It’s also worth noting his standalone fantasy novel, War of the Flowers (also about 700 pages,) an exciting romp in a dangerous magical kingdom with notes of urban fantasy and mythological elements that feel akin to Neil Gaiman’s Sandman or Books of Magic graphic novel series. It’s foreboding, eerie, and fraught with portent, an epic fantasy tale seeded throughout with the latent anxious feeling that not all of the main characters are going to make it, a theme capitalized most famously by the Game of Thrones books and television series.
The world of Osten Ard is as if Tolkien’s Middle Earth was a moody alcoholic throwing a fit because his favorite bar was closed for the night. Martin, Patrick Rothfuss ( The Name of the Wind,) and Christopher Paolini ( Eragon.) Beginning with The Dragonbone Chair, the series is followed by Stone of Farewell and ending with parts I and II of To Green Angel Tower, which was so long it had to be split into two separate books. Besides the Otherland series, there’s his massive fantasy saga, Memory, Sorrow, and Thorn, a series which has inspired notable authors, including George R.R. Williams’ adroitness isn’t solely limited to science fiction. Fellow millennials may share my memories of reading one of his first novels in grade school, Tailchaser’s Song, a strange book (also 500 or so pages) about overlarge telepathic cat aliens living on a planet nearly identical to Earth.
This feat alone is worthy of admiration, but upon reading, it’s clear that he also deftly weaves his fantasy and science fiction story universes with skill and aplomb. The man appears to have never written a novel of fewer than 500 pages, averaging about 600-700 pages per work. The Author ProlificĪ cursory glance at Tad Williams’ work on or in your local library or bookstore will demonstrate his prowess for the prolific.
It can be argued that one of the most profound and visionary science fiction series of the late 1990s did a lot to set the stage for the immersive digital worlds we have today: the Otherland series by Tad Williams. The 1980s and 1990s were fertile ground for the seeds of today’s virtual worlds, the ideas for which were amply planted in the paperback literature of mainstream science fiction. Yet, the core ideas of modern gaming, and with them the experience of virtual spaces, didn’t develop overnight. Breaking up with mundane daily life through digital worlds has never been so easy.
If you want to break up with reality, there are many opportunities to choose from nowadays: a variety of video game consoles, addictive MMOs and MMORPGs, competitive and thrilling MOBAs, and, just recently, fully immersive virtual reality systems.
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