by Barb and JC Hendee
Sequel to Dhampir, which I read before the switchover to the new server. I"ll get a link to my review of that up when I get the old entries up.
This novel is pretty good, and gives me hope in the "hey, I could've written this... I should try to get published!" way. I like the characters and the world a lot, so the fact that it's a rather workmanlike book (like the other one) doesn't bother me much. I't hard to pin down exactly why but the plotting seems clunky and at times heavy-handed. They're missing the light touch necessary to make conspiracies really work. Still, the characters and the setup are engaging.
Wow, the last book.
This series kicks butt. Well, it's not really a series, since it's one big story broken into four long volumes, but anyway: it's GREAT.
Tad Williams posesses the ability to create new worlds with such detail and believability that it's hard to imagine them any other way. His vision of the future in these books is so believable that it's hard to imagine that we won't all be jacking in to the 'net through neurocannulas and creating sims and playing weird games online.
Best of all, his characters are all unusual, all fascinating. !Xabbu, the bushman, is a delight, and Renie, who is in many ways the books' main heroine, is a marvel of humanity. !Xabbu's stories are fantastic and moving, and the rest of the group that assembles around Renie and !Xabbu to take down the Otherland network (which has rendered scores of youngsters comatose around the world) is full of idiosyncracies and revelations.
The nature of the Otherland network, when it is finally revealed, is a hammerblow of shock and amazement... and utter believability.
I can't wait to read Williams' newest book.
by Tad Williams
More fantastic scifi fantasy! Tad Williams rules!
by Tad Williams
I'm not sure if this is fantasy or sci-fi, really, because it's got a bit of both. Noe loaned me this book and it's amazing. Can't wait for the rest!
I'm not even going to try to sum it up. Let's just say it's a sprawling virtual reality fantasy epic and leave it at that, okay?