That's actually why I quite like the broader term of Speculative Fiction, it is less exclusive and embraces more literature.īut then I've recently read The War of the Flowers, a standalone portal fantasy with a one-way portal. Is he part of The Grail Brotherhood? Does he oppose them? Or, as he sits like a spider at the center of a vast web, does he have ambitions of his own? The answers will only be found in Otherland.When I was told that Tad's Otherland was up there at the top of his best work I wasn't so sure how it could be, I mean the Memory, Sorrow and Thorn trilogy is his best, how could he match that? And Otherland is labelled as Science Fiction, something I don't read very often. And Mister Sellars, a strange old man on a military base, a prisoner of both the government and his own body, may be the greatest mystery of all. However, youth and frailty are not enough to get you excused from saving the world. Fourteen-year-old Orlando is also the invincible barbarian Thargorm, but only in his imagination.

As he flees from the bloody battlefields of World War I to a castle in the sky, and onward to lands beyond imagining, he must not only evade his terrifying pursuers, but solve the terrible riddle of his own identity. Paul Jonas is lost, seemlingly adrift in space and time. With the heart of a poet and the soul of a shaman, he will journey with Renie on this quest into the very heart of darkness. !Xabbu is a Bushman, come to the city to learn skills which may save the spirit of his tribe. When people around her begin to die, she realizes she has stumbled onto something she is not meant to know, a terrifying secret from which there is no turning back. But when her young brother is struck down by a bizarre and mysterious illness, Renie swears to save him. But every age has its heroes, and unusual times call for unusual champions: Renie Sulaweyo, a teacher and the backbone of her family, proud of her African heritage, has fought all her life simply to get by.

Fewer still are willing or able to take up the challenge of this perilous and seductive realm. Only a few have become aware of the danger.

And somehow, bit by bit, it is claiming the Earth's most valuable resource-its children. The best minds of two generations have labored to build it. Incredible amounts of money have been lavished on it. Surrounded by secrecy, it is home to the wildest dreams and darkest nightmares. 'Tad Williams is the brightest and best of the fantasists.' ―Neil Gaiman, author of American Gods Otherland.First book in New York Times-bestselling author Tad Williams's cyberpunk fantasy series.

Tad williams city of golden shadow