Otherland, Vol. 3
Mountain of Black Glass
Tad Williams
DAW, 689 pages
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Mountain of Black Glass is the third installment in Tad Williams' complicated and lengthy Otherland
saga, begun in City of Golden Shadow and continued in River of Blue Fire.
In Volumes 1 and 2, a group of adventurers--net instructor Renie Sulaweyo, her friend and student !Xabbu, and Orlando
Gardiner, a dying teenager--set out to find answers to a mysterious coma plague that's striking children all across
the world. Their search leads them to a top-secret virtual environment known as Otherland. Otherland is made up
of a series of simulated worlds, each one completely different, all linked together by a virtual river. Otherland's
programming is so incredibly advanced that experiences inside the network are indistinguishable from reality.
Otherland is owned and operated by the Grail Brotherhood, a group of fabulously wealthy men and women led by the
ancient and secretive Felix Jongleur. The Brotherhood is opposed by an equally cryptic group called the Circle,
and also by a crippled man known only as Mister Sellars, who isn't connected to any of the players, yet nevertheless
knows exactly what's going on.
Renie and her companions soon discover that, inexplicably, they're trapped within the Otherland system. Joined
now by another group of seekers--including Martine Desroubins, a blind net expert--they stumble from world to world,
searching for answers and uncovering clues. Early on, they're separated; the different groups pursue different
adventures, but it becomes clear to all of them that Otherland is a great deal stranger than they ever imagined,
and also that there's a direct relationship between it and the coma-like plague that's striking children in the
outside world. Though they don't know it, they're being stalked from outside the system by Felix Jongleur's psychotic
enforcer Dread, who has discovered their intrusion and wants to know what they're up to. At the same time, a man
called Paul Jonas, also lost in the system but unable to remember how he got there, tries to figure out why he
is having visions of a mysterious winged woman--and, more puzzling, encountering virtual manifestations of her
in every world he passes through.
When Volume 3 opens, Paul has arrived in a world based on the Odyssey. In role-playing game fashion, he's no longer
himself, but has been cast as Odysseus. He finds himself repeating Odysseus' voyage in reverse, on a path that
will ultimately lead him to Troy. Meanwhile Orlando, who by now is very ill, and his friend Fredericks are still
trapped in the Egyptian world of Volume 2. They've been told (by yet another version of Paul's winged woman) that
they must also make their way to Troy. Renie, !Xabbu and their companions find themselves in a vast House that
seems to fill the whole of the virtual world it occupies. Dread, still stalking them, manages to capture Martine,
and they set out on a desperate quest to save her. In the process, they discover that they, too, must find their
way to Troy.
At the same time, in the real world, the Grail Brotherhood prepares for the Ceremony that will transfer their intelligences
to the Otherland system, and render them immortal. Mister Sellars continues to follow the actions of everyone involved,
and to track the Otherland system itself--within which, it now appears, something has gone terribly wrong. And
Dread, who has discovered and deduced a lot more about Otherland than he was ever meant to, prepares a plan: to
seize all the worlds of Otherland for himself.
Mountain of Black Glass is a penultimate volume, and so the story is far from resolved by book's end. Still,
as in Volume 2, themes and issues continue to come clear. The identity of the winged woman and her connection to
Paul Jonas, the purpose of the Otherland system and its relationship to the coma plague, the nature of Otherland's
bizarre operating system, Dread's strange and murderous past--these and other elements are, if not fully explained,
at least further explicated. It's a thin line to walk, plot- and structure-wise: Williams must reveal enough to
keep his story from grinding to a halt, yet hold back enough to ensure a full roster of surprises for Volume 4.
He manages this adroitly, providing revelations in carefully-measured doses over the course of his characters'
adventures, finishing with a twist that throws the story into an entirely unexpected path.
Once again, Williams' inventiveness is on dazzling display. There are fewer worlds in Mountain of Black Glass
than in River of Blue Fire (in which the characters traveled through eleven different simulations), but
they're explored in more depth, from the House--a truly fascinating place, in which a whole series of novels could
be set--to the strange and savage world of the Odyssey. Classics buffs will find a lot to enjoy here. The Trojan
section is particularly well-done, with a series of riveting battle scenes, clever dialogue that echoes the cadences
of Homer, and a nicely-judged sense of the irony of a virtual environment that operates along many of the predictable
principles of a role-playing game, yet at the same time is immersively real--real enough to kill.
Is Mountain of Black Glass as superlative as River of Blue Fire, which absolutely bowled me over
when I read it last year? Not quite. The opening sections are a bit slow, and there isn't as much of the wonderful
character development that illuminated River of Blue Fire. Also, the novelty of the characters' passage
from world to world has begun to wear off just a bit. But these are minor quibbles. This is a finely-written, absorbing
book, a worthy addition to what is, so far, one of the best series I've ever read. Volume 4, Sea of Silver Light,
is one of the books I'll be most looking forward to in the year 2000.
Copyright © 1999 Victoria Strauss
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