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From the Kirkus Review of the third book in Tad Williams' _Otherland_ series:
quote:Williams's synopses are as abstruse and overcomplicated as the yarn itself. So if by this point you have even the vaguest idea of what's happening, why, and who's involved, then keep reading and good luck. Newcomers: try something anything less absurdly overblown, labyrinthine and inconsequential.
Does Kirkus have a point? Or is this just an example of how mainstream, literary-biased publications don't 'get' science fiction? I'm on the third volume of the series, and it's holding my attention. But I tend towards the labyrinthine and the abstruse so I don't think I'm the best judge.
What do you all think?
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I loved the series; I've heard others complain about its pacing, but it didn't feel drawn out to me. I didn't read the summaries, though, as I read all four books one after the other.
I did feel like the writing was surprisingly amaturish in places though; in particular, there were times when the exposition was almost painful to read. I wrote up my feelings about it in detail on a thread here about a year and a half ago, but I'm sure it's long gone by now.
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I thought it was an amazing series. Seldom do authors juggle so many things so well. The first book seemed a little slow, but it picked up after that. I don't remember anything difficult or overly complicated about it.
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I too was completely baffled. I expected a negative review -- but the whole "the plot can't be followed by normal readers" line threw me because I didn't think it was that difficult. There aren't *that* many characters -- the characters are introduced slowly and they are different enough that it's easy to tell them apart. This isn't some Tolstoy novel where all the characters are from the gentry and have three different names.
The quote above was from the review for the III volume. Here's an excerpt from the Kirkus review for volume I:
quote:But the Brotherhood's split into factions, one of which is stealing children's minds from ordinary cyberspace. Teacher Renie Sulaweyo -- her brother is a victim -- and her Bushman friend, !Xabbu, along with various others stumble across the conspiracy and force their way into Otherland. And who is mysterious, crippled old Mr. Sellars, now a prisoner on a military base? Well, after 782 pages of flabby confusion, readers, like most of the characters, will have only the vaguest idea of what it's all about.
If, for whatever reason, you intend to absorb the entire tetralogy, you'll need your reading spectacles, a cool hundred bucks, a prodigious memory, and unlimited patience.
Flabby? Maybe, but I thought that these volumes were actually less flabby than some of Stephen King's stuff and much less so than other epics. Confusing? Only to someone who is so biased against science fiction that they refuse to invest a modicum of intelligence in the reading.
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Not if you buy the first two volumes at library overstock sales for fifty cents each. Now I just need the third and fourth.
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Something that I found interesting, when I was reading Neverwhere for the first time a month or so ago, was the similarites between the two "hunter" characters who pursue the main characters, and the two that pursue the main characters in the Otherland trilogy. Neverwhere and the first Otherland book came out at about the same time, though, so it's unlikely that either one was inspired by the other.
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Maybe it's a particularly potent meme that's floating out there. It certainly explains why I have that recurring nightmare that features Laurel and Hardy.
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Okay, so really it's Abbott and Costello, but I thought Laurel and Hardy sounded more sophisticated and less campy.
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I've only read the first book, but I found it very easy to understand and follow. I was glad for all the different characters, if he'd tried to only have one of them, then we wouldn't have met the others, and that would have been awful.
I also really liked the idea of the internet in the story, I kept on wishing I could go there.
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If I say that Otherland isn't the best series I've ever read, it's only because I've read Tolkien.
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Well, I came close to hating the series a few times. I don't agree at all that it was hard to follow (unlike G.R.R. Martin--if you put him down for too long). "Otherland" was really banal actually, but waaaaayyy too drawn out. Going on and on and on, recounting numerous, entirely inconsequential episodes that started to smell more and more of repetition. I often strongly suspected that Tad Williams was on drugs when writing another version of his nightmarish, surrrealistic hallucinations. I actually pictured him a few times as someone who, after sobering up, rubbed his hands together gleefully, thinking, "Yay, another 300 pages filled while passed out! This trippy stuff is really paying off!"
I still read the whole thing though, waiting for the BIG conclusion. The ending then was disappointingly anticlimactic. So I'm in doubt whether I'll ever spend money on Williams again.
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*grin* Tad freely admits that one of the reasons he wrote the series was to get a chance to visit some nifty-keen settings in brief, just to play with them. So, yes, it's more than a little self-indulgent in places.
Oddly, some of the most indulgent episodes -- like the House world -- are also, IMO, some of the best.
Posts: 37449 | Registered: May 1999
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Hmm, the Otherland series were the first ones by Tad Williams I read, and while it took me a while to get who was who and what was going on, I thoroughly enjoyed the series. In fact I have been meaning to read it again, as soon as I finish my current list of books (re-reading "Memory, Sorrow, and Thorn" by Williams, very nearly me favorite fantasy ever).
I really like his stuff.
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quote:Oddly, some of the most indulgent episodes -- like the House world -- are also, IMO, some of the best.
Amen. It had all the coolness of a hundred what-if worlds, without having to write an entire book for each one. The House was one of my favorite, too.
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I've read about the first book and a half. I suppose my biggest criticism is that I've never felt a twinge of regret after putting them down. The first one, I thought, was interesting but overlong. The second one I found to be frankly boring (I quit at the start of the Oz part). I've tried to read some of his other stuff, but couldn't get into it. So I guess I count as a non-fan.
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I started to lose interest after 5 chapters of that stupid cartoon kitchen world. The end was totally lame too.
I would rate the series a C, bordering on C-. It had some nice ideas, but the execution was lacking and the characters uninteresting.
Posts: 5656 | Registered: Oct 1999
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quote: This isn't some Tolstoy novel where all the characters are from the gentry and have three different names.
I've tried to read War and Peace about 5 times. I always give up about 100 pages in, when I have forgotton who is who, and have to keep reading back to check.
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I enjoyed the Otherland series! I found parts to be tedious, and I am wondering if Tad Williams intentionally or unintentionally made us painfully aware of the protagonist's floundering within the VR world which held him captive. Strangely, there is a long passage in the Dragonbone Chair in which Seoman Snowlock is nearly lost on part of his voyage in pitch black catacombs. I again wonder if TW meant for us to translate that sense of dread and isolation intentionally as well. TW though is the first to admit his verbosity, if that is even a word.
Lately I have been drudging through the Herbert/Anderson Dune novels, as well as the Butlerian Jihad...good stuff!
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As I started book 2, I was worried that the whole characers enter yet another VR world was going to get tiresome; however, I have been impressed (through book 3) with how each world adds to the overall plot development. The understanding of the system, the building of knowledge that the characters gain as they move through each world seems very realistic to me. And more importantly what is learned or experienced comes about or is made more vivid by the features of each particular world, I think.
And to add my third witness: The House section is fantastic.
Scott: Don't you use the library?
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Being a fanatically religious person, I was horrified by the ALA's insistence on breaking federal law by allowing adults to view child pornography on their premises.
So I'm boycotting them.
I looked, they don't have it.
Posts: 14554 | Registered: Dec 1999
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I enjoyed William's Otherland, but I feel the need to chime in about Kirkus. They are one of our review sources here at the library and I have gotten fairly familiar with their reviews. The thing you have to understand about Kirkus is that they don't like anything. It seems to be that their entire review staff is unhappy unless they get to pan everything they read. Perhaps they subscribe to my aunt's philosophy:
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The only complaint I had was there was one scene in the first book, With Dread, and the flight attendent. I couldn't sleep for a wekk afterward, and even now if I think about it right before I got to bed it takes me hours to go to sleep.
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Paul is absolutely correct. If you are reading this thread and haven't read any Tad Williams, his _Memory, Sorrow, and Thorn_ trilogy is the place to start.
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I keep hearing that memory, sorrow, and thorn is a great series. Am I the only one that found DragonBone Chair so intolerable that it couldn't be gotten past?
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quote:I keep hearing that memory, sorrow, and thorn is a great series. Am I the only one that found DragonBone Chair so intolerable that it couldn't be gotten past?
I made it through, but it was tough going at first. Then at the end of the first book it really picked up so that when I finished I was very primed to read the second book. Unfortunately, I didn't feel that the second two books were a worthwhile payoff. The world that he creates is interesting, but I just had trouble getting into the story. All this being said, I still read Memory, Sorrow, and Thorn, the Otherland series, and the War of the Flowers. So I guess by my actions I show that I really don't think he's too bad of a writer.
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I thought Otherland had a fantastic start with City of Golden Shadow and River of Blue Fire. I started reading the series right about the time that volume 2 came out in paperback. I was really looking forward to volume 3, and I wasn't disappointed when I got into it. At least at first. But I put it down at least three times to read other books, and that's not so good. I was really disappointed with volume 4. The revelations and conclusions just didn't live up to the promise of the beginning. Kind of like the matrix movies.
I loved Memory, Sorrow, and Thorn. It was my favorite fantasy epic before I started reading A Song of Ice and Fire. It moved pretty damn slow in spots, but I thought that was great. I liked the series enough that I appreciated the thought that Williams put into it.
Posts: 1855 | Registered: Mar 2003
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I find the otherland series a bit slow myself. I still very much enjoy it. I'm in the middle of book 3 at the moment.
I have to agree with those who love Memory, Sorrow and Thorns. It is one of my most favorite fantasy series out there. What I likes so much was the way I felt as the story progressed.
***Spoiler Alert***
When Simon was in the "elf city" he was very bored. So was I. I felt the boredom.
When Simon was lost in the maze under the castle in the first book. I had the acute feeling of how long and twisted the maze was. I felt exhausted after that chapter. I felt like Simon felt. If that makes any sense.
To me when you get sucked into a book, even when it's boring, is the sign of a good book. Most authors can suck you in with excitement and suspense, it takes a skilled writter to suck you in with other emotions and feelings.
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quote:Am I the only one that found DragonBone Chair so intolerable that it couldn't be gotten past?
No Slash, I was so traumitized by the torture of trying to get through The Dragonbone Chair that I doubt I will ever try again, even though I bought the whole series at one time.
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I've read the first 50 pages of The Dragonbone Chair a couple of times, but have never been able to get past it. I intend to though; the fact that I haven't given up on it is due entirely to my respect for Tom's taste in fiction.
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Seoman is such a nice name for a boy. Too bad if you chose that name for your son, he would undoubtedly be ridiculed at school with all sorts of berating connotations...
I have this big rock just sticking in the ground at the entrance to my driveway, which is VERY long (a 1/4 mile actually). I am mulling over in my mind if I should have it engraved, but instead of putting my name or anything else on it, I am thinking of a reference to the 2nd TW book in the Memory Series, and have it engraved as:
The Stone of Farewell
The title is fitting, because I feel as if I travel down a convoluted path to a different world when I head home, and it is a good thing. I cannot say it is as interesting as the Sithi ability to travel through dimensional space, but the two concepts do bear some resemblance to one another.
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BTW I had this urge to track down all the Memory, Sorrow and Thorn books in their original hardcover 1st printing, and I was able to find them all over the internet on eBay and Amazon etc...
Makes for a nice collection!
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I should point out that, just 50 pages into The Dragonbone Chair, the plot has not actually started. Like FotR, the book requires some patience. *grin*
That said, if you're a reader of plot-driven books, you may as well skip Williams altogether; plot is never the attraction of his writing. Of course, I feel the same way about Card's old stuff -- which may be why I dislike his new stuff by comparison, since it's increasingly plot-heavy.
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Now I just need the third and fourth.
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