January 4, 1999
Epic in scope and size, this near-future cyberspace adventure has likable characters, heinous villains, a plethora of classical references and a slew of powerful action sequences that propel its many-tiered plot forward. Paul Jonas, a mysterious man with no clear memory of his past, is trapped and hunted inside the Grail Project, an artificial intelligence network run by the ultra-wealthy Grail Brotherhood. This third installment of the Otherland series (City of Golden Shadow; River of Blue Fire) reveals that the Project has been designed to provide cyber-immortality to its rich owners: it does this, at least in part, by stealing essential elements from children's psyches and leaving them comatose. Renie Sulaweyo has lost a sibling to the Grail Brotherhood's machinations. While Renie's body is watched over in the real world, her consciousness has been transferred inside the network, where she works with a motley band of reluctant adventurers trying to save the children and themselves. Stalking them is the brilliant psychopath Johnny Dark, who knows secrets about the Project and has his own evil mental twist that can hurt it. While Williams has a rather conventional take on power and prejudice in his "real" world, he lets rip inside the network, working with environments that include Homer's Odyssey, an ancient Egypt where the gods are somewhat less than omnipotent and a gigantic House in which Linen Closet Sisters are kidnapped by boys from Cutlery. As his "real" characters encounter computer-generated simulacrums who express compassion and have their own dreams and desires, the line between reality and fantasy blurs. Though the sheer weight of the series is daunting, Williams fills his pages with the sort of stories and characters that readers of epic fantasy are sure to love.
Starred review from April 9, 2001
This stunning finale to the gigantic Otherland tetralogy (City of Golden Shadow, etc.), a brilliant fusion of quest fantasy and technological SF, is sure to please Williams's many fans. Otherland, a complete universe co-existent with the real world, incorporates elements of the Arabian Nights, the Alice and Oz books, the Neanderthal Age, the Trojan War, rewritten Roman history (Hannibal returns three centuries after his death to crush Rome, without elephants), as well as numerous nursery rhymes and fables. An enormous cast of courageous humans confronts monstrous insects, unimaginable dangers and all the appurtenances of fantastic adventure. At nearly 700 pages this is a mighty mouthful to swallow, but a well-crafted if convoluted plot sustains interest through the lengthy climax, which explains the inexplicable. Those scenes grounded in a recognizable world are the most compelling. Individuals may live in both worlds, despite Otherland being only made of "light and numbers." Characters dead in real life can still be alive in the virtual world, as in the poignant plight of a young woman, whose dress and manners are 18th century, who's in love with a young man snatched, apparently, from the trenches of WWI. Are they real or "sims" (simulations)? Generously, the author supplies two
master villains: one for whom we may begrudge some respect; for the other, no mercy. The Otherland books are a major accomplishment. Agent, Matt Bialer. (Apr. 10)
Forecast:Williams should enjoy another run up the genre bestseller lists with this strong concluding volume.
Starred review from December 30, 1996
When Renie Sulaweyo's younger brother, Stephen, returns from the Net after visiting Mister J's, a virtual reality equivalent of the Hellfire Club, she's worried about him. When his next Net trip leaves him in a coma, Renie is terrified and angry. Soon she discovers evidence that other children have lapsed into comas under similar circumstances. A professor of computer science and an adept user of the Net, Renie retraces Stephen's trail and enters Mister J's but barely escapes with her own mind intact. After her adventure, she discovers that someone has downloaded into her computer the impossibly complex image of a fantastic golden city. Then her apartment is fire-bombed, she loses her job and another professor whom she has recruited to help her decipher the mystery is murdered. It's clear that Renie has angered someone with almost unlimited power, but she remains determined to save her brother. In the first book in what is projected to be, in effect, a single, enormous four-volume novel, Williams (Memory, Sorrow and Thorn) proves himself as adept at writing science fiction as he is at writing fantasy. His 21st-century South Africa, where blacks run the government and pursue careers but where whites control most economic power, rings true. His version of the Net, although obviously indebted to Neal Stephenson's Snow Crash and other novels, is detailed and fascinating. Best of all, however, are Williams's well-drawn, sympathetic characters, including Renie and her family, her student !Xabbu, the mysterious invalid Mister Sellars and a host of other folk, all of whom hope to solve the mystery of the terrifying VR environment called Otherland.