A review by the_pale_woman
Sea of Silver Light by Tad Williams

adventurous challenging slow-paced

4.0

If I were to rate this book separately from its companions, I'd say it might be about a 3. However, when reflecting on this series as a whole, I see that it is more than the sum of its parts. No one book is carrying the weight of this story. Yes, you get all the answers by the end. But those satisfying answers are not where the true magic of this story lives. 

I'm generally not one to quote, but I think this one bit really brings the whole idea into focus. 

"After all, is it not the way we humans shape the universe, shape time itself? Do we not take the raw stuff of chaos and impose a beginning, middle, and end on it, like the simplest and most profound of folktales, to reflect the shapes of our own tiny lives? And if the physicists are right, that the physical world changes as it is observed, and we are its only known observers, then might we not be bending the entire chaotic universe, the eternal, ever-active Now, to fit that familiar form? 

"If so, the universe, from the finest quantum dust to the widest vacuum spaces, does indeed have a shape. It begins 'Once upon a time.' 

"And if it is true, then only we humans, poor, naked semi-apes crouching in the thin light of our single star, marooned on the rim of a minor galaxy, can determine whether there will be a 'Happily ever after.'" 

The forces that shape the story of Otherland are multidimensional. Then add in the concept that by observing it, you shape it. I don't just mean you as the reader but the characters as well. It almost makes me want to read it again. To see what I wasn't seeing when I was just experiencing it. I like to think it might be some quasi meta masterpiece. But the sad fact is that it was slow. Added depth might not compensate. 

While in the end I found a lot of food for thought here, I'm not fully confident you will too. I might recommend this series, but I don't think you would thank me for it. This is basically a 4000-page book. There is no, read one book now and pick up the next later. I think your only chance of enjoying it is plowing through. It's a little slow at times and mysterious to frustration. But there are bits of gold too. Plus, some sci-fi predictions that might be a little too close for comfort.