Billionaires and authoritarian rulers can have almost anything they want, but despite all their money and power, they still have to grow old and die like everyone else.
Or do they?
Renie Sulaweyo teaches at a South African college. After losing her mother in a fire, she struggles to raise her little brother, Stephen. But Stephen, like most kids, is fascinated by the virtual online world, and when he falls into a coma while visiting a simulation, Renie is desperate to find out what happened and cure him.
Accompanied by her (adult) student !Xabbu, a San bushman, her quest leads her to others who have lost children to the mysterious illness. Renie and these new allies discover the comas are linked to a mysterious private network called Otherland.
Eventually they manage to break into this private virtual universe, only to find out that it belongs to the Grail Brotherhood, a cabal of the world's richest and most ruthless people. The many simulated worlds they have created in the Otherland network are as diverse as human imagination: from the Trojan War to Dodge City to Alice's Wonderland. But even as Renie and the others explore Otherland, they discover that they cannot go offline without dying, and that if their virtual selves die in the network, their real bodies die as well.
All Renie and her companions can do is to continue deeper into the network, through countless imaginary worlds where the dangers are all too real, but they are constantly hunted by the powerful Grail Brotherhood. Renie's only chance to save herself, her friends, and a world full of innocent, comatose children is to unravel the network's bizarre, fatal secrets or die trying.
"But at heart, OTHERLAND is about much more. lt's about what it means to be human. lt's about the stories we tell ourselves, from ancient myths to popular fiction to our present-day fears about the corruption of journalism and government. lt's about little people deciding to fight back against power. And, of course, it's about the amazing reach of human imagination."
Tad Williams, Author's note
Tad Williams
Born on 14 March 1957 in San José, California as Robert Paul „Tad“ Williams. He currently lives with his family near San Francisco.
OTHERLAND is the ultimate cyberspace saga, at once fantasy, science fiction, thriller and virtual wonderland reading fodder from bestselling author Tad Williams, the „Master of Fantasy“.
The four-volume „OTHERLAND“ was first published between 1996 and 2001 by DAW Books, and with its 6.000+ pages cycle it has already delighted millions of readers.
Author of the Osten Ard-cycle [Memory, Sorrow, and Thorn]—his answer to Tolkien's Lord of the Rings.
George R. R. Martin says in 2011: "This work inspired me to write „Game of Thrones“. It's one of my favorite fantasy series."
31st place on „The SFF All-Time Sales List“ with about 30 million copies sold.
Amazon.com: “Tad Williams is a California-based fantasy superstar. His genre-creating (and genre-busting) books have sold tens of millions worldwide.”
Neil Gaiman, author of American Gods: “Tad Williams is the brightest and best of the fantasists working in what is so often, and so inaccurately, described as ‘the tradition of J.R.R. Tolkien’.”
Katharine Kerr, author of the Dragon Mage series: “This brilliantly crafted book delivers even more than its title promises: not one other land but many come to life here, each engrossing, glittering, and dangerous. In this intricate geography of the mind Williams tells a cracking good story, but even as the suspense builds, you come to realize that you’re seeing a strangely familiar world―ours as it might come to be. Otherland is one of the best works of science fiction I’ve ever read."
Locus: “On an epic scale, and most impressive of all (1996’s SF novels), is Otherland, a big colorful novel full of real-world conspiracy and virtual reality wonders, with characters worth caring about.”
Absolute Magnitude: “A wonderful mixture of visual imagery and movement…once again Tad Williams paints us a picture so vivid and real that it becomes three dimensional. Highly recommended…”
San Francisco Chronicle: “The ultimate virtual-reality saga, borrowing motifs from cyberpunk, mythology, and world history."