Otherlands: A World in the Making - A Sunday Times bestseller

Product Information

Written with gusto and bravado . . . Otherlands is a verbal feast.You feel like you are there on the Mammoth Steppe, some 20,000 years ago, as frigid winds blow off the glacial front.” —Steve Brusatte, Scientific American Vivid . . . An intricate analysis of our planet's interconnected past, it is impossible to come away from Otherlands without awe for what may lie ahead.” — Independent Cho-Cho—a 10-year-old street boy of Mexican descent who sneaks onto the army base while Christabel is trying to help Mr. Sellars. He becomes involved with Sellars's experiments.

Halliday takes us on a journey into deep time in this epic book, showing us Earth as it used to be and the worlds that were here before ours ‘The Hottest Books of the Year Ahead’, IndependentHalliday indicates that humankind bears a huge responsibility in the trajectory of our contemporary climate change. Today's atmosphere has a similar composition as during the Oligocene (an epoch ranging from 34 million to 23 million years ago during the Palaeogene period shown within the table above). However, by the end of this century, the Intergovernmental Panel for Climate Change (IPCC) projects that the level of CO 2 in the atmosphere could reach levels of CO 2 similar to the Eocene (the preceding epoch to the Oligocene ranging from 56 million to 34 million years ago). Temperature ranges during the Eocene were a lot higher than contemporary ones. And, the only way to reduce this prospective increase in temperature is by decreasing CO 2 emissions and flatten the upward trajectory of atmospheric CO 2 concentration. Gally—a young boy who travels with Paul. He is neither a puppet (non-sentient character) nor a citizen (a human wearing an avatar). The word "original" is really overworked. But Thomas Halliday has produced a book the like of which I have never come across Jeremy Paxman

Singh—Known better by the name "Blue Dog Anchorite", who is the only surviving member of the group of technicians that designed Otherland and a well-known member of Treehouse. Mr. Sellars—a mysterious man kept under house arrest on a US Military base. He is responsible for recruiting people to infiltrate Otherland and uncover its secrets. Although mentally tortured by the danger to which he has submitted them, he affectionately refers to them as his volunteers and tries to aid them in every way possible. The table below provides more detailed information about the specific locations and periods covered.Halliday immerses us in a series of ancient landscapes, from the mammoth steppe in Ice Age Alaska to the lush rainforests of Eocene Antarctica, with its colonies of giant penguins, to Ediacaran Australia, where the moon is far brighter than ours today. We visit the birthplace of humanity; we hear the crashing of the highest waterfall the Earth has ever known; and we watch as life emerges again after the asteroid hits, and the age of the mammal dawns. These lost worlds seem fantastical and yet every description - whether the colour of a beetle's shell, the rhythm of pterosaurs in flight or the lingering smell of sulphur in the air - is grounded in the fossil record. Description of the specific location and time frame of each chapter within the book, "Otherlands." "Otherlands" & Thomas Halliday on climate change [ edit ] Best-Selling Novels Become MMOG". IGN. October 1, 2008. Archived from the original on October 6, 2008 . Retrieved April 21, 2009.

Otherlands is one of those rare books that's both deeply informative and daringly imaginative. It will change the way you look at the history of life, and perhaps also its future Elizabeth Kolbert, author of THE SIXTH EXTINCTION Vivid... An intricate analysis of our planet's interconnected past, it is impossible to come away from Otherlands without awe for what may lie ahead Amancai Biraben, Independent The Happiest Dead Boy in the World" (published in Legends II, edited by Robert Silverberg, from Del Rey/Ballantine/Random House, Hardcover 2003) One minor annoyance is that Halliday omits the titles of journal articles, which I normally find the most informative bit. No doubt done to save space, I cannot imagine this will bother many people.” McNary, Dave (19 January 2012). "Warners, Lin off to 'Otherland': Studio lands feature rights to Tad Williams' sci-fi tomes". Variety . Retrieved 22 January 2012.Del Ray Chiume—Renie's ex-boyfriend, an employee of the UN. Renie goes to him asking for help, unaware of what the help will cost him. Alternately admiring and critical, unvarnished, and a closely detailed account of a troubled innovator. In January 2012, Warner Bros. acquired the film rights to the Otherland novels. The producer of the planned feature film was set to be Dan Lin, and the script was to be written by John Scott III. [16] As of 2023, no news has surfaced about this adaptation and it is presumed to no longer be in production. Orlando Gardiner—a young boy suffering from progeria who is drawn to Otherland while playing a virtual reality MMORPG called Middle Country, in which he is the Barbarian hero Thargor.

As they try to discover the motivations of the Grail Brotherhood—obviously not world domination, since they already control the world—they discover that they are unable to log off. They are trapped, and if they die in the network, they also die in real life. The series covers their adventures as they seek to uncover the truth and wake their loved ones from their comas. A fascinating journey through Earth’s history . . . To read Otherlands is to marvel not only at these unfamiliar lands and creatures, but also that we have the science to bring them to life in such vivid detail.” — New Scientist His proposed ability to immerse oneself fully in a simulation gives him a great deal of artistic freedom, and the story winds through alternate interpretations of many classical literary works such as Through the Looking-Glass, The Odyssey and The Iliad, The War of the Worlds, and The Wizard of Oz, which are available as entertainment simulations within the series. Orlando Gardiner, one of the main characters in the books, spent most of his teenage years in this world's equivalent to MMORPGs based upon J. R. R. Tolkien's fiction. The overall series's events also bear a strong resemblance to The Lord of the Rings. Sweet William-an elderly British man wearing the avatar of a vampire. He and Martine seem to know each other. Like Florimel, he is also silent about his personal life.In this remarkable book, the award-winning scientist Thomas Halliday takes us on a tour of the landscapes, flora and fauna of the distant past." [7] Johnny "Dread" Wulgaru (Anubis)—a half-Aboriginal Australian psychopath obsessed with rape and murder, employed as an assassin by the Grail Brotherhood. He possesses the ability to mentally interfere with machines, allowing him to do many seemingly impossible things. He refers to this ability as his twist.