River of blue fire / Tad Williams.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Williams, Tad.

Series:

Williams, Tad. Otherland ; v. 2.

Otherland ; v. 2

DAW book collectors ; no. 1090

DAW book collectors ; no. 1090.

Language:

English

Genre:

Fiction.

Physical Description:

xix, 634 pages ; 24 cm.

Place of Publication:

New York : DAW Books : Distributed by Penguin Putnam, [1998]

Summary:

In Otherland Volume One: City of Golden Shadow, best-selling author Tad Williams transported readers to a perilous and seductive realm of the imagination where any fantasy-whether cherished dream or dreaded nightmare-can be made shockingly real.

Otherland. In many ways it is humankind's most stunning achievement: a private, multi-dimensional universe built over two generations by the greatest minds of the twenty-first century. But this most exclusive of places is also one of the world's best kept secrets, created and controlled by an organization made up of the world's most powerful and ruthless individuals, a private cartel known-to those who know of their existence at all-as The Grail Brotherhood. Though their purpose in creating Otherland is still a mystery, it may not remain so for long. For they have exacted a terrible price from humanity in the process, and even their highly organized global conspiracy cannot hide the nature of their crimes forever.

And now a small band of adventurers have penetrated the veil of secrecy that prevents the uninitiated from entering Otherland. But having broken into the amazing worlds within worlds that make up this universe, they are trapped, unable to escape back to their own flesh-and-blood bodies in the real world. And as dangers and circumstances split their party into small, widely scattered groups, their only hope of reuniting lies in returning again and again to the River that flows-in one form or another-through all the worlds.

But the odds seem to be completely against them as they-and the one outsider with whom they might join forces-become hopelessly lost in realms where an Ice Age tribe's fears can only be quenched in blood...where insects are as large and deadly as dinosaurs...where they are caught in the war between a man made of straw and one made of tin...where cartoon ads take on a life of their own...where humans strive to survive in the aftermath of an alien invasion...and where one among their party is actually The Grail Brotherhood's most terrifying weapon-a sociopathic killer who has never failed and whose current mission is to make certain that not even one member of this little invasion force lives long enough to reveal the truth about Otherland to the people of Earth....

Contents:

Synopsis xi

1st The Secret River

1 Deep Waters 19

2 Greasepaint 33

3 The Hive 41

4 In the Puppet Factory 57

5 The Marching Millions 71

6 Man From the Dead Lands 87

7 Grandfather's Visit 103

8 Fighting Monsters 121

9 The Hollow Man 143

10 Small Ghosts 165

11 Utensils 183

12 The Center of the Maze 205

2nd Voices in the Dark

13 The Dreams of Numbers 229

14 Games in the Shadows 233

15 A Late Crismustreat 253

16 Shoppers and Sleepers 275

17 In the Works 295

18 The Veils of Illusion 313

19 A Day's Work 335

20 The Invisible River 355

21 In the Freezer 379

3rd Gods and Geniuses

22 Inside Out 401

23 Beside Bob's Ocean 423

24 The Most Beautiful Street in the World 443

25 Red Land, Black Land 465

26 Waiting for the Dreamtime 489

27 The Beloved Porcupine 503

28 Darkness in the Wires 525

4th Bedlam's Song

29 Imaginary Gardens 539

30 Death and Venice 549

31 The Voice of the Lost 567

32 Feather of Truth 585

33 An Unfinished Land 607

Afterword 631.

ISBN:

0886777771

OCLC:

40061628