Otherland

I bought this book by Tad Williams because I read a short story by him once and I liked it. I don’t usually read thick fantasy novels, and this is a thick fantasy novel, and I think I’ve discovered why I don’t enjoy them. It’s well written, original, with good characterisation, but I hate the structure. You know the type; about six different plotlines which don’t interact at all, short chunks of information, no real build-up or let-down when something occurs, and you’re swung from one point of view to another without any bridge. I can’t invest in the characters or the storyline when it’s like this, and so, although this was fairly good, I won’t be buying the next in the series (they’re always, always, series).

Basically, it’s set in the not-too-distant future, where the internet is accessed not by text but by VR. It’s super-duper and cool, except a whole lot of children are falling into comas or getting sick, and so Renie, whose brother is affected, sets out to discover why. Not that we do really discover why; I suppose in book number four or whatever it may be explained. It’s pretty clever considering it was written in the early nineties before everyone got into the internet, and I like the fact that it’s set in Africa (mostly). The thing that made me buy it was the opening paragraph, which was about a soldier in the Somme – mixing that with sci-fi really got me interested. But again, that isn’t completely explained by the end.

Interesting characters, interesting ideas, interesting set-up; but I wish these fantasy writers would stick to a more traditional structure, because I can’t get into it at all.