What really shines, as in all the Tad Williams books I've read, is the characters.
The protagonists must then delve into that virtual world in order to thwart the bad guys (as yet undefined) plans and save the people they love. This idea that VR is ubiquitous forms the main conceit of the book with the rich villains setting up a ridiculously complex virtual playground for themselves and trampling everyone in the process.
#TAD WILLIAMS OTHERLAND VOLUME 1 SERIES#
I did eventually get to the end of this but I can legitimately say that it is one of the very worst novels I have ever actually read in its entirety and I certainly won't be reading the remainder of this series - the very thought of another 3000 pages of this tripe makes me gag.Ĭity of Golden Shadow is a sci-fi epic set in some undefined future where the Internet has gone all VR a bit like Ready Player One but written years before. A novel about VR and conspiracies provides rich material for dramatic storytelling but here this promising concept has been squandered utterly.ĭo everything you can to avoid reading this and make sure you warn others who might be tempted by the tantalising cover blurb. What makes this whole desperate endeavour even more disappointing is that there is actually the germ of a good idea buried (very deeply) somewhere in this mess. In its place are endless, wordy, barely literate paragraphs of what ultimately, when all is said and done, amounts to textual diarrhoea. Completely absent is any concept of story, plot, pacing, characterisation or anything else that would vaguely resemble an actual novel. Tad Williams is a man who clearly loves the sound of his own voice but evidently is so boring that he can only get himself heard by writing devastatingly tedious tomes such as this one. Badly written, dull and horrifically long to an extent that is actually beyond belief (in the sense that I'm forced to ask: how did this utter rubbish ever get published?). This book is a autographed version of the book.This is truly, mind-numbingly appalling. This series has an almost Proustian cast of characters, and Tad Williams uses them all to craft a great story. Loved this book - vast and epic - I love writers who can take me to new worlds and reinvent their genres in the process. It has been a couple of years since I read this series, but I still carry some of the images in my minds eye.
This series takes some amazing twists, but the most likeable thing about this series for me was his visuals. The virtual world threatens to replace the real world, unless a small group of characters are able to overcome The Powers That Be. The idea is that the internet has grown in ways that allow people to conduct virtual lives online.and it isn't all fun and games. The Otherland series demands of the reader some suspension of belief, and if you are able to get into the car and ride with him, you will be in for a very cool ride through the ages. Tad Williams won me over as a reader with this book, and the fact that he told his story in 4 books, rather than entering the never-ending sequel ride that so many writers in this genre are doing, was just another reason to love him. Tad Williams : City of Golden Shadow (Otherland, Volume 1)Ĭity of Golden Shadow (Otherland, Volume 1)
0 kommentar(er)
