City of Golden Shadow (Otherland, Volume 1)

Best-selling fantasy author Tad Williams (Tailchaser's Song, the Memory, Sorrow and Thorn series) begins a far-reaching cyberpunk saga with Renie Sulaweyo, a teacher in the South Africa of tomorrow, realizing something is wrong on the network. Some of the younger kids, including her brother Stephen, have logged into the net, but they can't get back out. The clues point to a mysterious golden city called Otherland, but everyone who tries to find out what's going on ends up dead. Settle in for a long, enjoyable ride, because this 770-page monster is just the first of four projected novels.