Book Review: City of Golden Shadow (Otherland #1) by Tad Williams (three stars)
In any case, Paul thought, if he was already dead, he couldn’t die again. If he was alive, then he was part of a fairy tale, and surely no one ever died this early in the story.
Ready Player One meets Lord of the Rings. A well-developed and well-written story. Slow start. Too many threads, too unconnected for the first half of the book. I quit and restarted several times before I finally got sucked into the accelerating plot.
“Can we talk to the gods and hear their voices more clearly? Or have we now, with all these powers, become gods?”
A variety of engaging characters each in a personal crisis, unaware of the enormity they have engaged. Computer geeks galore. !Xabbu offers an needed everyman/nativist perspective.
It was a story, no more, no less, and stories were the things people used to give the universe a shape.
Cheat! Over 800 pages and no closing; no closure. Williams just cut and ran. Cost him a five-star rating. The titular city is a MacGuffin.Three more books in this series (so far), won’t waste time on another Jordan-esque, sideways epic journey to nowhere.
This scans utterly!
As a Matter of Fancy 