First book in New York Times-bestselling author Tad Williams's
cyberpunk fantasy series - "Tad Williams is the brightest and best of
the fantasists." ―Neil Gaiman, author of American Gods
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, seemlingly 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.
