Mario the lone bookwolf's Reviews > City of Golden Shadow

A very complex, unique series, mixing up different genres, never boring because of Williams´ talent and feeling for language, it describes one of the possible, awaiting futures, making dystopian cyberpunk seem empty in contrast to this rich, colorful, postcyberpunk worldbuilding. I have the suspicion that the inventors of the cyber and post cyber genre names just wanted to pimp, because there is not so much difference.

William's style reminded me a bit of Neil Gaiman, just expanded to the ultimate maximum possible. He is one of the possibly most unknown and underrated master fantasy authors, having created 2 series, this one and Memory, Sorrow, and Thorn that made him a living legend. He puts so many details, extra plotlines, secondary characters, and worldbuilding into his creations that he can be named in one line with Sanderson, Martin, Erikson, etc. and especially the ones who gave the fantasy sci-fi crossover genre a new hype such as Mievielle, Hamilton, etc.

Science Fantasy isn´t everyone´s favorite, this might be, besides the length and complexity of many plotlines, one of the reasons why this series hasn´t the same status as works of similar quality by Simmons, Martin, Erikson, and others. It would interest me if it would have been a bigger hit in a pure middle age fantasy setting, if conventions are really so mighty that they reduce the chance of success for experimentations.

And it has everything, predicting some already real and coming technological inventions, although other authors did the same before, a lack of net neutrality with corporations and rich tycoons controlling everything and fewer chances for normal people to participate at the same level, a teeny plotline, a digital second world, time travel, and many small stories executed in subplots like sidequests, make it a pearl for the ones who are a bit overeaten of and fed up with conventional, pure fantasy or sci-fi. And it stays so vivid, I´ve read it years ago and just by looking at the beautiful covers, I remember so many details, so many proofs of how ingenious he is at transporting lasting imaginations into the reader´s minds.

Although some might find it too big, wordy, and excessive, it´s also everything else than easy to enter, one has to invest the time it takes to read a shorter novel to get into the story because there is much exposition needed, but it´s so worth it and gets better with each part of the series. One should not forget that Williams is one of the before internet hype era bestselling authors, with 17 million copies sold, who seems to have been a bit forgotten, but this and Memory, sorrow, and thorn, also getting better with each part, should be on one's radar because it frees from searching new brain food for several weeks.

Tropes show how literature is conceptualized and created and which mixture of elements makes works and genres unique:
https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.ph...