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What's New
Review Features
S - Science Fiction
F - Fantasy
H - Horror
Complete Listing
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Adams, Douglas (S)
Asher, Neal (S)
Aylett, Steve (S)
Banks, Iain M (S)
Barclay, James (F)
Barker, Clive (H)
Baxter, Stephen (S)
Brin, David (S)
Bury, Stephen (S)
Card, Orson Scott (S)
Cherryh, CJ (S/F)
Clute, John (S)
Cockayne, Steve (F)
Cook, Glen (F)
Danielewski, Mark (H)
Dick, Philip K (S)
Egan, Greg (S)
Feist, Raymond (F)
Gaiman, Neil (F)
Gibson, William (S)
Goodkind, Terry (F)
Grimwood, Jon C (S)
Hamilton, Peter (S)
Jeter, K.W. (S)
Jordan, Robert (F)
Lethem, Jonathan (S)
McAuley, Paul (S)
MacLeod, Ken (S)
Martin, George RR (F)
McMullen, Sean (S)
Miéville, China (S)
Moran, Daniel K (S)
Morgan, Richard K (S)
Nagata, Linda (S)
Niven, Larry (S)
Noon, Jeff (S)
Robinson, Kim S. (S)
Rucker, Rudy (S)
Simmons, Dan (S)
Smith, Michael Marshall (S)
Stephenson, Neal (S)
Sterling, Bruce (S)
Vinge, Vernor (S)
Westerfeld, Scott (S)
Williams, Sean (S)
Williams, Tad (S/F)
Collections (S/F)
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| The Classics |
Bradbury, Ray (S/H)
Burgess, Anthony (S)
Tolkien, JRR (F) |
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| Tad Williams |
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 Our
Ranking The City of Golden Shadow is the first
book in Tad William's new four book Otherland series. The book itself is very
big, and I've already seen the second which is pretty much the same size, so I
went into this series hoping it was worth the effort. Well, based on the first
book, so far I'm glad I began this endeavor. It starts off with a simple enough
premise. Based a bit in the future, where the net has expanded way beyond what
it is today (somewhat Snow Crashish), kids are using the virtual net and somehow
lapsing into a coma from the use. Renie, the main character, has her own younger
brother fall victim to whatever is causing this and decides to investigate on
her own with one of her students. In the meantime there are several other story
lines that tie into this main one, all becoming entangled with an extremely complicated
new mega-net, that has been created by some very wealthy individuals for reasons
unknown. Williams does a great job with this sci-fi story. The web world he has
created is very believable and detailed in its uses, both practical and pleasurable.
While the technology is fun to read about and very well thought out, it's nothing
ground breaking but serves the purpose. I've read some of his earlier fantasy
works, and always had issues with his characters, feeling that they are a bit
of the standard mold. He does a good job of creating unique, believable characters
that you feel for throughout their struggles. The plot itself weaves nicely from
the initial simple issue into something much deeper, darker and complicated. As
with most series it leaves with a nice cliffhanger that left me wanting the second
book immediately. This is a good solid sci-fi thriller that any fan of science
fiction and cyberpunk would enjoy. |
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 Our
Ranking After reading Otherland I was anxiously
awaiting this sequel. Unfortunately it didn't match up to the first book. The
characters were more or less the same, which was fine, and Williams did a good
job expanding on the villains. In fact, the villains were probably the highlight
of the book. Williams begins to set a path that you can tell is going to lead
to some pretty cool stuff in the third book, especially around Dread and to a
lesser degree the members of the Grail Project. As for the main characters, well
you learn more about them, but for the most part they are too busy running for
their lives throughout the entire book to really develop them further. However,
Williams keeps them consistent with the first book, which is always good. This
is probably why I will grab the 3rd book and give it a try. This certainly was
not the problem. The real break down came as the characters were pulled deeper
and deeper into Otherland itself. It became painfully obvious that Williams was
doing one of two things. Either his publisher told him a huge book would sell
better, so he came up with about 300 pages of rehashing the Otherland technology,
repeating scenes just in different ways while not advancing the plot at all; or
(and this is what I personally believe) he's so in love with his own idea that
he just spent the 300 pages describing it to show it off. Well, it completely
ruined the book. I barely made it past these scenes, taking over 3 weeks just
to read through the sections it was getting so boring. I kept waiting for something,
anything, to happen the would move the plot along. Finally, during the last 100
or so pages the plot moves and of course you are left for another cliff hanger
for the third book. The third book is out now and I will probably pick it up,
just in the hope that he realizes what he did and returns to the level of Otherland.
This is definitely a skip unless you intend to plow through the whole series.
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 Our
RankingTad William's Mountain of Black Glass
is the third installment to the Otherland series. If you've read my reviews on
the previous two books you know that I went into this one a bit skeptical. The
first book to the series was outstanding, while the second one fell very flat
and turned out to be a battle just to trudge through and finish it. Basically,
I read this one with the expectation that if it didn't return back to the writing
of the first book I would be done with the series. Well, I'm happy to say, the
series is back. The Mountain of Black Glass was a very solid effort. I won't go
so far to say that it was as good as Otherland itself, but it certainly left me
interested enough that I'll pick up the fourth book when it is released. So what
did Williams do to turn the series back around? Well first off, the plot itself
finally began moving again. In the second book the plot and the action just died.
Nothing happened of any significance happened. Well it is very much the opposite
here. The pace is even faster than the first book. Williams does a terrific job
of maintaining five or six different plot lines and manages to keep each one action
packed and moving along at a very suspenseful pace. It also helped that in this
book the individual plot lines began to converge. It really allowed you to see
there was an ending in sight, that everything really was connected. And when the
majority of the lines do meet up, they do in an action packed conclusion that
will keep the pages turning for about 150 straight pages. What's unique about
this book is that it really doesn't add any new plot lines. A lot of times when
you read these long series (Jordan is a great example) as you go on, the author
keeps adding more and more new subplots to the main line. Sometimes this works,
but a lot of times it just confuses things more and drags it out. I was very impressed
by Williams not having to do this. In other words, he's now finished 3 very long
books and actually had the core of the story so worked out that he didn't need
to add subplots to bail himself out. What's developing here is the same as the
groundwork he laid in book one. You really don't see that a lot. In addition to
the plot, Williams finally stops the character development. I know this sounds
weird to say, but after two books of 600+ pages of almost solid character development,
you reach a point where you don't really need to know any more. You basically
understand them and just want them to behave as you expect. Williams finally does
that and it helps pick up the pace tremendously. All of the characters of the
first books are here, and they all stay true to themselves. Williams especially
does a good job focusing on the arch villain Dread and his plans to take over
the Otherland for himself. The scenes with Dread prove to be some of the best
in the book and Williams does a great job of treating him like the wild card that
throws the whole plot into disaray. Finally, as with the other two books, the
writing is very well done. Williams has a very strong descriptive knack and he
guides you through a fairly complicated idea leaving you with a nice understanding
of it. The action scenes are wonderfully paced and he does an especially good
job with the two war scenes. If I had any complaint it would be with the ending.
The ending seemed a bit rushed and very chaotic. I can't tell whether this was
on purpose so that you read the next one to figure out what happened or if it
was just done too quickly. Either way, I was left feeling a little confused by
what happened at the end. However, based on the quality of the book, I will be
buying book number four and hope that it clears everything up. |
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 Our
Ranking The Sea of Silver Light is the fourth
and final book of the massive Otherland series. To say the least this has been
an up and down series. The first and third books were very good, while the second
book was actually quite bad. I was hesitant enough about the fourth book that
it took me over a year to finally read it. (which I rarely ever do to a book in
a series). Well, my hesitation turned out to be pretty grounded. While this was
certainly not the disappointment of the second book, it did come down from the
third, and in my mind left the entire series as a bit of a let down. Silver Light
leads off right where the very explosive 3rd book let off and immediately begins
to crawl at a snail's pace. While still faster than the pace of the second book,
I was just stunned that the book could wind back down again like this. Once again,
you find the characters just moving from world to world, barely getting any new
clues, or just one crucial piece of information in each one. Also, I really begin
to think the size of the series was weighing down on it at this point. By now
as the reader you've guessed or been told a huge chunk of the plot while the characters
haven't. Now, I can handle that for a book or two, but I think after 3,000 pages
of reading these characters stumbling around, trying to piece this stuff together,
at such an incredibly slow pace became a bit agonizing. So, throughout most of
this book, I have to admit I was pretty frustrated. The worlds were really nothing
overly new from the first three books, so the thrill of that had worn off and
the characters were still just plodding around, helpless and clueless. I grew
tired of it for the most part. This was actually one time where I wish most of
the characters were not consistent. I wish they would grow smarter, or at least
begin to twist into something during their trials. And of course, the one character
that was actually very cool, Dread, does wind up changing, and for the worse.
Unfortunately, Williams took a perfectly terrific villain that he'd nurtured for
three books, and then sort of messed him up in the fourth. I guess a case could
be made that Dread let all of of the power go to his head and became lazy or sloppy,
but he seemed much too calculating for that. Basically, some of the stuff he lets
happen should never have happened to him. Once things did begin to wrap up (people
stopped hopping from world to world), Williams did do a pretty nice job. The first
ending (I'll explain that in a second) was nicely done and pretty action packed.
There were a couple of surprises that I hadn't guessed, some pretty insignificant,
others pretty cool. However, once that all ends, suddenly I found myself with
another 100 pages to go to finish the book. A little confused as to what could
happen, I read on. Note to any author out there. Never, ever, leave 100 pages
of wrap up after the climax of the book is over. I felt like I was watching a
Scooby Doo episode where they explain all of the plot in the last five minutes
of the show just by talking to each other. Those last 100 pages were pretty painful,
and should have been explained within the real plot somehow. I mean, there were
3,200 pages to do this! Overall, the series wound up as a disappointment for me.
I didn't feel like it was worth the effort of reading these four books. That said,
I think Williams had some great ideas and this could have been I terrific series:
two books shorter. After thinking about this, I really see no reason why this
needed to be this long. If you cut out all of the repetitive stuff (I can't tell
you how annoyed I was getting at reading over and over again how so and so character
just didn't know how much more they could take) this would be two fairly long
books of an action packed, very imaginative series. Instead, as is, I have to
say, the series as a whole is not worth the effort. |
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