City of Golden Shadow
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| City of Golden Shadow | |
 US Hardcover Edition - Originally titled Otherland |
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| Author | Tad Williams |
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| Country | U.S. |
| Language | English |
| Series | Otherland |
| Genre(s) | Science fiction |
| Publisher | Legend Books |
| Publication date | December 5, 1996 |
| Media type | Print (Hardback & Paperback) |
| Pages | 770 (Hardback) & 960 (Paperback) |
| ISBN | ISBN 0-09-968301-6 (Hardback) & ISBN 1-85723-604-1 (Paperback) |
| Followed by | River of Blue Fire |
City of Golden Shadow is the first book in the Otherland series by Tad Williams and is 770 pages long.
Contents |
[edit] Plot introduction
The science fiction novel tells the story of a frightening virtual network created by a group of rich men known as The Grail Brotherhood. These men include; Felix Jongleur, who was a child at the time of the First World War, and is currently the world's oldest man; Jiun Biao, a Chinese economist, described as "the terror of Asia;" and Robert Wells, the owner of Telemorphix, the world's largest telecommunications company. The book tells the story of a group of ordinary people who are drawn into the network to stop them.
[edit] Explanation of the novel's title
The "Otherland" of the book's original and series title is that of the virtual world of a 'super internet'. The title "City Of Golden Shadows" refers to a city, in the otherland network, to where the main characters are being summoned.
[edit] Plot summary
The first character introduced is a man called Paul Jonas, a soldier on the Western Front of the First World War. He meets a woman with wings, who gives him a feather. His friends, Finch and Mullet, worry that he may be going mad. He finds her, but Finch and Mullet show up. However, something strange has happened to them: Mullet is grossly fat and Finch has no eyes. Terrified, Jonas makes a run for it, and falls through a hole in space. He discovers himself in a place similar to the chess-land in Lewis Carroll's Through the Looking Glass, where he is caught in the battle between the red and the white. He escapes with a young boy he met at an inn, whose name is Gally. They find themselves on Mars, which is inhabited by creatures who demand a sacrifice of a princess from the plant Venus each year. He recognizes the chosen woman as the winged woman he met earlier, although he cannot remember when he met her: his memory does not even extend to his time in the chess-land. With the help of other men from Earth, he rescues the princess, then flees from the angry Martians. He sees Mullet and Finch again, however, and tries to escape in a hijacked airship. He loses control of the airship, and finds himself in a conservatory with a harp, which shrinks to a size that it can fit in his palm. Mullet and Finch confront him, demanding that he give them the harp, but he refuses and appears again on the airship, which is hurtling towards the ground. He is rescued by a group of Neanderthals, and a voice comes from the harp, telling him that friends with search for him on the river. His memory somehow restored, he awaits their arrival.
The Grail Brotherhood is a small number of wealthy and powerful people who have formed an exclusive society. In their virtual kingdom, known as Otherland, they take on the names of Egyptian deities. A man named Dread is commissioned by their leader, who calls himself "Osiris," to carry out some task. Dread promises to accomplish his mission, although it is not stated what exactly he must do.
In late-21st century Durban, a computer teacher named Irene Sulaweyo is teaching a Kalahari Bushman named !Xabbu how to create VR environments, while keeping her father sober and trying to stop her ten-year-old brother, Stephen, from hacking into forbidden areas of the net. When he somehow ends up in a coma after visiting an forbidden club, she and !Xabbu decide to investigate. She discovers that the club is set up to damage the minds of children, as it as done to Stephen, and resolves to stop the people responsible. She finds a unusual and large piece of code, in the form of a golden diamond, on her machine, and consults her friend and mentor, Dr. Susan van Bleek, about it. As they examine it, it erupts into an image of a golden city, then disappears. Van Bleek is attacked soon after, and expires after leaving Renie and !Xabbu with three names: Martine Desroubins, Blue Dog Anchorite, and Bolivar Atasco. The first two are hackers that agree to help them find the golden city, which is on a network called "Otherland," while the third is an anthropologist and archaeologist whose expertise is pre-Colombian Latin America. Renie, !Xabbu, and Martine manage to enter Otherland, and make their way to the golden city, where they meet the God-King, who reveals himself to be Atasco.
In suburban California, a terminally-ill teenager named Orlando Gardiner has become the most celebrated warrior in the online Middle Country, a VR MMORPG based on swords-and-sorcery. However, while playing the game, he is distracted by a vision of a golden city and killed by a low-level monster. With the help of his friend, Fredericks, he begins to investigate. They fail to discover what caused the image, but are mysteriously taken to a beach on a river. Across the river, they can see the golden city. They attempt to build a raft to cross the river, but are stopped by the police and taken to the palace of the God-King.
Orlando, Fredericks, Irene, !Xabbu, Martine and four other people in similar situations find themselves in a virtual reality world so complex that it rivals reality. They are at the heart of the world, led by a rebel member of the Grail Brotherhood, who introduces himself as Atasco and informs them that the world was built as an anthropological experiment. Then they are met by the enigmatic Mr. Sellars, who tells them that the network is somehow built from the minds of catatonic children worldwide, and he calls upon the small group of adventurers to stop the Grail Brotherhood.
Before they can get their questions answered, however, their hosts are attacked: Dread's mission is to kill Atasco, and he succeeds, throwing the gathering into chaos. Their final instructions from Sellars are to board Atasco's boat and sail down the river, where they will meet somone waiting for them.
[edit] Characters in "City of Golden Shadow"
- Paul Jonas - A person trapped within the Otherland network. When first introduced, Paul believes himself to be a soldier condemned to the trenches of the First World War. Because he underwent "treatment" (brainwashing) before being introduced to the simulation, he cannot remember anything that happened more than a few days ago. As he explores the simulation, he struggles to discover who he is, as well as trying to escape from Mullet and Finch, agents of the Grail Brotherhood.
- Mullet - Supposedly a companion of Paul Jonas in the trenches. When Paul escapes the World War I simulation, however, Mullet, in various incarnations, pursues him through the other simulations of the Otherland network. Later revealed to be Mudd, an employee of Felix Jongleur
- Finch - Mudd's companion, who pursues Paul. His real name is Finney.
- Gally - A boy that Paul meets in the Otherland simulation, and who accompanies him in his flight from Mullet and Finch. He demonstrates to Paul the significance of the river that connects various part of the network.
- Irene Sulaweyo - Nicknamed Renie, a South African computer teacher, whose younger brother Stephen falls into a coma, prompting the research that leads to her discovery of the Otherland network.
- !Xabbu - A bushman from the Kalahari desert, and a student of Renie. He helps her research the cause of her brother's coma, and enters the Otherland network with her. His spiritual guidance keeps Renie sane, as well as providing her with a viewpoint that does not take the technology of her civilization for granted.
- Dr. Susan van Bleek - A rich technology expert who at one time taught Renie virtual engineering. Renie contacts her after her brother falls ill, and she is able to direct Renie to Martine Desroubins, Murat Sagar Singh, and Bolivar Atasco before agents of the Grail Brotherhood murder her.
- Jeremiah Dako - Susan van Bleek's butler and cook, who joins Renie and !Xabbu after van Bleek is murdered.
- Stephen Sulaweyo - Renie's eleven-year-old brother, who spends a large amount of his time in virtual reality with his friends Eddie and Soki. He falls into a coma after visiting a forbidden area of the net, and is moved to a hospital, where he remains for most of the story.
- Strimbello - A man who operates an ominous club designed to entice children to enter a situation where they can be mentally damaged for the benefit of the Grail Brotherhood. He is responsible for putting Stephen into a coma, and nearly succeeds in doing the same to Renie and !Xabbu.
- Long Joseph Sulaweyo - Renie's father, described as a once-honorable man who became an alcoholic after the accidental death of his wife (and Renie's mother). Apathetic about the problems and emotions of his family members, he resists Renie's attempts to keep him safe.
- Murat Sagar Singh - Also known by the code name "Blue Dog Anchorite," Singh is an elderly man who was an aquaintance of Susan van Bleek and a worker on some programming for the Otherland project. He helps Renie, !Xabbu, and Martine hack into the system, but is killed by a malevolent aspect of the Otherland security system when he tries to enter with them.
- Martine Desroubins - an aquaintance of Susan van Bleek who lives in France and who assists Renie and !Xabbu and enters Otherland with them. She is revealed to be blind, and interprets virtual reality through different mechanisms than the others, so the large amount of information in the Otherland system starts to drive her insane, and she is seemingly ill because of this at the end of the book.
- Orlando Gardiner - a terminally ill teenager who plays the VR MMORPG Middle Country with his best (and only) friend Frederics. After he discovers an image of a golden city, a location in the Otherland network, he becomes obsessed with finding it. Both he and Frederics enter Otherland, despite the fact that he very sick with pneumonia. At the end of the book, he is unconcious and at risk of dying from his disease, cared for by members of the other eight people who also succeeded in entering Otherland.
- Salome Fredericks - simply called Frederics, this is a friend of Orlando's, who wears the sim of a man, but is actually a teenage girl (Orlando, her best friend, is unaware of her true gender). She does not approve of Orlando's attempts to learn about Otherland, believing that they are likely to get harshly punished for their actions, but accompanies him on all of his exploits.
- Mr. Sellars - an elderly man imprisoned on an army base in North Carolina, who 'recruits' Orlando and the others by leaving clues about the Otherland scattered across the net. Eventually, he meets them in Otherland, and tries to explain the situation and what they must do.
- Cristabel Sorensen - a young girl living on the army base, who secretly becomes friends with Mr. Sellars and helps him escape from the army base.
- Felix Jongleur - the oldest (and likely the most influential) person on earth. He is the leader of the Grail Brotherhood, and masterminded the creation of the Otherland system. Through much of the book, he is referred to as "Osiris" (or some honorary title) due to his insistance that the top members of the Brotherhood take the roles of Egyptian deities).
- Johnny Wulgaru - Known by his adopted name, Dread, this character's real name is only mentioned once, and then in reference to his unhappy childhood. He has the power to manipulate electronic devices, an ability he calls "twist," and views his life as a sort of movie. Despite his dangerous obsession with rape and murder, Jongleur, who calls him "Anubis," recruits him to assassinate Atasco.
- Wells - Called "Horus" by Jongleur, he is a centenarian living in Oregon and the head of the powerful electronic corporation Telemorphix. He is a member of the Grail Brotherhood, although he is unpopular in the Brotherhood and dispproves of the leadership of Jongleur. He attempts to indict Jongleur, but his plan backfires and he is left in shame.
- Daniel Yacoubian - A general in the US Army, he is also a member of the Grail Brotherhood and conspires to indict Jongleur with Wells. Jongleur has assigned him the name Ptah, because he shows the clever scheming associated with that deity.
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