Mirror World: An Illustrated Novel — Tad Williams

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.