Deze epische saga duikt in de diepten van de virtuele realiteit, waar de grenzen tussen de echte en digitale wereld vervagen. Volg een groep onwaarschijnlijke helden terwijl ze een duistere samenzwering ontdekken die een uitgestrekt en meeslepend online netwerk omringt. Aangezien deze digitale wereld dreigt zijn gebruikers te verslinden, moeten ze de strijd aangaan met de tijd om de waarheid te onthullen en te vechten tegen de krachten die de mensheid willen beheersen. Het is een spannend avontuur vol mysterie, actie en diepgaande vragen over ons bestaan.
Anderland is woest en ledig. In het krachtigste simulatienetwerk aller tijden kon elke fantasie werkelijkheid worden. Nu is er weinig meer van over. Een groepje avonturiers is op weg gegaan om de geheimen van Anderland te ontsluieren en duizenden jonge slachtoffers te redden. Maar ze zijn opgesloten geraakt in de eindeloze virtuele werelden en de psychopaat John Dread is bezig de simulaties een voor een te vernietigen. Zelfs de schepper van Anderland, de tycoon Felix Jongleur, staat machteloos. Na de verwoesting van het netwerk wil John Dread in de echte wereld dood en verderf zaaien...
Tad Williams continues his Otherland series with River of Blue Fire, the second installment following the expansive City of Golden Shadow. Williams plans for four substantial volumes to unfold this intricate, multithreaded narrative, and the pacing of this novel illustrates why. River is a suspenseful page-turner, reuniting readers with a diverse group of searchers trapped in the perilous virtual realm of Otherland. Among them lurks the brutal serial killer Dread, who seeks information to usurp his Grail Brotherhood masters. The group navigates a seemingly endless river through various worlds, unable to log off, while facing the chilling reality that this virtual environment feels all too real. Meanwhile, Paul Jonas, an amnesiac character fleeing two ominous figures, gradually recovers his memories during his own river journey. Each new world they encounter, from a Paleolithic Ice Age to a setting reminiscent of Oz, is vividly crafted and unpredictable. Williams expertly reveals information in tantalizing snippets, akin to a captivating computer game. As the group's adventures unfold and diverge, readers can sense the author's intricate control over the narrative. The best approach is to embrace Williams's rich characterizations, lush descriptions, and complex plotlines, akin to the exhilarating experience of white-water rafting.
Otherland, the quartet of which Mountain of Black Glass is the powerful third part, combines some terrifying speculation on the future of virtual reality with adventures no less terrifying because they are technologized dreaming. These are dreams the adventurers cannot awaken from and in which, if they die, they are really dead. An epidemic of comatose children has led Renie and her San friend !Xabbu into the net and to a series of dream worlds created as palaces by the corrupt aspiring immortals, the Grail Brotherhood. Two of those children, Orlando and Fredericks, have become adventurers in their own right, while their parents' lawyer Ramsey follows real-world money and lesbian cop Calliope tracks a serial killer with serious ambitions to become an angry god. In this volume, adventures take place in a mythic ancient Egypt and a rambling Gormenghastlike house before all the virtual adventurers meet where they were always destined to, before the walls of Troy. "All around, death. It was not a quiet presence during the long day--not a pale-faced maiden bringing surcease from pain, not a skillful reaper with a scalpel-sharp blade.... Death on the Trojan plain was a crazed beast that roared and clawed and smashed, which was everywhere at once, and which in its unending fury showed that even armored men were terribly frail things."
Few science fiction sagas have achieved the level of critical acclaim-and best-selling popularity-as Tad Williams's Otherland novels. A brilliant blend of SF, fantasy, and technothriller, it is a rich, multilayered epic of future possibilities.
Rite: Short Work gives ample evidence of Tad Williams as an accomplished practitioner of the short form! Within you'll find a knockout novella later expanded to novel length (Child of an Ancient City), riffs on the great fantasist Michael Moorcock (The Author at the End of Time, Go Ask Elric), along with excursions into some of his most popular creations and beyond.
