Otherland is a vast network of interconnected simworlds, or virtual reality settings. One simworld has an endless city of enormous mansions with spires shooting to the sky. Others are based on ancient history and mythology, like Egypt and the Homeric epics. The one that really rattled my brain was the Black Mountain, where the climax takes place. This is where the “reality” of the entire network starts to buckle and break down. A group of people had come to Otherland by various means: most of them for noble causes, like saving a family member. But the mystery of the network's deterioration intrigues them all into finding the source of it, catalyzed by their prior ambitions. In Mountain of Black Glass, the third of the four-book series, the complex plot is escalated onto a spectacular and mysterious level that makes the following book Sea of Silver Light a must read.
This volume is slow at first, getting more intense and action-packed the farther along it goes. That climax though, when all of the seemingly unrelated plotlines merge into (un)focus; Paul’s journey from the seas of Odysseus to the Trojan War to the Black Mountain; Renie, Xabbu, and t4b going from “nothingland” to the House City, to the Trojan War, to the Black Mountain; Orlando and Sam battling simGods in Egypt and the Trojans in Troy before ascending the obsidian flank; the villain Jongleur surprised to find himself waiting for them on Egyptian broadcast when they reach the top; the trickster Dread swooping in, surprising everyone and putting an exclamation mark on all the chaos; all plotlines veiled in a cloud of mystery, finally lucid in the agony of a sleeping giant: The Other? It is golden in so many facets of storytelling that it may just be the best finish to a book I've ever read.
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