This weekend, I finished the Otherland series by Tad Williams. It was a wonderful read. Usually I’m not one for Science Fiction but these books spoke to me. And they are definitely books I want to read again. Soon.

I hadn’t heard of them before, so when I stumbled upon City of Golden Shadow, I didn’t know what to expect. I read the first chapter in the bookstore (and the first chapter is set in World War One with someone dreaming or better not-dreaming about a castle in the sky – so not typically SciFi-y) and couldn’t let go. I finished one book and started the next one. And now, the end has come.

It’s fascinating. The series consists of four fat books (not one with less than 750 pages, the last one even had 1200) and it was still sad finishing it. I wouldn’t have minded if he had written another 10 books.

The story is interesting and it makes sense. It is really well written and I liked how he even included the linguistic development that surely will happen in the next fifty years (although maybe not in that way :) ).  The characters seem so real that you feel included when they build their friendships and grow closer together.

I also thought it really cool that the main character was a) black, b) a woman and c) from Africa (which doesn’t really happen in “western” literature) but that it never was an issue – it was not important for the story, not a build-up for a twist and it wasn’t a political exclamation mark for the black / women rights movement. It just was like that.

Perfect. I’d recommend it to everyone who doesn’t usually like SciFi. And everyone who does like SciFi and hasn’t read them yet should go sit in the corner.