Are you a fan of Tad Williams' series of "Otherland" novels? If you're not familiar with them, do you enjoy science fiction, the cyberpunk genre or stories involving virtual reality? If you answered "yes" to any of these questions, you may be excited to hear that dtp entertainment and the development studio RealU have announced the MMORPG Otherland, based on Williams' work.

"Otherland," a series of four novels published between 1996 and 2001, is set in a future where people can immerse themselves completely in a virtual, online world. Sounds pretty similar to our current gaming habits, right? That's what makes Williams' story so fitting for an MMORPG.

Williams is incredibly involved in this project, and talks about his excitement at length in his blog . The game will be released in 2010 and is about 15% complete, according to Williams. Keep reading after the jump for more information.

According to Andrew Carter, the CEO of RealU, Otherworld will be based on the Unreal Engine 3 to "ensure outstanding graphics quality over huge environments." Carter is the leader of the development team, now consisting of 80 people, based in Singapore.

A press release from dtp entertainment regarding the announcement stated that the storyline will not be linear. In fact, players will get a chance to act out their own tales in the Outland universe:

MMO fans can also expect a fascinating gameplay experience. Based on the globally successful novels, the Otherland gameplay is distinguished by a unique narrative structure. Rather than retelling the story, players will experience their own individual stories within the Otherland universe and will encounter many of the familiar characters from the books. The game world will change dynamically around them during the course of the game.

Starting from the player lobby Lambda Mall, an Entertainment, Meeting and Communication centre, players will teleport into a wide variety of game worlds. As in the books, virtual reality is a central topic of the game. Nothing is what it appears to be at first glance in this futuristic vision from the pen of Tad Williams, who played an important role in the development of the game.

According to his blog , Williams is very involved with the game and is already proud of how it's turning out.

Not only are (RealU) great game-makers, they actually GET Otherland. They've come up with ideas that were new to me, but would totally have fit into the original novels. (I was impressed.)

Williams said in his blog entry that he can't answer all questions at this point, but noted that how the game actually works will be "quite unusual, even revolutionary in some ways."

Players will start off as a simple, nondescript sim in Lambda Mall, a social center which will be huge, according to Williams. Each virtual club will have its own music, decor and built-in games. Players will travel through flight tubes or by spline surfing, which will require some jumping to change destination. Williams has confirmed that the first world you'll travel to from Lambda Mall will be Mars.

Outland is the largest game production in the history of dtp entertainment, according to COO Markus Windelen. The company is one of the largest independent German games publishers. Based in Hamburg, it employs more than 100 people.