Customer Reviews

Otherland (Bk.4)

5 star:		(62)
4 star:		(14)
3 star:		(8)
2 star:		(7)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

A lot of times, you'll come to the end of a series, and you'll be let down. It's almost inevitable; series like Williams' "Otherland", are so detailed, and involve so many characters, any satisfying resolution seems to exceed the author's grasp. Not so in this case.

"Sea of Silver Light", wraps everything up nicely, but not hurriedly, and not without enough twists to keep you guessing right up until the end. In my case, a few of my pet hunches panned out, but many others were way off the mark, and in most instances, I didn't even hazard a guess. That's the beauty of this series, since Williams' operates outside of the world as we know it, the only constraint is his imagination, which is top notch. I would go on, but the risk of spoliers is just to great.

Furthermore, his writing has just gotten better and better as the series has progressed. His character development is light-years beyond where it was at the beginning of the series, let alone his earlier works; and it was pretty good then.

For those of you who have stumbled across this book, find "Otherland: City of Golden Shadow" and order it now! The whole series is predicated on a virtual reality network so realistic that it is seemless with the real world, to the point where if you die on the network, you die in real life. As you might guess, this network contains a near infinite number of "worlds", each populated by a host of bizarre, fun, frightening characters. Furthermore, William's pays tribute to many of his own literary influences by borrowing from Tolkien, Wells and Burroughs, to name a few.

At the same time, he carries on a subtle debate about what "life" really is. Not only is this a well written, original adventure, but it's also a serious consideration of where technology is taking us as a species.

Jake Mohlman

My, my...after 2100+ pages of virtual madness, we come at last to the final volume of Tad William's 'Otherland' epic. And, true to form, William has made the climatic/concluding volume a massive 900 page monster explicitly designed to devour time and oh yes lest I forget answer those hundred or so plot-threads and plot-questions introduced in the first three volumes.

Sigh.

To be perfectly honest, I enjoyed this book, frustrating experience though it was. Tad has a penchant for overstatement and he never met a simile he didn't love (or try to wriggle in an otherwise clean and stylish sentence), but he _is_ a talented author with an extremely fertile imagination. Some would say that is the best part about him, others claim it the worst. I straddle the fence on this one. One thing that cannot be disputed: as proven in his past series 'Memory, Sorrow, and Thorn,' Tad knows how to write a dramatic climax. _Sea of Silver Light_ cements this reputation--the last 400 pages are a marvel, and I read them all in two sittings, unable to put the text down.

There are some problems, however:

Character development. Expecting insight into the "lesser" POV's like Florimel and T4b? Sorry. These (and others) remain cardboard cutouts, used primarily for info-dump and emotional melodrama.

The first half of the book drags along rather slowly--you can *feel* the climax starting to coalese, but it takes 500 pages to initiate it! And like _MoBG_, parts of this book feel padded, with Williams creating situations simply to keep some of his characters busy while he struggles to bring it all together (Dodge City in particular evoked "been there, done that" feelings).

With it all said and done, I find myself with those who state that Tad should have condensed Otherland into three volumes. Perhaps not as much money for the author in the long run, but a strong editing rinse would certainly have made this more palatable and enjoyable. But hey, at least he didn't pull a 'Robert Jordan' (*knock on wood*)!

I had a terrific time reading SOSL, the last book in Tad Williams' "Otherland" fantasy epic! The last 100 pages of the third book -- Mountain of Black Glass -- were gripping and powerful, and I spent the last eighteen months waiting anxiously for the arrival of this book. When I started reading three weeks ago, I had my doubts on whether Williams could really come through with a conclusion that this series deserved, but he completely delivered on all levels.

The most telling sign of how much I liked this final book was the number of chapters in the last 250 pages for which I found myself stunned and surprised by new developments or sudden revelations. I also found myself smiling at the end of the 922-page epic, knowing that I'd read something that I would remember for a long time and recommend strongly to friends and family.

I agree with most of the other reviewers -- I was a little sad that I had finally reached the end because I wanted to know more about these characters and what will happen to them next. I also look forward to waiting a few years and then rereading this series from start to finish again. Those are the marks of a great writer and a great series.

I'll stop right here because I don't want to accidentally spoil anything. Just get yourself a copy of "City of Golden Shadow," the first book in the series, and belt yourself in for a long, great ride. You'll love it!

The Otherland series really amounts to about a 4,000 page novel and with Sea of Silver Light we out with a BANG! SoSL is a very satisfying and well written denouement. This is by far the best book of the series, as it should be given that it's the concluding volume.

SoSL is especially rewarding because we continue to learn more about all the characters' character. Williams has done an especially good job of fully exploring the motivations and personalities of all the major players and a few minor ones as well. And despite the over 900 pages of text, the story moves along at a brisk pace as it builds toward the reader's understanding of the /big picture/ which is the background of the novel. It does not suffer from long, meandering, somewhat meaningless wandering around in the plot as some of the previous volumes did (especially River of Blue Fire). In previous volumes Williams got a bit carried away at times with playing around in the little virtual worlds he creates. Here the writing is, for the most part, much tighter and engaging.

If you haven't read the previous novels DO NOT START here. The series is definitely worth wading through and much of the depth of SoSL relies on the groundwork laid before. And if you get through River of Blue Fire and feel disappointed -- don't stop! It's the weakest of the four books and suffers from the "middle book in a series." It also is the book that could have lost about 300 pages with no damage to the plot.

After finishing this book, I was left feeling very unsatisfied. Before, we felt that the characters were being led to a major point, but now we find them aimless again. There is a lot of additional wandering through the network of the Otherland with a lot less focus on its majesty or its wonder. Before, every environment seemed to come to life, a world on its own, but this time I felt as though the worlds were just hastily plowed through, which was strange as there was SO much text.

The sacrifice could be seen as necessary if there was greater character development, but none of the characters seemed to change that much. There are perhaps just too many characters by now to have good progression in any of them, though some attemt is made. So we have hundreds of pages of what wasn't exactly filler and not exactly progress in the narrative leaving the reader with the desire to hurry up and just end it. Williams constant delays in revelations are much help either, and in the end these revelations are borderline ridiculous.

This story starts out with the idea that we are just in the near future, and as one reviewer stated, it all seems very possible. Even as I read about the idea of copying a brain into the network from the last book I decided it wasn't TOO farfetched. When Dread took over the entire online universe with some kind of psychic power, I was of course a little disappointed. In fact, that is probably why the story took such a sad turn. What was previously a series exploring complex questions on artificial intelligence became a story of stop the monster. I was more interested in the idea that to free the children, the network would have to be shut off, though the online characters seemed to have achieved sentience. Instead, such concerns only become secondary to stopping Dread, a character who should have remained minor.

The final revelations, as to what the Other is and how the children in comas were involved are so utterly out there it becomes pathetic. Tad uses paranormal forces to tie up loose ends, when the previous books seemed to suggest that a magnificent but plausible explanation would be given. Worse, the explanations all but contradict assumptions of previous books, specifically where it seems the Grail Brothers weren't responsible for the children going into comas. Yet then why didn't they ever see the correlation and discuss it? Weren't they concerned it could ruin them? The problem is that after reading 4000 pages, one would like to be able to see the final explanations and then look back and see the clues. For the biggest revelations, the clues are theorectically there but only by large stretches of the mind.

Finally, Sellars last revelations are almost pointless, having about nothing to do with the other books and as others said, could be a whole new novel, which may be what Williams is planning.

Sadly, I think I might have to sit out on any more Otherland adventures. The story overall was interesting, and there was a lot of good writing in this last book, but the conclusions were just too disappointing, and after 4000 pages I thought the reader deserved more.

The conclusion to Tad William's _Otherland_ saga, _Sea of Silver Light_, is a massive, sprawling, complex, sometimes confusing, but ultimately satisfying journey. The plot turn that closed Volume 3, _Mountain of Black Glass_, has left Our Heroes divided once again, and with some peculiar choices in travelling companions.

Though their separations, combinations, and ultimate reunion do drag on, there is little of the aimless feel that plagued the previous two books, especially the second, _River of Blue Fire_. There is definitely momentum here, and the momentum picks up as the companions come closer to the dark heart of the entity known as the Other.

The various plot threads finally rush together in a thrilling and well-plotted conclusion that resolves the mysteries of Paul Jonas, Ava, the man Sellars, and the nature of the Other itself. The ending does get a bit warm and fuzzy; after the apocalyptic tone of most of the book, it seems a bit disconcerting for so many things to turn out so well, but as I said before, the book and series make a satisfying whole.

The ultimate fate of Renie, !Xabbu, and their friends, as well as when and whether the nefarious Jongleur and his monstrous servant Dread get their well-deserved comeuppance, is certainly worth reading for, and the descriptions of some the virtual worlds through which they trek to reach that fate are, as in the previous books, breathtaking.

If you've made it this far, you know what's going on (and if you don't, there are pages and pages of story-so-far synopsis to fill you in). The real question is, does it work? More to the point, does it truly require over 1200 pages to wrap up a tale that's already three volumes old?

The answers are interlinked: it works, mostly, but it wavers severely, and mainly because of that overlong running time.

Things are spiralling out of control, both in the network and in the real world, and our various heroes and villains are fighting a losing battle against time, desperately trying to complete their tasks before everything ends...

...Or so we're told, repeatedly; but there's little sense of urgency communicated to the reader by chapter after chapter of characters slogging their way through a fading landscape. Much of this is little different from the episodic adventure/trudge of the previous two books. Sadly, the wonder evoked palls with each new virtual world (yes, yet more!), and you can't help but wonder why someone at the editing stage didn't whisper in Williams' ear about the law of diminishing returns. The prose is fluid and enjoyable enough - there's just far too much of it. Similar may be said of the characters; a third of them could be ditched without either the story or its themes suffering unduly. The exploration of the true nature of the Other is fascinating, but again, the same meditations could have been condensed without losing anything of value.

There is a huge and wonderful imagination at work here, and the near-future world Williams has created retains the power to enthral and amuse (the 'Netfeed' snippets at the top of each chapter remain one of the best bits of the book, especially the one for the final chapter).

But compelling as it is, I can't help but feel that the promise of the astonishing first book, _City of Golden Shadow_ has been squandered somewhere along the line, as Williams got caught up in his own inventiveness. The first volume contained real tension, mystery and wonder; here, though, the denouement is unforgivably talky and longwinded, and even introduces certain new and wholly unnecessary elements. Worst still, there is little sense of the price of victory, with virtually all the good guys emerging (mostly) intact. There are few real casualties in this war.

An uneven conclusion to what should have been a great fantasy achievement.

Tad Willaims' _Otherland_ has been an incredible series. And the difficulty inherent in writing what is truly a 3000+ page novel cannot be overemphasized. For the most part Willaims can be said to have succeeded. The first three books are excellent and the fourth starts off equally well. But the final volume's conclusion fails to live up to the series' promises and mars the entire work.

This the concluding volume has a number of problems mostly centering around the last fourth of the book. One particularly odd flaw is Williams' decision to introduce a major new subplot relating to Mr. Sellars at the end of the book. This new development has no impact on the story and is too huge to include simply as an interesting detail. Williams could have written an entire new novel around this one subplot. However this is a minor point since even though this subplot takes up too much of the book it doesn't really take up that much and it does little to subtract from the enjoyment of the series.

A far greater problem is that Williams is unable to bring the various story threads together in a fitting conclusion. He cetainly tries, even trying to get Christabel and Cho-Cho in on the climax, but in the end the situation seems to resolve itself. The heroes seem unimportant and I was left wondering why they were needed in the book. Certainly the characters' stories had been very interesting. And there is no literery reason why everyone in a story has to play some important part in the conclusion. But _Otherland_ had seemed to be building to a climax in which Paul and the other heroes would be the champions. The previous volumes had put a lot of emphasis on the angel and the feathers she kept giving Paul and in the third volume that angel puts a lot of significance on the mountain of black glass and the need of the heroes to climb it themselves.
This book suggest that Orlando is important in the plans of the other. But in the end neither the angel, the feathers, Paul, the black mountain, Orlando, or any of the others seem very important.

Also after the climax the book doesn't end. The last chapters are a bit tedious and unimportant, and Williams seems to be setting up a possible sequel rather than completeing this story.

I hate that this review seems overly negative. _Sea of Silver Light_ still has a lot going for it. Perhaps most imortantly it doesn't ruin the other books in the series. Many huge series like this fall completely apart in the later volumes and in the end none of the books seem any good. I can still recommend the series as a whole.

But beyond that I can also reccomend this particular book. Though you certainly shouldn't read this book without reading the first three, this book is none the less good on its own merits. It is well written, very interesting, it continues to explore a spectacularly fascinating fantasy world (even if this volume shows some signs of padding, particularly the Old West simulation), and Willaims has an amazing sense of what people are really like and the characters and human institutions in this book tend to behave in very realistic and beleivable ways even when they are being absurd. I particularly enjoyed the NETFEED/NEWS bits at the begging of each chapter (in this and the previous volumes).

The only exception to his good character developement are some of the minor characters in this volume, particularly T4B and Florimal. In previous volumes these character had very little development which was fine. Williams can't make every character a major character. In this volume Willaims tries to develope these charcaters more but does a surprisingly one dimensional job of it.

One highlight of this volume is the back story explaining how Paul came to be involved with Jongleur and his relationship to Jongleur's duaghter. The book also has some surprises about Sellars and the true nature of the Other.

Again I hope this review hasn't been too negative. _Sea of Silver Light_ is still a good book. And it is a good conclusion the the _Otherland_ series, but it is also a somewhat disappointing conclusion.

I had not read a sci-fi/fantasy book in a long time, and the first book in the Otherland series by Tad Williams was an impulse buy for me. I quickly became enthralled with the story, and let the author's imagination sweep me along. With most books I find myself impatient for the author to "just get on with it". With the Otherland series, there are beginnings and endings happening all the time, and dramatic tension is tightened and relieved over and over again. While books 2 and 3 had some storylines that didn't move the main story forward very much, those detours were just so darn imaginative that I didn't mind at all.

Having waited over a year for Sea Of Silver Light to be published, I wondered whether I would find it easy to become immersed in the story again. Not to worry - it quickly seemed like the climax from book 3 happened only yesterday, and off we went.

Considering how many subplots the author had been juggling, perhaps the most amazing thing is that he brought virtually all of them in for a plausible landing. Of course, "plausable" in Otherland requires the reader to not look very critically at the science of the thing, but, if you aren't able to go with the flow in that regard, you probably would have hopped off the ride back in book 1.

All in all, this is a series that I highly recommend. There is just something extra special about the writing, and I bet every reader would have a slightly different take on just what it is that makes it work so well.

that it's all over! :(

That's all I need to say! If you haven't read this book yet, do so. If you haven't read the other books in the series, do so. Now. Immediately. This series is positively epic. It was so wonderful to see all the plot threads finally come together into a glorious and satisfying whole.

Though, as happy as I was with the book, there's a large empty feeling that comes with knowing it's all over. That utterly scans.