As it says in the title this is volume 3 for the series of 4 books followinf Renie, !Xabbu, Martine and the rest of thr groups through Otherland trying to find what is happening to the children and why the comas are all occuring.

This third addition sees them travel to Troy and meet up with Paul Jonas (who Sellars told them originally was key to the whole mystery). As well as this with the death in the previous book of Long William by Dread we also find out the history of the others in this group. They are all though fighting for the same thing to bring back loved ones from the internet induced comas.

As well as the ongoing story in VR you pick up the story in Real Life as well. Cristabel is found out by her family that she is in contact with Mr. Sellars and this leads to her family leaviing the base and their lives. As well as this the real life of Dread starts to come to life with the Police starting to think he did not die and may be behind a series of murders where the video cameras suddenly turn off.

Though for Dread he has other tasks to look after - becoming a god, killing his boss and chasing down Renie and the group. And taking over Otherland!

One more book to go.....I can't wait to get started on it. ( )

Otherland: Mountain of Black Glass is the third book in the massive four volume series, Otherland, written by Tad Williams. The Grail Brotherhood continues its quest of immortality while a group known as The Circle tries to thwart at least some of the Brotherhood's plans. Dread, a rogue "servant" of the head of the Brotherhood, Felix Jongleur, works towards his own goals by his own, terrifying, means. All the while, the Otherland system is becoming more and more unstable. Paul Jonas, Renie Sulaweyo, and the others trapped in the system struggle to survive in an increasingly dangerous situation as they try to make sense of what is happening to them, the system, and their loved ones.

I haven't been reading the series straight through, which is somewhat unfortunate since I forget many of the details from one book to the next. Luckily, Williams as included a synopsis for each of the previous two books, Otherland: City of Golden Shadow and Otherland: River of Blue Fire. (The synopsis of Otherland: City of Golden Shadow is the same one he used in the second book, except that it is missing a paragraph.) While I still feel I'm missing out on quite a bit of the detail (which really is very understandable sine these books are huge in several ways) they do provide adequate summaries which make it much easier to jump back into the story after a break.

While many of the simulated worlds in the previous books were literary references that I could recognize (Wonderland, Oz, and War of the Worlds for example) I was not particularly familiar with those featured in this book beyond the Ancient Greek classics of Homer--The Oddessy and The Illiad. There is even a brief appearance of Virgil's Aeneid (an accidental theme in my reading recently). The other simulation worlds were extraordinarily creative and were quite a bit of fun.

In some ways, this book seemed to drag on--I noticed its length much more than I did the first two books, and I didn't find it quite as engaging either. It is very much a "middle" book, and seeing as it is the second one at that, execution is particularly tricky. I did begin to wonder about the point of it all but happily, by the end of the book, the multitudinous story-lines at least begin to coincide. Certainly not all of them, but enough that things start to pull together nicely. Many, many questions still remain to be resolved but answer are beginning to be hinted at.

Experiments in Reading ( )

It's damned hard to give up a series that I've invested somewhere near 2000 pages in already, but I've abandoned Tad Williams' Otherland at long last. At the one third mark into the third book, I had to face the fact that I don't even like many or most of the "worlds" the characters spend time in, despite really being interested in the characters and the outcome of the mysteries spun. As a last ditch effort, I tried reading the synopsis of book three in hopes of renewing my interest, but I lost interest in the synopsis! Life's too short to commit to a couple thousand more pages, at my slow pace, so I dumped it. I'm pretty sad it didn't work out, but I'm kind of relieved too. But I still feel guilty for quitting. ( )

My favourite volume of the series, followed by the conclusion. I can't seem to forget the House, or the take on the Trojan War. ( )

There are a few surprises in the conclusion of this series. Not the 'Huh?' kind of surprises, but the kind that fulfill the potential of the story and make it seem even better. A great book and a good end to the story. ( )