I found that I had to bump up the playback speed slightly, otherwise it felt like the pauses were a little too long, the speech a little too slow. George Newbern’s narration was fantastic, if a little slow. While I normally don’t fault a book for having weak female characters, it was refreshing to have such diversity in the book. When Reny needs help, she turns to another woman (another professor in computer science-type fields) for aid, and though men are involved, they are on an equal footing with the women. One of the main villains is Australian and there seem to be people from across the globe involved in either the world or trying to study the world. Reny is a South African black woman, and one of her closest friends through the story is a native African. I’ve read a lot of complaints, recently, from people who wish that there were more women and/or minorities in the books that they read, especially genre fiction. The characters in this book are very interesting. In the book, there are VR systems (think: Oculus Rift taken to the extreme), normal day-to-day use of the internet, tablets, videophony…things that are in the early years of widespread adoption now.
For a book written in 1996, Williams was somewhat a visionary of technology and how people use it. Where some people would spend time info-dumping, Williams is able to make the world comprehensible by explaining things to characters, or having the reader go along with the process of discovery with the characters.
Williams, unlike many authors I’ve read recently, is able to describe the world and the technology organically through the telling of the story. That said, the book drew me in more or less from the get-go, and I found excuses to listen more as I went about my days. The entire plot is engaging, if sometimes a little confusing to keep track of who is where (especially at first, as the world and characters are introduced). There is also the story of those running Otherland, some with more nefarious reasons than others… He may or may not have been a soldier in World War II, but somehow has found himself stuck in the world of Otherland without the ability to escape. There is another story in the book, of a man named Paul. They find themselves searching for answers on Otherland, enlisting the help of some others who have also found out about the mysterious world, all seeking answers for what it is and why it’s harming kids. In parallel, a kid named Orlando is exposed to “Otherland” in a part of his online video game. Setting out to try to figure out what left him in the coma, she comes across a hint of a world called “Otherland,” a world within the VR world. One day she comes home to find her little brother, Steven, comatose after spending some time in the VR world. Main character Reny (a nickname for Irene) is a teacher of computer science/VR manipulation at a university. At least, the younger people seem to do this. Many people, instead of congregating/living in cities with malls and town centers and such, live good parts of their lives in the virtual world. In a future-world setting (the book was written in 1996), virtual reality (VR) in the form of using an avatar to explore the “net,” is fairly commonplace.
Tad williams otherland city of golden shadow series#
There are 4 books in the Otherland series in total ( City of Golden Shadow, River of Blue Fire, Mountain of Black Glass, and Sea of Silver Light, the first two of which are available in audio so far). I say “at least” because I have only just started that book (and it’s 24.3 hours long!), and I have no idea if it resolves any of the story. The book ends with no plot lines resolved and more questions than answers…so, if you read this book, be prepared to read at least the next book in the series ( River of Blue Fire. There was only one downside to the book, which I may as well get out of the way now: it’s not a complete story. This is actually a cyberpunk book, a quite good one at that. I saw a fantastical-looking image on the cover and, knowing that Tad Williams typically writes fantasy novels/series, I just assumed it was a fantasy novel. I knew nothing about the book when I started listening, I hadn’t even read the blurb in the description. I hate to admit this, but I judged this book by the cover at first. And somehow, bit by bit, it is claiming the Earth’s most valuable resource – its children. The best minds of two generations have labored to build it. Incredible amounts of money have been lavished on it. Surrounded by secrecy, it is home to the wildest dreams and darkest nightmares. Themes: / cyberpunk / virtual reality / science fiction / By Tad Williams Narrated by George Newbern
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