![]() ![]() This could have been a fantastic effort if edited to about a 1000 pages or so. But it is clear that the objective of the author (and the editor/publisher) was to create a large series (measured by the heft of the books and the number of trees killed), rather than to tell a good story. The ideas are interesting, the execution is fairly creative, some of the characters are competently developed, etc. There is nothing particularly wrong with the Otherland series. This book, the fourth in a four-book fantasy series, is an amazing example of how a good idea can be stretched and diluted until it is no longer pleasurable to read. Tropes show how literature is conceptualized and created and which mixture of elements makes works and genres unique: Yes, his fantasy writing is great too, but there are such vast loads of great fantasy and close to no genre border crossing experimentations that unite the strength of both worlds, not to speak of far too few sci-fi series. I wish Williams would have written more hybrids or had begun writing pure sci-fi, just as Sanderson, because he is such an ingenious and unique talent that it would be a loss if he didn´t continue fusing genres. No matter if VR, reality, or in character´s introspections, this thing rocks on each page. Normally, one would assume that these experiments can´t be as good as a purely bred genre novel, because each switching comes with the danger of losing touch and flow, but the opposite is the case. Maybe it´s the mix of genres, the philosophical insights, the manifold worldbuilding, but this series had something just Game of Thrones, and some of my favorite sci-fi series could really activate, a sense of wonder so deep that reality is completely getting lost. It´s so immersive, the writing so good that even the extreme detail and, in many other cases average and annoying, info dumping and sprawling expositions, feel great and I haven´t had a moment of boredom in this whole thing. It would really interest me how many ideas were originals and how many interpretations and adaptions of known fantasy and sci-fi novels and series, because there was hardly ever a crossover series that blew me away like that. Now, much makes more sense, and many open questions are answered and I am overemphasizing this aspect because everything is so freaking big in this series. However, if Otherland was not created by one single god it is the joint product of an earthbound collective of minds, identities, mythologies and desires, and god, in a world as !Xabbu sees it, could very well be the ‘dream that is dreaming us.I wish VR would be already that advanced nowadays.įinally, everything comes together and the many plotlines that were established over the series culminate in a science fantasy overkill. Many Otherland sim worlds exist to be future heavens for would-be gods. It is this unpredictability which makes the Other into a perfect god-figure per definition. It is a childlike, experimental and uncaring god that knows no morality, because it is unfamiliar with humanity’s rules. Yet, the omnipresent ‘Other,’ the ‘Sky God,’ who is literally placed in ‘heaven’ (aka a satellite orbiting Earth), is the only ‘being’ that is understood as a true god in this saga. Godliness appears in many disguises in god complexes, religious metaphors, figures and spaces. ![]() Through an inflationary usage of the word ‘god,’ the tale is as much about its meaninglessness, as about possible interpretations for the digital age. Several returning themes in this narrative are followed to throw light on ideas of godliness, for instance death, myth, age or proportions. There are travellers in ‘Otherland,’ who have been ‘swallowed’ by this virtual network and who are all on their own Homeric quests, wrestling with their understandings of god. Tad Williams’ Otherland series (1996-2001) journeys through several definitions of godliness from human history. ![]()
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