The War of the Flowers by Tad Williams

An honest to goodness fairy story no less with pixies and pookas to boot from someone who has become one of my favourite authors. The protagonist of this tale gets whisked away to Fairie to discover all is not right in that magical realm. Fairy society has taken a wrong turn it seems and the sylvan glades of legend have been replaced with dark satanic power stations. This is a very entertaining read with genuinely unpleasant baddies that you long to see get their come-uppance. I won't give away any spoilers except to point out that it is a fairy story - draw your own conclusions.

Tadd Williams: Shadow Play

The Shadow March saga continues. There isn't really a sharp delineation between the first and this second book and I find it hard to remember where one ends and the next begins. The series touches on George RR Martin territory with its political intrigues but these are really overshadowed by the fantasy elements.

Tadd Williams: Shadow March

My Tadd Williams love affair continues with the first book of his latest saga. Set in a fairly traditional fantasy universe of magic and swordplay this has all the hallmarks of Williams rich storytelling and deep characterisation. An interesting feature of this saga is the very complex mythology that Williams has constructed which is slowly revealed through half remembered snippets of sometimes contradictory myth and legend that permeate each chapter. Being lazy I have given up trying to puzzle these out and just wait till the plot reveals what really happened but I am sure some folk would find it interesting.

Longwided as is usual for Williams of course, but worth it in my opinion.

Tad Williams: Otherland, Sea of Silver Light

Final volume of this terrific saga resolves all plot threads and ties everything up very satisfactorily. All in all I highly recommend this saga as an entertaining mix of fantasy, Sci Fi with a dash of cyberpunk thrown in for good measure. The virtual world setting allows all of those elements to fit together seamlessly. Be warned though that these books are long, far far longer indeed than is required to flesh out the plot. The pay-off for for wading through all 4000 plus pages though is a story filled with extremely well drawn characters. Williams populates his stories with credible living breathing actors who are a far cry from the shallow stereotypes that normally fill genre novels.

Tad Williams: Otherland Mountain of Black Glass

This third novel in the Otherland saga is a big improvement on the second. Having set the scene and fleshed out his characters in the first two volumes Williams is free to advance the plot once more and he does so masterfully. Very entertaining and with a few unexpected twists thrown in for good measure.

Tad Williams: Otherland, River of Blue Fire

This second novel in the Otherland saga took me a long time to finish which is not a good sign. This large volume (700 pages +) fleshes out the story world somewhat but advances the plot by very little. I can't help feeling that this whole book is unnecessary and with tighter writing the important parts could have been squeezed into the other volumes. On the plus side William's characterisation remains head and shoulders above the wooden stereotypes we are more used to in Fantasy novels and the overall saga still retains my interest. I have already started on book 3 which happily seems to be progressing at a faster pace.

Aside: There is an Otherland MMO currently in development. I hadn't realised this until I spotted this article in Massively. Sounds very interesting, since the books are largely set in a virtual world they give lots of scope for mmo type stuff. One feature of the novels that I hope is replicated is the ability to move between completely different sim worlds. You could be flee from a battle in Ancient Egypt and tuumble into a HG Wellsian London. More information here.

Otherland: City of Golden Shadow by Tad Willliams

Tad Williams is a good writer and not just in a Science Fiction / Fantasy sense. He writes very readable prose with very well developed characters that stand up well alongside the best of contemporary non-genre fiction. Otherland is Tad's take on Cyberpunk and "City of Golden Shadow" is the opening volume in this saga. The book was written in the mid 1990's and William's cyberspace is more down to earth than Gibson's angular vector graphic inspired visions from the previous decade. In many ways Otherland seems like Second Life with added multimodal input. There is even an mmorpg described in the book that is not dissimilar to the games we play today (Hardcore afficionado's will be pleased to note that Williams' mmorpg has perm-death). A good adventure story set in an engrossing world with well drawn well written characters. All in all a very good read if a little over long.