The Tad Williams Thread

[Trey Greyjoy]

I have to believe that the main character was a nod to Philip Jose Farmer. Wasnt his name Paul Janus Finnegan? Or something like that. Farmer always put characters with the PJF initials in his stories.

The books had a "World of Tiers/Riverworld" feel to them.

Edit: Just looked it up and the character's name was Paul Jonas, so the two initials may just be coincidental.

[williamjm]

It was fun but (as some people have already mentioned) it was too long. The second book and third books in particular got very distracted from the main plots by various worlds that were often quite fun, but didn't add anything to the main story. I thought the last book did rescue it a bit, it was a bit more focused.

I think Williams was having fun with the opportunities for references to sci-fi/fantasy, for example the Scarecrow from the Wizard of Oz reciting a variation on Roy Batty's dying speech from Blade Runner or the Main Evil Bad Guy (can't remember the name) musing about how some of the worlds were getting a bit far from their original design, such as the Middle Earth world fighting the War of the Ring with nuclear missiles.

[Endest]

I loved them too. They take a rap sometimes for being too long, but I enjoyed them immensely. Ironically I stopped 100 pages in to his MS&T trilogy.

Exactly my situation with Tad Williams...Otherland was not perfect, but it was damned good. The immersion factor was there, which is big for me - I loved the chapter blurbs which gave the reader further insight into the 'real' world setting. Sure there was some cheese and the ending was pretty anti-climactic imo and pretty bad besides, but the journey was a good and sometimes great ride...definitely worth the money, but I haven't been able to get into his other works thusfar.

[GoodQueenMaggie]

I loved them too. They take a rap sometimes for being too long, but I enjoyed them immensely. Ironically I stopped 100 pages in to his MS&T trilogy.

I found The Dragonbone Chair really hard to get into... it took me forever to finish that book... but you get to a certain point that just sucks you in and doesn't let go. I loved the series by the time I finished it (10 months ). Keep going!

I have the first Otherland book. I'll read it some day... right now I've got summer reading to tackle. :/

[MoP]

I really enjoyed these books. I read them when the first three were out and forked out AUD60 to get the last book from England because I didn't want to wait the two months it would take for it to come out down here. Sure, it does meander at times, but overall its a great, fun ride and I enjoyed it immensely. And it probably one of a handful of series/books I've read where I haven't finished it thinking "Damn, that ending really sucked".

By the by, Paul Jonas still stands as one of my favourite fictional characters.

[pat5150]

Long-winded, just like anything written by Tad Williams, but a lot of fun. I really enjoyed them!

Patrick

[jc1138]

I read these as they were published and quite enjoyed them. While I prefer M, S, & T, it's great to see a writer take a new series in a different direction than his earlier work. The Otherland series has a Japanese Anime/Manga feel to it. Lots of parts remind me of stuff like Akira, Spirited Away, and The Matrix (much of which came from Anime/Manga). I would recommend this series.

[Greyman]

Loved the first book. I just could never really bring myself to keep going. The first book had this great element of danger in some parts where I was scared and confused (feelings I love while reading), but from what I read in the second book, it just went in a more predictable, less compelling direction. I dunno, maybe I should revisit it.

[Olaf]

Tad's first collection of short fiction will be out late this year from Subterranean Press.

Fantasy best-seller Tad Williams has turned in a huge (over 140,000 words) short story collection that we'll be releasing this fall. Rite contains short stories and novellas, three teleplays, four nonfiction pieces, and short introductions to each tale. Given Tad's legion of fans, we expect this title to sell out prior to publication.

Rite: Short Work will be available from Subterranean Press in two unique editions:

Limited: Sewn, fully cloth-bound hardcovers, signed by the author

Lettered: 26 signed leatherbound copies housed in a custom traycase

* Why I Write What I Write

* Canard

* A Tale from the Book of Regret

* Not With a Whimper, Either

* Child of an Ancient City

* Nonstop

* Fish Between Friends

* Z Is For...

* Re: Dark Destructor

* Scent of Trumpets

* Stuff that Dreams are Made of

* The Author at the End of Time

* Go Ask Elric

* The Writer's Child

* Three Duets for Virgin and Nosehorn

* The Happiest Dead Boy in the World

* Nonfiction

o Idiot

o 100 Best Horror (The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch)

o Six Books by PKD

o Gloriana introduction

o Hugo Ceremony Speech

* TV Pieces

o Cloak, Episode One

o Cloak, Episode Two

o Dogs Versus the World, Episode One

* Rite

And the cover artwork is here:

RITE by Tad Williams

[Galactus]

I just finished Shadowmarch (borrowed it from the Library)

It was.... Okay I guess. Nice potential, but a lot of it very predictable (though knowing Tad he might well twist it up) In a lot of ways it well.... *felt* like M,S & T. Not exactly, but like he'd taken the same ingredients and just made different combinations.

[Sandello]

Has anyone of Williams' fans know an illustration with Ingen Jegger? Yes, with him. Give me a link on it, pleeease.

[Nerdanel]

I thought Shadowmarch was brilliant. Granted, early on it was a lot like MST with a touch of War of the Flowers, but the book took a life of its own. The most special thing about Shadowmarch was that I feel it's deep down about skitsophrenia made concrete reality. It really gives an added depth to the story when you compare certain events to skitsophrenia symptoms and notice the similarity. There is also some less specific stuff, like underground tunnels symbolizing the id, but you don't have to notice any of it to just enjoy the horror-tinged fantasy.

A little touch I enjoyed was chapter-start quotes from the Bonefall Oracles from the Book of Regret. The emotional impact piles on and on once you start to notice how none of them is-- I think I'll let you notice yourselves.

In case you wonder, this is not a joke review. I don't consider myself overly high-brow and I loathe Literature with the big L, but I do notice stuff. I suppose Shadowmarch might only be a good book and a pageturner with a nice plot, characters, etc. if you don't notice the deeper levels, but if you do, it becomes a masterpiece.

I also suppose a fantasy book based on externalizing the internal might not be what the typical Martin fan is after. Me, I'm not much of a Martin fan and I signed on this board to post my Goodkind (BBNC) parody. I suppose a person like me dilutes the recommendative accuracy of these boards, but I just had to say my piece about Shadowmarch.

[Red Sun]

Today, in the bookstore, I stood before the shelf of English fantasy books, and I would like to know which book would you recommend more, The War of Flowers or The Shadowmarch. I liked M, S & T not too much, but it was a nice reading, I loved the first three volumes of Otherland.

[Nerdanel]

In that case, read War of the Flowers. Shadowmarch will probably remind you too much of MST, but War of the Flowers has a different tone, featuring an industrialized Faerie.

[IceBlade]

I really like War of the Flowers.

Great little self-contained fantasy book that could very well spawn a universe if he would have liked, but he chose to tell just a single story and (thus far) leave it at that.

Great easy reading, albeit a bit predictable at times.

But I'm a sucker for shit like that.

-Ice

[The Marquis de Leech]

I also suppose a fantasy book based on externalizing the internal might not be what the typical Martin fan is after. Me, I'm not much of a Martin fan and I signed on this board to post my Goodkind (BBNC) parody. I suppose a person like me dilutes the recommendative accuracy of these boards, but I just had to say my piece about Shadowmarch.

Completely off topic, you wouldn't happen to be Nerdanel from TORC, would you?

-RBPL (aka Denethor)

[Ser Paln]

All right, so I've been browsing these topics and I haven't found one dedicated to Tad Williams' epic-mega masticle (not a word but an amalgamation between masterpiece, masturbatory, and debacle) the "Otherland" series. If you guys have already picked the bones clean on this one, please redirect me...otherwise...

I have mixed feelings about this series. On the one hand, I find it vastly imaginative, a Matrix before the Matrix, with a neat mix of fantasy, science fiction, and real world politics all meshed together. The characters are believable and I get the sense that Mr. Williams has a knack for entering unique characters' heads, whether they are South African technicians, fifteen year old terminal patients, or meglomaniacial 200 year old bags of decaying flesh. I really enjoy how he can tug me along page after page with hints at major plot twists. I'm currently in the middle of book four (the last, thank god), and I intend on finishing it.

That being said, can anyone else agree that this series DRAGS ON. Not as bad as Jordan, who is the king of epic descriptions of clothes and haughty cheekbones, but Mr. Williams seems to keep his prose as long and flowing as the never-ending river that runs through his universe. I appreciate how he tries to cover every angle, but he goes into character segways and side plotlines that, while interesting, seem to serve little purpose to the overall flow of the narrative. It's very jarring to go from a chapter that details four people running through a simulation of the Trojan War fighting for their lives, to one about a little girl in the real world and her tentative friendship with a crazy old man, to yet another about a lesbian detective who is trying to court the sexy waitress at her local restaurant. The story really bounces around.

It's also repetitive. Once Renie and her cohort descend into the simulation of "Otherland," there is a repeated ongoing process that plays out as follows:

They enter a new and frightening world.

The world is revealed to be based on some sort of mythological/fairy tale/real world universe.

They meet wacky "puppets" that aid them/harm them.

They escape into an entirely new world.

Rinse and repeat.

It's worse with Paul, who gets bashed on the head at the end of every one of his chapters. I'm getting tired of it. Things happen in the story, but so many of the events are overall inconsequential. For example, two characters, Orlandu and his friend Sam (at least Williams admits the LotR tie here), enter a cartoony world and befriend an Indian who looks like a matchstick, and a turtle. We learn the matchstick Indian has lost his son, and Orlandu and Sam engage on a quest to save said son. After about three chapters of battling tupperware and vegetables, they complete their quest and are whisked off to another world. Nothing about Injun Match and the others are ever mentioned again.

I find this interesting, if only because I appreciate imaginative worlds and colorful characters. However, this sort of thing happens about TEN TIMES IN THE 2000+ PAGES I HAVE READ. It never ends, and it never goes anywhere. I'm almost done with Otherland and I am so thankful I am.

Let me end this by stating: I really did enjoy the series. I wouldn't be this annoyed if there wasn't emotional investment involved, and this investment comes from all the good things about Otherland. It's just that...well, the flaws are starting to fester on me, and I figure I'd share my feelings with the rest of you fine people. Anyone else read Otherland? Thoughts? Opinions? He's no Martin to me (a man who can write 5000 pages and keep things good and fresh) but he's certainly a very competent and respectable writer.

[Werthead]

It's an interesting series. Nearly a collection of mosaic short stories with a central storyline running through them rather than cohesive books in their own right. Many of the interludes and side-stories are very good but, as you say, don't necessarily bring a lot to the central story.

I'd say its Williams' best work. Memory, Sorrow and Thorn was overlong without the side-stories, so it felt flabbier and slower, whilst The War of the Flowers was okay but nothing special. THe Shadowmarch series also seems to have attracted very lukewarm reviews.

EDIT: We've had a few Williams threads before (four, in fact), but nothing too lengthy, so I've combined them for convenience.

[williamjm]

I find this interesting, if only because I appreciate imaginative worlds and colorful characters. However, this sort of thing happens about TEN TIMES IN THE 2000+ PAGES I HAVE READ. It never ends, and it never goes anywhere. I'm almost done with Otherland and I am so thankful I am.

I had exactly the same reaction, the second and third books in particular get hopelessly lost in a labyrinth of subplots. Admittedly, a lot of the subplots are quite fun with the Indian Matches trying to reunite their family or Wizard of Oz characters paraphrasing Rutger Hauer's speech from Bladerunner, but I think there is a bit too much of it. I was starting to doubt Williams' ability to actually tie everything together, but to be fair he managed to conclude the series reasonably well.

[Werthead]

Oh yeah, Otherland's ending is pretty good. Memory, Sorrow and Thorn's ending was beyond lame.