River of Blue Fire

June 29, 1998
In his first work of SF, Otherland: City of Golden Shadow (1997), bestselling fantasist Williams (To Green Angel Tower) introduced one of the most impressive virtual-reality landscapes ever created. Otherland, a gigantic realm consisting of untold numbers of virtual universes, is the creation of the mysterious and evil Grail Brotherhood, a cabal of billionaire capitalists, ruthless gangsters and corrupt government officials. Bent on discovering the secret of eternal life, they will stop at nothing to achieve their goal, even the deaths of hundreds of children whose minds have been trapped on the Net. City of Golden Shadow told the story of a small band of virtual explorers who dared to enter Otherland without permission, some for adventure, others to save the children ensnared on the Net. In this second volume of a projected four-book series, the quest continues. As often happens with middle entries in a series, there are a few problems. Despite a six-page summary, readers unfamiliar with City of Golden Shadow may have trouble figuring out the complex backstory. Further, with little to tie the various plot threads together at either end, the book lacks an obvious structure. Still, Williams is an exciting and endlessly inventive writer whose character development is particularly strong, and his fans should roundly enjoy this volume while looking forward to the remaining installments. Editors: Betsy Wollheim and Sheila Gilbert.

July 1, 1998
Trapped in the top-secret virtual world known as Otherland, a small group of online explorers travel along a river of possibilities in search of a way back to the real world. This sequel to OtherWorld: City of Golden Shadow (LJ 11/15/96) delivers a kaleidoscopic array of dreamscapes and nightmare worlds that form a setting for a complex tale of conspiracy and betrayal. Williams displays a prodigious talent for spinning multiple variations on a theme as he alternates between real and virtual worlds. This fast-paced, ambitious blend of fantasy and sf belongs (along with its predecessor) in most fantasy collections.

May 15, 1998
Williams' Otherland saga straddles the line between sf and fantasy. Otherland, in which imagination can create everything, is implicitly the result of advanced twenty-first-century science. On the other hand, Otherland operates, once Williams sets it going, as much by magical concepts as by natural ones. This second volume in the series presents the adventures of a small band of hardy, even heroic folk who have broken the Grail Brotherhood's barriers to entering Otherland and are hoping to open the place to the common run of humankind. In the course of this part of its journey, the band encounters--to cite only a few of the book's exciting features--giant insects, advertisements coming to life, postholocaust worlds, and treachery from a Grail Brother within their own ranks. Williams depicts the band's adventures vividly, sometimes giving them a satirical edge, sometimes a didactic one, and sometimes both, but he piles the satire and instruction on so that the characters sometimes seem crowded nearly offstage. Also, even in this age of the multivolume yarn and even though this one is the work of a powerful imagination and high-class world builder, this particular book would have profited from trimming. So it is not the ideal place to start learning about either megasagas or Williams. But it is a powerful story and indubitably absorbing reading for fantasy lovers, especially those with long attention spans. ((Reviewed May 15, 1998))(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 1998, American Library Association.)