Sign in with Facebook
Loading...
478th out of 2,946 books
—
12,394 voters
Sea of Silver Light (Otherland #4)
by
Tad Williams
This final volume of the resoundingly popular Otherland series is a high fantasy landmark.
Hardcover, 688 pages
Published
April 10th 2001
by DAW Hardcover
(first published January 1st 2001)
Friend Reviews
To see what your friends thought of this book,
please sign up.
Community Reviews
(showing
1-30
of
3,000)
A fantastic wrap up to a fantastic series. Each thread/group has a satisfactory ending, all are woven together and all my questions were answered.
As a re-read, this series held up to my very good memories of my first time reading it. It might actually have been better, since I've matured quite a bit since that time and can understand a lot more about the characters than I could have a decade or so ago. Definitely not a "thriller, on the edge of your seat" kind of book, but a deeply written one....more
As a re-read, this series held up to my very good memories of my first time reading it. It might actually have been better, since I've matured quite a bit since that time and can understand a lot more about the characters than I could have a decade or so ago. Definitely not a "thriller, on the edge of your seat" kind of book, but a deeply written one....more
This series is only for fast readers. Tad Williams is a novelist who writes epics. He is at his best with pages and pages for description of settings, characters, backstories, dreams, letters, and more. And his wordiness is a gift -- I wept at this book because he really gives his characters room to grow, to expand, to mess up, and to try again. Their nuances, especially within the intricate universes that he creates within this series, are explored and you leave with a handful of new imaginary...more
Favorite Quotes
After all, is it not the way we humans shape the universe, shape time itself? Do we not take the raw stuff of chaos and impose a beginning, middle, and end on it, like the simplest and most profound of folktales, to reflect the shapes of our own tiny lives? And if the physicists are right, that the physical world changes as it is observed, and we are its only known observers, then might we not be bending the entire chaotic universe, the eternal, ever-active Now, to fit that famili...more
After all, is it not the way we humans shape the universe, shape time itself? Do we not take the raw stuff of chaos and impose a beginning, middle, and end on it, like the simplest and most profound of folktales, to reflect the shapes of our own tiny lives? And if the physicists are right, that the physical world changes as it is observed, and we are its only known observers, then might we not be bending the entire chaotic universe, the eternal, ever-active Now, to fit that famili...more
A wonderful, climactic conclusion of a great story: It's essential you read the first three books because the story is continuous. Tad Williams amazes you by his ability to bring together all the ingredients of the previous three books and then tie them up very neatly indeed! There have been largely eight different narratives going on in the previous three books and they all come together without the process being contrived or predictable. Added to that, there is real pace in the story. I couldn...more
This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it,
click here.
"We tell lies when we are afraid... afraid of what we don't know, afraid of what others will think, afraid of what will be found out about us. But every time we tell a lie, the thing that we fear grows stronger." -- Tad Williams
One of my favorite modern speculative fiction writers is Tad Williams. Best known for his groundbreaking fantasy series Memory, Sorrow, and Thorn, I first discovered his writing by reading his equally impressive science fiction series Otherland.
I'm a big fan of myths and...more
One of my favorite modern speculative fiction writers is Tad Williams. Best known for his groundbreaking fantasy series Memory, Sorrow, and Thorn, I first discovered his writing by reading his equally impressive science fiction series Otherland.
I'm a big fan of myths and...more
And with the final volume, Williams loses me. 300 pages of overwritten, tripish, hyper-explained and muddled plot through bizarre fantasy worlds that just seem to be there for the author’s enjoyment really pissed me off, and I’m throwing in the towel, feeling like I’ve wasted the last month of my life reading a story that I’ve not come to care about in any gorram way. I will not read anything else that he has written, and I cannot see how so many people find this volume of the series to be so un...more
Finally the end! All is revealed!
Really though, everything is explained in this final volume (as you would hope). And while on the surface it is a satisfying conclusion, it may just be the natural high in reaction to finishing the darn thing. Some 3300 pages and it's done!
As I mentioned in reviews about the first three parts, verbiage is plentiful and there are plenty of maddening delays in answer giving. Then, when the answers come, they are heavy in info dumping exposition. Aren't we ever happ...more
Really though, everything is explained in this final volume (as you would hope). And while on the surface it is a satisfying conclusion, it may just be the natural high in reaction to finishing the darn thing. Some 3300 pages and it's done!
As I mentioned in reviews about the first three parts, verbiage is plentiful and there are plenty of maddening delays in answer giving. Then, when the answers come, they are heavy in info dumping exposition. Aren't we ever happ...more
I read this book years ago, and now just reread it. It can be very slow moving at times and hard to motivate yourself to pick it back up.
It really only gets exciting in the second half, when FINALLY you start to get answers to all the questions that have been building up over the last 3 and a half books. I feel like the books were too long. Too much time focused and wasted on different and unneccesary simulation worlds.
It was so long, that i got the impression that the author even forgot what h...more
It really only gets exciting in the second half, when FINALLY you start to get answers to all the questions that have been building up over the last 3 and a half books. I feel like the books were too long. Too much time focused and wasted on different and unneccesary simulation worlds.
It was so long, that i got the impression that the author even forgot what h...more
I thought this book was a great conclusion to the series. Usually I don't like it when things get "all tidied up" at the end, however the author did a great job of finishing what he started. This series was a lot of fun to read. There were a few slow points in the middle, but overall the character development, the vernacular and culture invented, and the plot all combined together for a worthwhile read.
Dec 21, 2011
Bill
rated it
1 of 5 stars
Recommends it for:
No one.
Recommended to Bill by:
A friend who apparently wished to cause me great suffering.
This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it,
click here.
This entire series is really good. Its fun to read because of all the different environments and adventures they have but the last bit of this book is WAY OUT THERE!!! Big-brain-in-the-sky type of stuff. Its worth reading the entire series though because it doesn't get WAY OUT THERE until the last 100 pages of this final book.
In "Sea of Silver Light," book four in the "Otherland" tetrology, Tad Williams wraps up his massive sci-fi saga.
Four big books in eight medium-sized sentences:
In a not so distant future children across the globe are being lost to unexplainable comas. For South African college professor Renie Sulaweyo, whose baby brother Stephen is among those affected, the horror of this epidemic is all too real. Researching Stephen's condition leads Renie to the Otherland, a massively complex virtual reality n...more
Four big books in eight medium-sized sentences:
In a not so distant future children across the globe are being lost to unexplainable comas. For South African college professor Renie Sulaweyo, whose baby brother Stephen is among those affected, the horror of this epidemic is all too real. Researching Stephen's condition leads Renie to the Otherland, a massively complex virtual reality n...more
This was a great book/series. I use "book/series" because the author intended it to be a single story, but it was impractical for a number of reasons to put out a 3000 some odd page novel. The books flow well together, and as an added bonus, there's a synopsis of each previous book in the beginning of books 2-4. I wish more authors would take up that practice when publishing huge stories (Wheel of Time *cough*).
On a side note, I find it interesting that some of the issues Williams touched on, su...more
On a side note, I find it interesting that some of the issues Williams touched on, su...more
So as a whole, i'm giving this series 3 1/2 stars. The first book was incredible, however the second and third books were just tedious and long-winded. Nothing much happened except for the protagonists travelling from one simulation to another. It got to the point where I started losing interest and simply began skimming through long sections at a time. That being said, the fourth book was a satisfying read with a decent conclusion. This series would have been a phenomenal duology, or even a rea...more
Aug 02, 2011
Elizabeth
rated it
4 of 5 stars
·
review of another edition
Shelves:
science-fiction-fantasy
This was by far my favorite book of the four part series. The action finally is non stop. This story is so full of imagination and creativity. I can't believe one person could come up with all of this. All of the simworlds are so completely described you feel like you are actually in them. You feel like you are actually there suffering with the tortured victims or revelling in their triumph. This book is definitely a great conclusion to the series.
The previous books were made very complicated by...more
The previous books were made very complicated by...more
This book is worth it, but by this point not only are the characters weary of the seemingly endless journey and the frustrating blankness of the foggy sea in which they are initially trapped, the reader feels it too. Thankfully they emerge after a while and the plot moves towards its conclusion, answering questions in a satisfying way. Some elements of the ending do feel a little underwhelming given all the ink spilled in reaching them but that is not to fault the series as a whole, only to poin...more
Sea of Silver Light is the concluding chapter in the Otherland saga and I have to say it wasn't as good as the first three books in the series. I still enjoyed it but something about the way it ended just seemed kind of hollow and lacking to me. I don't want to spoil the storyline so I won't say anything more about that. What I will say though is that the Otherland series is great as a whole. The story is cool and shows a very believable not too distant vision of our world, the net's place in it...more
The four books of this series took me most of the last 6 months as I honestly found them somewhat of a slog at the beginning. I'm not really sure I would have stuck with it had the series not come highly recommended, but I'm extremely glad I fought my initial instinct. I became increasingly attached to the characters as they encountered the frustration, hope and challenges of an impossible quest in an environment beyond their control. Initially I thought the quest within the virtual world would...more
The final book in this series and I guess I had high expectations. While the first 90% was fabulous. Great nodes the characters went through, interesting plot and character twists and conclusions to some of the story lines. However, I found some of the ending conclusions a little too far fetched to be enjoyable. Strange, considering the pills of fantasy which had to be swallowed to get through the series in the first place. Nevertheless, stopping before the last few chapters would have been the...more
i could not put these books down. as he says in the forward to the second book- this is actually one very long book written into four books. i LOVED this book. i read the first one completely by chance and as soon as i finished it i had to immediately order the other three. these books have taken over my life for the last few months. any spare moment i had the book was in my hand. i dreamed about the books, i thought about the characters, i felt a part of the adventure. i haven't been this satis...more
Jul 12, 2010
Mike
rated it
2 of 5 stars
·
review of another edition
Recommends it for:
shut-ins, prisoners
Shelves:
science-fiction
This book, the fourth in a four-book fantasy series, is an amazing example of how a good idea can be stretched and diluted until it is no longer pleasurable to read. There is nothing particularly wrong with the Otherland series. The ideas are interesting, the execution is fairly creative, some of the characters are competently developed, etc. But it is clear that the objective of the author (and the editor/publisher) was to create a large series (measured by the heft of the books and the number...more
This is one of the worst books I have ever read.
Its particularly bad because the series started with such amazing promise; the first book is literally brilliant. The next two were pretty mediocre; well-written, but ultimately travelogue-fantasy without any plot. Characters just stumbled from interesting locale to interesting locale and ended up right back where they started from. But this last book is terrible. I was literally shouting out loud in the street when I read the climax, it was that b...more
Its particularly bad because the series started with such amazing promise; the first book is literally brilliant. The next two were pretty mediocre; well-written, but ultimately travelogue-fantasy without any plot. Characters just stumbled from interesting locale to interesting locale and ended up right back where they started from. But this last book is terrible. I was literally shouting out loud in the street when I read the climax, it was that b...more
Jul 11, 2008
Jake
rated it
3 of 5 stars
·
review of another edition
Shelves:
science-fiction,
series
Sea of Silver Light wraps up Tad Williams Otherland series, a four-volume science fiction story that runs about 4000 pages all told.
Set in a near future world, Otherland tells the story of a group of people who, for one reason or another, are drawn to investigate a mysterious online network that appears to be involved in/responsible for a number of children falling into comas around the world. Williams’ creates a very large cast, and a very intricate plot, which I will not even attempt to summar...more
Set in a near future world, Otherland tells the story of a group of people who, for one reason or another, are drawn to investigate a mysterious online network that appears to be involved in/responsible for a number of children falling into comas around the world. Williams’ creates a very large cast, and a very intricate plot, which I will not even attempt to summar...more
Jun 04, 2008
Nikki
rated it
4 of 5 stars
·
review of another edition
Shelves:
speculative-fiction,
cyberpunk
The Otherland series by Tad Williams consists of four books: City of Golden Shadow, River of Blue Fire, Mountain of Black Glass and Sea Of Silver Light. I'm not going to review each one separately, just talk about my general impressions of the whole. Sci-fi isn't really my genre, though I do love it, so I can't speak for accuracy of the technology described or anything -- just my reactions to the plot and characters. The series isn't one you get into lightly. The books average about 1000 pages e...more
Jul 19, 2010
Chris
rated it
5 of 5 stars
·
review of another edition
Shelves:
science-fiction,
top-shelf
At last we have come to the end of our journey, when all will be explained and all will be resolved.
As the book opens, the Other - the operating system for the Grail Brotherhood's mysterious plan for immortality - has been defeated, overcome and overpowered by the truly evil assassin Dread. With his mutant ability to manipulate electronics, Dread has taught the Other how to feel true pain, and now has nearly complete control over the Otherland network. With a nearly limitless number of worlds to...more
As the book opens, the Other - the operating system for the Grail Brotherhood's mysterious plan for immortality - has been defeated, overcome and overpowered by the truly evil assassin Dread. With his mutant ability to manipulate electronics, Dread has taught the Other how to feel true pain, and now has nearly complete control over the Otherland network. With a nearly limitless number of worlds to...more
Actually really liked the way this series ended. Nothing like what I was expecting. The first book is quite dry. It's hard to get into the characters at first, and there are a lot. It's of the type where it's a good while until you get back to a chapter about a certain character, so that makes it a bit rough. Especially as slow as I was reading through them. But I like the series as a whole, and am glad I read it. Really started picking up on my reading towards the end.
The last book has to be the best right? Right. Twists and turns abound, questions answered (although some were just kind of sloppily thrown in at the end, most were delivered at a nice, even, satisfying pace). Florimel was a disappointment in that she was too static and quite annoying at points. I do love that Renie and Xabbu's relationship isn't all flowery, but more realistic and proper for their setting. Love that I own all four of these books!
So, why did I read all four of these if I hated the first one so much? Well, I got to the end of the first one and was infuriated by how little I knew about what was really going on. I already owned the second book when I started reading the first, and it seemed insane not to read it if I already owned it. I was hoping they would improve, and I wanted to know how the whole series ended.
Truly, I wish I had not bothered. A shocking waste of time.
Truly, I wish I had not bothered. A shocking waste of time.
I totally loved the first 3 books in this huge series, but felt this final volume dragged through most of the first half. It really wasn't until the final few hundred pages that things really picked up, and then it really got to some satisfying resolutions and surprises. I liked the way it ended, the final chapter seemed particularly perfect in content and tone. I guess the bottom line is that I loved the characters and it was definitely worth reading all 4 books to get their full story. These b...more
There are no discussion topics on this book yet.
Be the first to start one »
Tad Williams has held more jobs than any sane person should admit to—singing in a band, selling shoes, managing a financial institution, throwing newspapers, and designing military manuals, to name just a few. He also hosted a syndicated radio show for ten years, worked in theater and television production, taught both grade-school and college classes, and worked in multimedia for a major computer...more
More about Tad Williams...
Share This Book
No trivia or quizzes yet. Add some now »
“After all, is it not the way we humans shape the universe, shape time itself? Do we not take the raw stuff of chaos and impose a beginning, middle, and end on it, like the simplest and most profound of folktales, to reflect the shapes of our own tiny lives? And if the physicists are right, that the physical world changes as it is observed, and we are its only known observers, then might we not be bending the entire chaotic universe, the eternal, ever-active Now, to fit that familiar form?”
—
10 people liked it
More quotes…
Jul 18, 2008 04:51pm