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will love Sign up for LibraryThing to find out whether you'll like this book.  StuartAston | Jul 19, 2009 |  I could say that this is the sequel to City of Golden Shadows but as Tad states he considers Otherland and all its parts to be one huge novel. It's a testament to his writing skill that despite the number of characters and plot strands, I elected to skip over the synopsis and jump right back into the story, despite the eight months or so that passed for me between the two books. All the characters were still fresh to me and I had no trouble picking up were it had left off. I identify most with Orlando, his disability being not dissimilar from my own SMA Type III, albeit with in my case a much longer life expectancy. For some this is a virtual odyssey that they might not want to end - myself included. (  )1  Finxy | Jul 7, 2009 | yeah yeah yeah ... i've read this one several times as well. onward! ( ) taralindsey | Nov 12, 2008 | Looking back on the series afterwards, this volume seems the least necessary. It has several memorable worlds and scenes, but the series' plot feels insufficiently advanced in retrospect. Still, very entertaining. (  ) Cecrow | Dec 14, 2007 | Another excellent book in this series, see book 1 for the full review. This was still very much worth reading. ( ) Karlstar | Aug 24, 2007 |  no reviews | add a review
Amazon.com Amazon.com Review (ISBN 0886778441, Paperback)Tad Williams began his Otherland series with the massive City of Golden Shadow and continues it with the equally hefty River of Blue Fire. Williams says it will require four (big) books to tell his complex, multithreaded tale, and at the rate that the plot of this second novel moves, readers will see what he means. Not that the book is a slow read; in fact, River is as much a suspenseful page-turner as the first book.As River opens, we join up again with the ragtag bunch of searchers trapped in an astoundingly detailed and frightfully dangerous virtual world known as Otherland. Lurking in disguise among the group is the brutally vicious serial killer Dread, trying to find information that will help him overthrow his Grail Brotherhood masters. The group follows a ubiquitous river through world after world, unable to go offline, and subject to the increasingly terrifying certainty that things in this supposedly virtual place are all too real. Meanwhile, Paul Jonas, an amnesic (but somehow pivotal) character fleeing from two sinister beings, finds more and more of his memory as he does his own Huck Finn river trip. As in the first novel, each new world that the characters enter, from Paleolithic Ice Age to something suspiciously like Oz, is fully realized and completely unpredictable. Williams is a master at parceling out information to the reader in dribs and drabs, which is frustrating yet tantalizing, like a particularly good computer game. When the group is split up and the adventure divides further, the reader senses the author as a puppet master, following some incredibly complex flows of information. The best course is just to hang on and enjoy Williams's deft characterizations, lush descriptions, and wildly divergent plot. If you've ever been white-water rafting, you'll recognize the feeling. --Therese Littleton (retrieved from Amazon Tue, 05 Jan 2010 15:31:16 -0500) The first test round has been closed. Visit the Open Shelves Classification group for details. |
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Wikipedia in English (1)
Through this second book though they find that not all that happens is reality as they see death occuring amongst the lands they visit and wonder how immortal they are here. But they also begin to grasp the secrets hidden behind the world - but still that knoweldge cannot come together and the group is still split in two and trying to get back together. (