Great book if you want to settle back and be carried away by the story. if you over think it there are some implausible coincidence but it's a work of fiction not real life so get over it and enjoy the adventure

The exciting story could (and probably should) have been told in less than half the words. The characters were interesting and most of their motivations refreshingly reasonable. The excessive detail, sceneries and tedious character development (in both the story world and the virtual one within it) is likely to cause you to nod off, unless you really enjoy a story telling pace that nearly rivals that of Tolkien's.

The book starts well and keeps you interested for the first five or so hours. I then found it dragged a bit, possibly as I realised quite how much I had left to go. However, stick with it as the last 15 hours are real metaphorical page turners.

I was speaking to my mother about it who asked her normal questions about books I read/listen to: "does it have a spy? A submarine? A helicopter?"

I found myself answering in the affirmative to all of these so she said she wasn't interested in it. However, don't let this put you off as they are all comparatively minor bits of the story (sorry Olivia) and it is otherwise a rip roaring yarn (all 39 hours of it) about human struggling through very difficult circumstances and pulling together.

The one downside was the accents used with the welsh bad guy sounded like Sean Connery. It's annoying but not ultimately fatal to the story and the narrator does well otherwise.

Bit drawn out and not as much of the reamde virus and online train game as I was expecting. Narration was good when narrating the story in his own voice but the other accents were pretty ropey. The Scottish accent was so bad it was quite entertaining in an odd way! Stuck with it to the end though so can't have been that bad.

not what I was expecting. good characters but story felt laborious and clichéd at times

Starts brilliantly with the focus on internet/gaming intrigue but fades around a third of the way into sub-par cookie-cutter spy yarn. It never recovers. Very disappointing listen.

I was happy to see there weren't nearly as many references to the proper care and maintenance of genitalia in this book as there were in 'Cryptonomicon.'
Mind you, there were still some, just not as many.

Enjoyable story with some interesting characters. Nice tongue in cheek critique of globalisation and the digital age. Unfortunately the narrator was very poor. Nearly gave up as his attempts at anything other than a broad American accent were so terrible. Would recommend reading this rather than listening to it as a result.

Epically convoluted adventure

This stunning quest for gold and revenge manages to cross half the real world and a fantasy one too. Non stop plot that never looses the thread.

Hillgarten's reading lights up the characters, and even though his Russian/Hungarian accents verge through Mexico and Pakistan, his English accent is so POSH it's almost comic, and his Welsh is um.... he's obviously never heard a Welsh accent, he keeps the pace going so that one wants to just keep listening.

This could not be made into a film. Maybe a series of films. There is just too much stuff.

I'll be looking for more by both the author and the narrator. Very good listening.

it just fails and falls flat. it goes nowhere and says nothing. it describes and didn't explore. anathem takes you there, cryptonomicon makes you understand... this just bores you.