Otherland: City of Golden Shadow
Buy Now
By using these links, you support READO. We receive an affiliate commission without any additional costs to you.
Description
"Everything any reader of SF or fantasy could ask for in a novel, with gorgeous writing besides. A dazzling book.” ―Melanie Rawn, author of Dragon Prince
Otherland. Surrounded by secrecy, it is home to the wildest dreams and darkest nightmares. Incredible amounts of money have been lavished on it. The best minds of two generations have labored to build it. And somehow, bit by bit, it is claiming the Earth's most valuable resource—its children.
Only a few have become aware of the danger. Fewer still are willing or able to take up the challenge of this perilous and seductive realm. 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. She has never wanted to be a hero. But when her young brother is struck down by a bizarre and mysterious illness, Renie swears to save him. 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.
!Xabbu is a Bushman, come to the city to learn skills which may save the spirit of his tribe. 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.
Paul Jonas is lost, seemingly adrift in space and time. 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.
Fourteen-year-old Orlando is also the invincible barbarian Thargorm, but only in his imagination. However, youth and frailty are not enough to get you excused from saving the world.
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. 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.
Book Information
Posts
Some of the richest people of the 21st century own a huge virtual reality environment: The Otherland Network. It took several generations and an enormous budget to build it. Nevertheless there are things happening in this simulation that were not planned and can not be controlled. On the other hand, children all over the world fall into a deep coma after beeing somewhere on the net. Is there a connection between these kids and otherland? The young female african Renie and her friend !Xabbu, one of the last bushmen, start exploring the riddle. They don't know that several other people are working on the same problem. This is a story! It evolves over the four volumes and you have to read them all in a row. Actually there at least eight different stories that evolve parallel, cross and go into different directions. As some of these stories take place in real life, other in a virtual reality and some of them hop from one to the other. At many times it reminded me at Tolkiens "Lord of the rings", despite this is a piece of science fiction and not fantasy. The characters are very interesting and it is hard to put the book away. Just the end is a bit weird and this made nine instead of ten points. Nevertheless, this were more than 3000 pages that I will not forget. Do not start reading when there is a work you have to finish soon! And there is a moto I adopted... confident, cocky, lazy, dead.
Otherland ist eine rasante Fahrt durch das Cyperspace. Ich habe bis dahin und auch nie mehr danach ein Epos gelesen, in dem so viele Genre ineinander verflochten wurden. Ein Buch, wie ein Adventure-Spiel, welches ständig zwischen realer und virtueller Welt hin und her springt. Dieser erste Band dient dazu, in die Geschichte eingeführt zu werden. Letztlich werden kaum Fragen beantwortet, aber so viele gestellt, dass man ja nicht offline gestellt werden möchte und nach einem weiteren Level giert. Otherland ist für mich um Galaxien besser als „Ready Player One“. Das Buch von Cline ist nur billiges Fastfood, wie ein Jump‘n‘Run auf dem Smartphone, während Otherland das grandiose HD-Online-Game ist, in der wir uns am liebsten verlieren wollen. Das Beste, was ich in Sachen SciFi-Fantasy-VR-Thriller-Mix gelesen habe. Unbedingte Leseempfehlung, wenn man sich auf die 3.000 Seiten in vier Bände einlassen will.
Description
"Everything any reader of SF or fantasy could ask for in a novel, with gorgeous writing besides. A dazzling book.” ―Melanie Rawn, author of Dragon Prince
Otherland. Surrounded by secrecy, it is home to the wildest dreams and darkest nightmares. Incredible amounts of money have been lavished on it. The best minds of two generations have labored to build it. And somehow, bit by bit, it is claiming the Earth's most valuable resource—its children.
Only a few have become aware of the danger. Fewer still are willing or able to take up the challenge of this perilous and seductive realm. 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. She has never wanted to be a hero. But when her young brother is struck down by a bizarre and mysterious illness, Renie swears to save him. 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.
!Xabbu is a Bushman, come to the city to learn skills which may save the spirit of his tribe. 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.
Paul Jonas is lost, seemingly adrift in space and time. 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.
Fourteen-year-old Orlando is also the invincible barbarian Thargorm, but only in his imagination. However, youth and frailty are not enough to get you excused from saving the world.
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. 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.
Book Information
Posts
Some of the richest people of the 21st century own a huge virtual reality environment: The Otherland Network. It took several generations and an enormous budget to build it. Nevertheless there are things happening in this simulation that were not planned and can not be controlled. On the other hand, children all over the world fall into a deep coma after beeing somewhere on the net. Is there a connection between these kids and otherland? The young female african Renie and her friend !Xabbu, one of the last bushmen, start exploring the riddle. They don't know that several other people are working on the same problem. This is a story! It evolves over the four volumes and you have to read them all in a row. Actually there at least eight different stories that evolve parallel, cross and go into different directions. As some of these stories take place in real life, other in a virtual reality and some of them hop from one to the other. At many times it reminded me at Tolkiens "Lord of the rings", despite this is a piece of science fiction and not fantasy. The characters are very interesting and it is hard to put the book away. Just the end is a bit weird and this made nine instead of ten points. Nevertheless, this were more than 3000 pages that I will not forget. Do not start reading when there is a work you have to finish soon! And there is a moto I adopted... confident, cocky, lazy, dead.
Otherland ist eine rasante Fahrt durch das Cyperspace. Ich habe bis dahin und auch nie mehr danach ein Epos gelesen, in dem so viele Genre ineinander verflochten wurden. Ein Buch, wie ein Adventure-Spiel, welches ständig zwischen realer und virtueller Welt hin und her springt. Dieser erste Band dient dazu, in die Geschichte eingeführt zu werden. Letztlich werden kaum Fragen beantwortet, aber so viele gestellt, dass man ja nicht offline gestellt werden möchte und nach einem weiteren Level giert. Otherland ist für mich um Galaxien besser als „Ready Player One“. Das Buch von Cline ist nur billiges Fastfood, wie ein Jump‘n‘Run auf dem Smartphone, während Otherland das grandiose HD-Online-Game ist, in der wir uns am liebsten verlieren wollen. Das Beste, was ich in Sachen SciFi-Fantasy-VR-Thriller-Mix gelesen habe. Unbedingte Leseempfehlung, wenn man sich auf die 3.000 Seiten in vier Bände einlassen will.