Rating: 
Summary: Way too long
Review: (This review encompasses all four books)
Otherland will have its fans. However, its mechanical endings, its ridiculous length, and similar themes having been better executed by superior authors will make its influence and popularity extremely short-lived. Yet a lot of people like Williams... it's because he's not a bad author and if you have the stamina to get through him you'll find bits and pieces worthwhile. But bits and pieces are not a genre-shaping event nor will they exert much influence on other authors.
WHO SHOULD READ THIS:
Williams writes convincingly and well; his works, while mechanical, do not lack a sort of charm. Fans of Williams' other works should indulge themselves in Otherland. They're prepared for the absurdly long. Similarly, those particularly impressed with cyberspace and its future applications will find large sections very appealing-but read Snow Crash first.
WHO SHOULD PASS:
Unless you are one of those die-hard Williams fans or a complete techno-geek, read something else. Life is too short to read such a long work that has such little reward. Our site is built so that you can avoid such wastes of your time when you get can equal or better satisfaction with other, shorter books.
READ THE ENTIRE REVIEW AT INCHOATUS.COM
Rating:
Summary: Help! Is there an editor in the house?
Review: 800 pages. The first of four volumes. Imagine four books that are 800 pages each. That is 3200 pages. This is longer than the Bible. This is longer than the Koran. For the love of God, what story do you need to tell that cannot be told in under 3200 pages?
First things first, the positives. I very much appreciated the book's African center. Very clever, very interesting. Had the main story been placed in the United Stated, I probably would have lost interest much sooner. Do not get me wrong, I still lost interest, but not as soon as may have happened. The main character are strong. I enjoyed the Rene and Xabbu characters. They are very well written. I enjoyed the cyber barbarian. Very good. Another positive is the techno aspects. Great imagineering of where the internet could be. I loved the concept of a virtual reality being molded by our class distinctions. Quite cool. I liked the plot. Mysterious. What is happening to the children? What is this strange club? Many more little questions that I foung intriguing and wondered what would happen.
Characters are well done. Plot is well done. "World building" (setting) is well done. What is the problem? Simple. After 800 PAGES I would expect that the central story of this novel had been solved and that the elements for the following volumes would be in place. Wrong. After 800 pages, not much has really happened. Not much of the plot has been moved forward. It is like a bad soap opera where things keep happening but nothing is really moving. This is not the first volume of a series. This is the first fourth of a 3200 page novel. There is a major difference and I just do not want to read through another 2400 pages to see how this ends up.
Edit this down to two volumes and you could have had a winner. As it is, I started it, I just do not want to finish it.
Rating: 
Summary: Drawn out beginning to a satisfying end
Review: A short synopsis (without giving too much away): A woman cyber-researcher stumbles onto a 'virtual world' within the virtual world of the 'near future' internet. This 'Otherland' is something magnitudes greater than the prosaic virtual worlds on the net. And it is deeply secret. She begins to attempt to determine its possibly nefarious purpose with the help of a cast of other 'stumblers'. Much of the series takes place within both the public virtual worlds of the net and this otherland.First, allow me to give this caveat: I have read all four books in this series and this is the first time I've read something by Tad Williams. From my reading of the reviews of this book so far, I believe these two things strongly influence what kind of review someone will give this book. If you have read Tad Williams' fantasy books before, you might be expecting something similar here. Though there are aspects of fantasy, they are tangential to the plot (though fun reading). If you go into reading the book thinking of another Williams fantasy you will be disappointed. Also, I must agree with many of the reviews here. This first book is very difficult to get through. The characters and the plot take a long time in developing and sometimes it feels if you are wading through too much without gaining much in understanding of the characters or the plot. I put down the book twice after reading the first chapters, it did not catch my interest. I had finally read the book on a vacation with nothing else to do, it wasn't till the end that my interest was peaked. When Williams gets to the second and third books, he starts to shine in this series. The plot starts making sense and most of the characters start to gain some substance. I absolutely loved going through some of the virtual worlds (cartoon kitchen, I loved it) and some of the characters were great (I need the beetle!). Once I got into the second book in the series, I was hooked and read the the next 2 immediately after. They were very enjoyable and well worth the time. Perhaps this series would have been better as a trilogy with large portions taken out of the first book, but..if you decide to buy this book, you should do so realizing you are making a commitment to get through 4 books and the first one will be difficult to get through. If you do so, it will be worth the time. I still smile with the memory of some of the characters and events in the book. I would give the first book a 3 and the next 2 a 5 and the last a 4, since they are a series and should be read and reviewed as one book (these 4 books are not stand alone, but I don't see much 'demarcation' between them, more like one very large book that could have been cut in various combinations with equal results), I give the whole series a 4.
Rating: 
Summary: An excellent, intriguing read.
Review: As an avid reader of Williams' previous works, I rate this as his clear best overall. The depth of plot and careful interlacing of subplots earns this intricate novel a permanantplace on the bookshelf (except when being read). For complete satisfaction, this book needs to be read all the way through because as the plot thickens, so do the characters and their previously hidden connections to each other. Williams' skill made me hate Jackal, wait for chapters with Renie, !Xabbu and Orlando, and study every calculated move that Mister Sellars made. The revelation of Paul Jonas' true history in the 'real' world and his small victories in the cyberworld were cleverly portrayed, giving me every satisfaction as I slowly realised the details of Williams' complicated and compelling story. I highly recommend this novel to other readers of Williams' work, or to anybody who likes a good yarn. His writing is stylish and carefully thought-out, as are his plots. The City of the Golden Shadow slowly reveals itself to the reader throughout the book, though with sufficient mystery to keep them wanting more. In some of Williams'previous works, I had occasionally found him long-winded and used to count the pages until one of my favourite characters would appear on the scene again so that I had something to look forward to. However, in this book, I had no such problem. All characters are compelling and the "good guys" quickly become cherished. I am eagerly awaiting the next installation of this compelling saga.
Rating:
Summary: ...
Review: As of this writing I just finished "City of GOlden Shadow" and have not moved on to the other books in the series (although I have volume to sitting next to me waiting for a chance!)...
In one of my writing classes in highschool we would write things, then have in class critiques. To start off the critique we would have to come up with good, positive things to say about the piece in question. Only after positives were mentioned could we move on to the negative aspects and the things about the writing that should be worked on.
For "City of Golden Shadow" there are numberous positive aspects. The writing does a good job of offering the reader a mental picture of the enviroments the characters are in. Which is great because there are a great variety of different settings, both real and simulated.
The characters are believable and feel genuine. Williams paints each one so that their actions reflect them without feeling like they are doing anything a real person like them wouldn't. There is an aspect of "Ender's Game" by Orson Scott Card, insofar as we have kids put in adult situations in simulations (though in a different context, so the relational dynamics are decidedly different).
There are negatives. The one that stands out above the others is how long the book is compared to how far the plot advances. It seems the only thing keeping the book moving is the interesting characters and the novelty of the delemas. This is definately not a book for the plot-driven reader. People who enjoy books that focus more on the characters (ala Martha Grimes) will not care about this factor as much.
My biggest complaint with the book is that Williams chose the wrong character to be the driving force behind the plot. Orlando (Thargor) is the most sympathetic and interesting character and would have made a much more facinating study than Renie and her friend, !Xabbu. While Renie's struggles with her brother in a coma and her father who's given up on life have their emotional pull, it's also very cliche and we've read hundreds of books with the exact same delema (though, a decidedly different ways of solving it!). Orlando, on the other hand, has crafted his own identity online where he can be the strong hero he wants to be... instead of the sick kid isolated in a rich neighborhood. Williams paints Orlando's character much better than he does Renie, despite making her the lead.
One suggestion for possible future printings would be to place under each chapter heading the character that chapter focuses on. Too often the chapter starts out and it takes a page or two until you can latch onto which character is being focused on. It was especially difficult with the Dread sections.
Overall, though, the negatives I outlined are outweighted by the strength of Williams' writing and vision. It'll be interesting to see if the following books in the series can keep things interesting and if they start being more plot driven since all of the characters have been introduced and defined already.
Rating:
Summary: Obesity Problem
Review: I just finished reading this book and it was painful. I am not sure if I will continue reading the series or not.
Pros:
1. I love that the heroine is from South Africa. Many of the more famous cyberpunk novels embrace the international flava, and I like it.
2. His writing is fine, even decent for a sci-fi/fantasy book.
3. Some of the characters, like Orlando and Dread, are cool and are probably the only meaningful hooks in the book. The plot sure isn't.
Cons:
1. 600 pages too long. The length is nothing short of pompous.
2. Awful pacing. Related to Con #1, the pacing of this book is simply painful. Just when one chapter gets interesting, Williams ends it and the reader has to read the chapters of 2-3 other characters before that chapter picks up again. Ugh.
All in all, this book epitomizes what I hate about most generic sci-fi/fantasy. I _love_ sci-fi and fantasy but aside from George R.R. Martin and a nostalgic love for the old Dragonlance books, I no longer feel I can trust any author who can't tell a story with one book.
Rating:
Summary: Not short...but sweet
Review: I started out by buying the 3rd book in the series without realizing that it was a series (oops) -so I had to buy the first one to justify that mistake. Glad I did. Tad Williams style of writing is very fluid, I was comfortable reading his books. My only complaint was with the length, probably could have gotten by with 2 or 3 books at the max. Too many details that didn't add to the plot but just filled paper. You must have alot of free time to read these series of books. I don't and it took me around a year (off and on reading) to finish it. Other than that, it was a good story with a little bit science fiction and a little bit fantasy that synthesized nicely.
Rating:
Summary: Slow Start with *Excellent* Finish
Review: I started reading this book on three separate occasions before finally getting past page 200. Afterwards, I was hooked. I immediately bought the remaining series and read them back-to-back. Without a doubt, this is one of the best series that I've read in a long time.
Rating:
Summary: A little slow, but picks up to be INCREDIBLE....
Review: I was first introduced to this series by a friend back around the time the book surfaced. I read a few chapters and put the book down for about a year. I saw it lying around and decided to pick it up again. Man, was I depriving myself! After the first few chapters the intrigue, suspense, action...is just grand. If you're into any kind of cyberspace/VR, mystery, twisting plot stories, this series is for you! A delight in itself. I just wish I could find similar books to continue this wonderous ride!
Rating:
Summary: A good tale....confusing at times....but good
Review: OK before i get to the book...i will let you know that before i read this book...i read some of the amazon reviews for it. Basically what i got from the review that it is not a good book to skim because it is complex...and it starts really really slowly. Then I read the book. The beggining is actually almost as exiting as the prologue and first few chapters of Martin's A Game of Thrones (and that is saying something real good). Well i did what i was supposed to do and read the book seriously. i didnt skim it, but the parts involving Jonas always confused the living heck out of me... one minute he is in the Eight Squared, then he is on Mars... how the heck did he get there? i re-read all of the Jonas chapters at least twice, and i still don't really know how he ended up on Mars. Another thing some people said was that the character development was pretty bad. Do you people have problems? All of the characters (save Jonas and the little girl her old man friend guy) were developed so much they had development coming out of their ears! this being said, the best characters by far in order from greatest to not so great were as follows: Orlando(he is one cool dude), Renie, Dread, !Xabbu (how the heck do you pronounce that), Fredricks, and the rest sucked... well thats my review... bottom line is.... READ THIS BOOK BUT DONT EVEN THINK ABOUT READING ONLY ONCE READ IT TWICE....THEN AND ONLY THEN WILL YOU UNDERSTAND THE STORY
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