel almost criminal mentioning them. . . I have had this book in my possession for several years now but waited until all four books of the series were in print to begin reading. So far, the wait has been worthwhile because I'm not planning on slowing down my enjoyment of this series for anything!!
Rating:
Summary: Marvelous Start
Review: From the opening line to last scene, Otherland: Golden Shadow is great, well-done book. Having read merely the forward gave me just cause buy the whole series, it reminded me of Saving Private Ryan with Catch-22 overtone, then...it morphs into something else. I caught onto a few things first off about Paul Jonas, but otherwise the plot was a step ahead of me. True the book is long, but it's never really dull, at least to me, since I'm easily amused and who cares about books that you can finish in a weekend? They suck most of the time. We've too accustomed to swift-pageturns, which this book has moments of. It's quite visual and coherent at all time (no matter what others have said the plot threads fit perfectly together). As for the 'ending', well, I had "River.." right next to me with it's own little refresher on what had gone on, so no big deal. One main thing that worked real great for a while was setting Renie up as a sympathetic character. But at the end, that casual compassion has been waning for me because I feel paranoid of which 'sim' is actually a spy for Dread (please excuse my spoiler)....anyway, all in all a fine, albeit not standalone, work.
Rating: 
Summary: Excellent Start
Review: This book is very similar in pace to the Memory, Sorrow and Thorn trilogy. It starts kind of slow and changes focus from one character group to another. If you liked Tad Williams' other works you will like this book.
Rating:
Summary: Not bad at all.
Review: This book may have been painfully slow, but that didn't stop me from taking a day off from work because I couldn't put it down. Few books, of this genre especially, bring me back to buy expensive sequels. Tres bien, Williams. Best attributes: the characters. They are vibrant. Slow? Awkward? Meandering? These are all words that accurately summarize Otherland: City of Golden Shadow. To a certain extent, this is forgivable. This isn't a novel that is served well by a fast pace. Other novels with more ... predictable structures can lose me as a reader if I'm too busy. Not this one, though. Like the world it depicts, this novel is consuming to the nth degree. I just wish Williams' editor had convinced him to axe about three hundred pages. Maybe I would have gotten more work done. <wink>
Rating:
Summary: The third Millennium's "Lord of the Rings"
Review: This book is a rich,extremely learned and detailed,blend of motifs from Science Fiction,Cyberpunk,Fantasy and "mainstream" literature.The result is superb.Here Joseph Conrad,Philip K.Dick,J.R.R. Tolkien and Jonathan Swift blend in a novel that's what William Gibson novels tried to be.
Rating:
Summary: Williams has done it again!
Review: I'll be honest; I really thought that Memory, Sorrow, and Thorn were going to be Tad William's life work, if not his last. I mean, Memory, Sorrow, and Thorn were great (see my review), but I honestly thought that William's would never top what he had already written. Now I am proved wrong (hmm...go figure). I truthfully am not usually into this techno-world, science fiction based kind of writing, but Otherland has completely sucked me in. The reason I bought the book is because I thought it would be more "fantasy-based" (for lack of a better term), but I was in no way disapointed. Read it, it's great!
|
