Synopses & Reviews
Tad Williams' popular TechoComics series
Mirror World introduced a fictional world so original and yet so compelling, so bizarre and yet so reminiscent of our own reality, that no reader who experienced it was ever quite the same again.
Mirror World is a story of disaster and survival. Just before the millennium (1999), gigantic mirrors appear in the world's major cities, bisecting streets, parks, and buildings. They are as beautiful as they are mysterious, until their terrible purpose becomes clear. They are portals, through which predatory insectile aliens swarm, killing or carrying off everything in their path.
Humankind's only chance is to attack the "bugs" at their source--in Mirror World. It is a one-way trip, and one which only flesh can make; everything inorganic--weapons, clothing, even dental fillings--disappear in the crossing. Six volunteers are bioengineered to become human weapons. Some of the biotroops pursue the Bugs through further portals--into the dark heart of the Universe. Others remain on MIrror World, setting up city states such as Shades and Looking Glass, creating a second Earth with new wonders and new evils all its own.
An elite grouping of storytellers--also volunteers, hand-picked by Williams himself--has taken this audacious science fiction universe and filled it with colorful characters, unforgettable adventures, and thought-provoking new themes. The magic of their collective vision has limned a world as strange and wondrous as our own, only more so: a world in which illusion and reality are wedded inextricably.
Uniting the power of modern science fiction and the magic of full-color art, Tad Williams' Mirror World is a unique publishing event: a popular comic book transformed into literature, with its creative energy not only preserved but enhanced. As the story unfolds, a different author escorts the reader through each part of this astonishingly beautiful illustrated tale.
Tad Williams himself selected the writers and approved the artist chosen to make this unique multimedia foray into the shimmering vastness of his Mirror World. You are invited to go with them...if you dare.
Synopsis
Without warning, mirrors are appearing in every major city ... gigantic glittering surfaces that bisect anything in their paths. Their ultimate purpose? The horrible answer is the greatest threat humankind has ever faced. Hostile, predatory, and unstoppable, insectile aliens suddenly begin swarming through the mirrors, transforming the face of the earth into a slaughterhouse. Humanity's only hope of survival is to follow the enemy through these portals and destroy it at its source. But there's a catch: it's a one-way trip, one that only flesh and blood can make. Nothing metallic or man-made can pass through the mirrors. Now 60 of the world's bravest individuals must volunteer to be bio-engineered into living weapons for a suicide mission to the dark heart of the universe.
Stunningly illustrated throughout with full-color art, maps, drawings, and character portraits, Mirror World takes readers into a world in which illusion and reality are wedded inextricably, a world as strange and wondrous as our own.
About the Author
Tad Williams is the New York Times bestselling author of some fourteen books for adults, which have been translated into twenty-three languages and sell worldwide. Among his bestsellers are The Dragonbone Chair, The Otherland Cycle, and Shadowmarch. Deborah Beale was a longtime editor of books for adults and children in her native London before she began her career as a writer. This is the first book Tad and Deborah have written together. They live with their children in the San Francisco Bay Area in California, with far more cats, dogs, reptiles, pet ants, and banana slugs than they can count.
Table of Contents
Mirror of time / written by Mark Kreighbaum ; illustrated by Ron Mahoney -- Biotrooper dossier -- Serpent in the garden / written by John Helfers ; illustrated by Robin Cline -- Childhood's end / written by Michelle West ; illustrated by Robin Cline -- Pilgrim's progress.