City of Golden Shadow

Otherland Book 1

De: Tad Williams

Narrado por: George Newbern

ANYONE CAN GO THERE... COMING BACK IS ANOTHER STORY.

The first in a four-audiobook series, Otherland: City of Golden Shadow is a complex suspense novel of the near future, where virtual reality has expanded to encompass all aspects of society -- and national, physical, and mental boundaries are limited only by the virtue or darkness of the imagination, offering an entirely new level of freedom to people in all walks of life. But a blood-chilling conspiracy involving the world's most powerful individuals now threatens to shatter this world to its very core....

Great book, great narration

Great book, great narration.
Listened to this series several times.
Absolutely love it.
Interesting parallels in our world today.

Looking forward to next book.

Great and clever story. Very interesting and imageanitative. Looking ahead to the next book to see where it is going.

Typical Tad Williams

It started off v e r y s l o w, but did get more interesting towards the end. I'm not in any hurry to tackle the next book in the series, however.

Fantastic world building + great narration

I've read the book before so I knew the story, but I really enjoyed the narration. George Newbern can do accents really well, slipped up a couple of times but really with a book of this length and complexity, and plenty of switching accents (for example, an Australian conversing with a Columbian) his skill is impressive.

One thing others have noted, which could be jarring, is that there's no distinct indication when he's switching character POVs, but this is the same in the book -- if I recall correctly, there is maybe an extra space between paragraphs but no line of separation or little design or anything. So that's fairly true to the book as well.

Overall, I really enjoyed this. Tad Williams is one of my favorite authors for world building (check out War of the Flowers, which is a one-shot, not part of a series) and this series, with all its length, really has the ability to dive into the world(s).

Disappointed so far

The book never got interesting. George Newbern does a good enough job I suppose. But I was never all that entertained. I guess I could also say that I was never completely bored either. It’s a very average book. I will continue the series to see if it improves. But with the first book, I did frequently find myself turning it off when I had nothing else going on. I never do that when I have an interesting story to listen to.