Otherland
by Tad Williams
City of Golden Shadow (1)
science fiction
copyright 1996
not read in March 2014
rated 5/10: readable, but only if there's nothing else
Truth to tell, that rating really means, "So unbelievable and slow moving that I will never finish it."
I managed to read 100 pages. Nothing has happened. Rather, nothing of interest.
First, the technology of the book is badly dated. Mind trapped inside a virtual reality ? Why ? And how ?! When did we lose the concept of an "off" switch ?!
Yeah, fine, "speculative" fiction. It's a problem with near-future speculation: passing of time may make it look stupid.
The foreword is one of those apparently irrelevant stories where nothing much happens, then you have to read the rest of the book to find out what it was all about. Another 80 pages read with not even a hint that the foreword will ever be relevant.
Then there are the characters. Soap opera relationships. And the little black man of obvious significance... How long can we read with oh-so-subtle hints at the bleeding obvious... Including the wild and unsubstantiated rumours of a golden city at the edge of virtual reality. Oh yes, we'll miss those hints, won't we... In a book which starts a series called "city of the golden shadow" !
Following the twenty pages of mysterious -- clichéd -- foreword.
Somewhere I read s comment by the author, about his own tendency to wordiness. In my opinion he has not much to say, and works hard to stretch that not much into a whole series of overlong books.
If I could get over the technology speculation, perhaps I could read further. Yet nothing of the characters, of the plot or of the hinted plot direction makes me want to try.
This book promises another 900 pages of boredom. With more volumes to come. I shall return it to the book exchange. And buy a book with more promise of interest. Or, at least, with less pages of potential boredom.
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Problems ? Solved
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