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Otherland: River of Blue Fire
At the end of Otherland: City of Golden Shadow, Tad Williams had dumped most of his protagonists into the convincing virtual reality known as the Otherland. In this playground for the rich, the reclusive, and the powerful, the small band was shocked to learn that it was trapped. It would be only a matter of time before the shadowy Grail Brotherhood, masters of Otherland, could discover the intrusion and act to protect their secrets.
Frightened and confused, the party's only chance for survival is to follow the quasi-metaphorical river that flows through each simulation, connecting the private domains of each member of the Brotherhood. It's a quest that will take them through a land of giant insects, Venice, Ancient Egypt, a twisted Kansas under invasion from decaying Oz, and other exotic, imaginary locations.
The real world is packed with intrigue too, as the forces opposing the Brotherhood (both knowingly and unknowingly) plan and plot and move their pieces into position. Reality and Otherland start to feed off of each other as dark secrets come to light and the Grail project enters its final stages.
As fits the second book in this series of four, some mysteries are solved and many more are discovered. Plotwise, the motivations of and divisions within the Grail Brotherhood are explored, and partial explanations of sleeping sickness are given. True to Williams' plot-twisting style, these bring up new questions. On the whole, there is less action than in the previous book, but more plot.
While there's still a lot of action, it's divided between five major groups of characters and settings (the latter given a very loose interpretation) and at least five other, minor threads. Consequently, even in a book of nearly 700 pages, four chapters may separate sequential events. This can be frustrating, as the most intriguing character receives the least attention. (In the introduction, Williams promises his fans that he will try to avoid the sort of cliffhanger ending that the first book had. To his credit, a plot diagram of River of Blue Fire would fit the traditional form much more closely than one of City of Golden Shadow.)
Williams fans may notice themes also present his "Memory, Sorrow, and Thorn" series, which itself expanded on ideas present in his debut work Tailchaser's Song. You'll find ancient conspiracies, shady deals with unknown forces, enlightened groups of scholars working in the background, and the question of responsibility. It's refreshing to see him choose a less-than-superhuman antagonist (though the Heliopolis simulation and the Other may turn out to be more important -- and less "human" -- in the end).
Philosophical and literary analysis aside, is it entertaining? Quite so! The mixture of enigma and revelation, imagination and technical whiz-bang makes a very satisfying texture. For a thoughtful, less-dystopian-than-cyberpunk but still epic take on virtual reality, identity, and conspiracy, check out the Otherland.
Purchase this book at fatbrain.
The story blurb is wrong where it says "latest book", but there's a good reason about why this was posted. At least, I think it's good.
I grabbed the book right after Christmas. Since Hemos is always looking for more reviews, I offered to write one up, as no one had done it yet. (For what it's worth, the review of City of Golden Shadow got posted about the same time as this book came out in hardcover. So we're maintaining an odd sense of timing.) I'm sure he'd be glad to post a review of Mountain of Black Glass.
Now if Tad Williams wants to send me copies of his newer books as they come out.... :)
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This review is a bit late, as this book came out over a year ago and Mountain of Black Glass came out in September. Some other excellent Tad Williams books are Tailchaser's Song (an adventure story from the point of view of a cat), the Dragonbone Chair series, Caliban's Hour, and Child of an Ancient City. I am eagerly awaiting Sea of Silver Light to finish the Otherland series.
Tad Williams' web site is located at http://www.tadwilliams.com/tadwilliams/ .
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Tad Williams writes great stuff. I need to read the third book of Otherland, (it's not out in paperback yet, is it?) and I liked the second one, but I think I liked the first one better. I just love that futuristic computer stuff; D&D-style virtual gaming worlds, yeah!
:)
Regardless, the "trapped in a realistic virtual world" plot still hasn't run out of steam yet. I was just reading Amber again, which (of course) has to do with some pretty realistic "virtual worlds" (shadows), and everybody loves The Matrix, even if it isn't Neuromancer.
I think that for the futuristic perspective novels, I like Tad Williams almost as much as I like David Brin (for Earth, which was awesome, and still pretty possible--amazing in that genre!).
But really I like Tad's vivid depictions of reality. His books are very long, but they seem more real than many other books I've read just because of his attention to detail. Reading one of his books as opposed to a 300-page book is like reading the 300-page book instead of seeing the movie. The Memory, Sorrow, Thorn series is a great example of this.
And yeah, it's really funny to read the notice at the front of the last book in paperback, that says basically "due to publishing constraints, we had to split this into two books for paperback". They're still both greater than 800 pages long. (!) Again, this is like Amber, since they just published all of those books into one volume recently. At least it isn't that long, but almos every book ends like a cliffhanger, because it's part of a larger storyline. Tad Williams has to do this too, which is somewhat frightening.
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