Otherland as good as MS&T?

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Yuoaman

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I'm on the final book of the Memory, Sorrow, and Thorn series (To Green Angel Tower Part 2), and was wondering if the Otherland series is as good, or nearly as good as this series?
 
Yuoaman said:
I'm on the final book of the Memory, Sorrow, and Thorn series (To Green Angel Tower Part 2), and was wondering if the Otherland series is as good, or nearly as good as this series?
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Well I think if you asked the majority of people here who have read both series they would lean towards M,S, and T.

Otherland is more a mix of SF and Fantasy rather than pure fantasy. I think M,S, and T is Tad's best work to date in the longer format. If you're after something like M,S, and T the closest is probably his current Shadowmarch trilogy and I think book 3 is due out this year.

If you want to try shorter forms look out for War Of The Flowers or if you like stories with animals (cats) in them look to Tailchaser's Song. You may also like Child Of An Ancient City which he co-wrote with Nina Hoffman (Arabian Nights inspired tale) or Caliban's Hour (inspired from Shakespeare) is worth a look.

Cheers....
 
I may be replying a bit late, however I beg to differ with Gollum (sorry). I loved Otherland, I thought the fantasy/sci fi mix was brilliant, and I couldn't put the books down once. I really felt at one with the characters, I found them believable, relateable, and just all round good characters. Having said that, I love all of Tad's books, that I'm read (and I think that's most of them), and find them well worth investing the time :)
 
Hannah Tindall said:
I may be replying a bit late, however I beg to differ with Gollum (sorry). I loved Otherland, I thought the fantasy/sci fi mix was brilliant, and I couldn't put the books down once. I really felt at one with the characters, I found them believable, relateable, and just all round good characters. Having said that, I love all of Tad's books, that I'm read (and I think that's most of them), and find them well worth investing the time :)
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No need to apologise Hannah, it's heatlhy that people have a difference of opinion. I'm not that far behind you actually. I really enjoyed the Otherland books as well. It was just that the ending seemed a little too engineered and rushed for my liking. Overall it's Tad's most ambitious work to date, partly the reason I appreciated reading it.

I still maintain M,S, and T was superior as I found it to be a more tightly woven read. I think Otherland though, had the more interersting premise and ideas.

Hope that makes my position a little clearer....:)

Nice to see another Tad fan too. Like yourself, I also have all of his published works inlcuding the retrospective volume Rites, although I've not had time to read it yet.

Cheers.
 
Hiya Gollum. I can see your point too... I think with me, I got the entire series out of the library so only had 2 weeks to read it. I managed it but I imagine at the pace I was reading the ending felt rushed anyway :) I did the same to M,S and T, in the next 2 weeks, I enjoyed Otherland so much!

I love Tad Williams, he's one of the reasons I got really into fantasy and sci fi. I read War of the Flowers when I was younger and have loved him ever since. Unfoutunetly I don't own any of his work; I intend to buy it at some point, but for now libraries will have to do.

I don't think I've read quite as much as you though, Otherland, M,S and T, Shadowmarch (the 2 that are written), War of the Flowers and Talisan the cat one :)
 
Well Hannah I don't have the following comics he did but other than that I've got pretty much all of his fiction..

Comic Books
Tad Williams' Mirrorworld 2 issues. Series was canceled after two issues because the publisher went out of business.
The Next 6 issue mini-series published by DC Comics. Published between July and December 2006.
Aquaman: Sword of Atlantis published by DC Comics. Williams replaced writer Kurt Busiek with issue #50 in March of 2007. His run lasted till issue #57 when the comic was cancelled.
The Helmet of Fate; Ibis the Invincible, 2007 one-shot for DC.

However ones you didn't mention is his new YA series co-written with his wife. I'm yet to collect these, I may wait 'til the entire series is out. It's still a work in progress and for younger children.

Ordinary Farm series
Young-adult, written with Deborah Beale (his wife)
Then of course there's the remaining novels/stories you should look into:
Child of an Ancient City (1992) (with Nina Kiriki Hoffman)
Caliban's Hour (1993)
Tad Williams' Mirror World: An Illustrated Novel (1998). *Beware this is based on Tad's Mirroworld comics (see above Comics section) and the stories are written by other authors. I don't have this item for that main reason.
Rite (collected short fiction).

I also have a graphic novel combo he did that includes work by novelist Raymond E Feist called The Wood Boy (Feist)/Burning Man (Tad).

Also note that the final part of the current Shadowmarch trilogy comes out in March 2010.

Cheers....:)
 
Not sure if Yuoaman ever came back for his answer, but I think Otherland is completely different in tone to his Memory, Sorrow & Thorn books. It's been a while since I read them but I thought the Otherland series was much more ambitious, with Williams trying to mix 'normal' fantasy settings (like Memory, Sorrow & Thorn) with the more cyperpunk stylings of the 'real world' in Otherland.

I liked both series but I would have to say that they're both very different in tone to each other. Memory, Sorrow & Thorn being the more straightforward fantasy tale with recognisable archtypes, as compared to Otherland.
 
I'd be of the opinion that Memory, Sorrow and Thorn was a much more engaging read. It's a very traditional fantasy epic whereas Otherland is a combination of fantasy and sci-fi which sounds like it would be amazing but didn't really work for me. I'm a fan of Tad's work and currently really enjoying the Shadowmarch series (IMHO his best work to date) but I think Otherland was overlong and to be honest it bored me in parts. I think it should have been much shorter and would have been far more enjoyable.

War of the flowers is a good read.
 
I agree with you, crooksy! M, S & T were by far the better books. I read Otherland but didn't enjoy it at all, perhaps because of the Science Fiction in it. Perhaps that's why it seemed over long!

At the moment I am enjoying his Shadowmarch series as well but still not as much as M, S & T.
 
Rosemary said:
At the moment I am enjoying his Shadowmarch series as well but still not as much as M, S & T.
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As a series I still find M,S, & T the best written but Otherland the most interesting or intriguing of the series Tad has done so far.
 
Well, I've never read anything by old Taddie except for MS&T, but I feel that Otherland can't be as bad as that series was.

Now don't get me wrong, and put down those stones. It WAS a good story! I just felt it was badly written. Too many character POV jumps, is the main argument I hold against it. Although I also felt that he mentioned a few too many "supporting" characters-and I use that word loosely-that really didn't need to be in there at all, such as the count and a couple others I can't really remember right now.


Hahaha, I also believe MS&T would have been far more interesting, as well, if only Simon had had at least a one-nighter with Aditu-but I'm getting off track.

I'll have to check out Otherland sometime if I can. After reading Piers Anthony's later works, I could probably open my mind up a bit more to more sci fi.....
 
Otherland, in my opinion, was an exercise in Tad letting his "setting daemon" run free. The protagonists (intentionally average, non-hero-type people by design) wander (best verb I can use here) thru one fantastical setting after the next. They don't lose themselves so much as they are swallowed by a long succession (throughout the series) of increasingly more surreal landscapes and environments. I respect what Tad was trying to do with these books, but am among the ranks of those who found Memory, Sorrow and Thorn to be a much more engrossing story than Otherworld.
 
Grimward said:
...I respect what Tad was trying to do with these books, but am among the ranks of those who found Memory, Sorrow and Thorn to be a much more engrossing story than Otherworld.
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Actually I found Otherland to be much more interesting than M,S & T but that the latter was much better executed by Tad than the more ambitious Otherland and for that reason on balance a more enjoyable read.

I also happen to love multiple POVS, the more the better for me....:D It probably explains why I like Erikson's Malazan ad Martin's ASOIF sooo much OH Yeh...and why I keep having conversations with Spiders and Orcs in my 7th floor fortress whilst sleep walking...;)
 
*Steers the sleepwalking Gollum back in the direction of the 1000-post club*

No orcs (that I've found in the ones I own, anyway) in any of Tad's books, good moderator sir, and I don't recall any spiders, either...:D

I like multiple POVs, too, especially when they form a complex puzzle that hovers just out of reach for most of the book....
 
I'm on the Grimward side, too - I found Otherland to be brilliantly written, but hugely pointless.

Spoiler below:
And it was all just a dream! (Seriously?!)

I think Tad wrote himself into a corner with Otherland - it's an exploration of fantasy worlds rather than a story. Oh, there's an attempt at a story, and of course it's very well delivered. It's just that there isn't actually much story there at all when you get to the bones of it, and the ending reveals how weak the entire premise for it is. It might have made a good novel, but as a big fat trilogy it just has "over written" stamped all over it.
 
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