Reamde

By: Neal Stephenson

Narrated by: Malcolm Hillgartner

Length: 38 hrs and 29 mins

Publisher's summary

“Stephenson has a once-in-a-generation gift: he makes complex ideas clear, and he makes them funny, heartbreaking, and thrilling.” - Time

The #1 New York Times bestselling author of Anathem, Neal Stephenson is continually rocking the literary world with his brazen and brilliant fictional creations - whether he’s reimagining the past (The Baroque Cycle), inventing the future (Snow Crash), or both (Cryptonomicon). With Reamde, this visionary author whose mind-stretching fiction has been enthusiastically compared to the work of Thomas Pynchon, Don DeLillo, Kurt Vonnegut, and David Foster Wallace - not to mention William Gibson and Michael Crichton - once again blazes new ground with a high-stakes thriller that will enthrall his loyal audience, science and science fiction, and espionage fiction fans equally. The breathtaking tale of a wealthy tech entrepreneur caught in the very real crossfire of his own online fantasy war game, Reamde is a new high - and a new world - for the remarkable Neal Stephenson.

©2011 by Neal Stephenson. (P)2011 Brilliance Audio, all rights reserved.

Critic reviews

“Stephenson...delivers a sprawling thriller that shows him in complete control of his story.” ( Publishers Weekly)

“Noir futurist Stephenson returns to cyberia with this fast-moving though sprawling techno-thriller...Who’ll prevail? We don’t know till the very end, thanks to Stephenson’s knife-sharp skills as a storyteller. An intriguing yarn—most geeky, and full of satisfying mayhem.” ( Kirkus Reviews, starred review)

“Sometimes when you’re reading Neal Stephenson, he doesn’t just seem like one of the best novelists writing in English right now; he seems like the only one.” (Lev Grossman, Time)

Blockbuster Material

The story line for this novel must have covered an entire wall. A cast of thousands battles it out with the forces of evil all across the globe. Listening as opposed to reading made it MUCH more gripping as there was no cheating with a quick scan of the final chapter and following the unbelievably convoluted plot involved quite a lot of sitting in the car for some time after actually arriving somewhere so as to reach a suitable place to break the narrative.
A very very engaging listen.

Nerd Alert (THE BEST KIND)!!!

Neal Stephenson's writing has always scratched my itch for computers, games and adventure. Bringing together many different worlds and perspectives, this story is exciting, thrilling and just what I wanted.

Fans of audiobooks will get their money's worth with the hours of content

Great!!

Really enjoy Neal Stephenson. His detail & knowledge shine through but can, for some, get bogged down. Excited to see if the TV series makes it & how they'll cast it.

This guy comes up which great stuff

Great science fiction. Starts with a simple premise, what if one could launder money in a video game? There's no death rays, quantum entanglement, exotic planets, or magic powers. It's not even in the future. His grasp of the technical issues is spot on. That little kernel of "what if" yields entirely entertaining tale of foreign intrigue, gangsters, lovers, cyberpunks, psychopaths, and fruitcakes caught up in a very tangled web. So many characters and subplots it's hard to keep track of it all in an audio book. This is a book that shouldn't fall into the wrong hands. It's scary how easy it is to do the dastardly deeds.

I took one star off the story because right in the middle of some of the suspense/action he pauses, to give one of the characters history going back three generations, describe the trees and rocks, ballistic considerations, etc.. Maybe it's a style thing, but many times but I really wanted the bullet to finish it's flight so I'd know if great grandchild lives or dies.

Great fun, huge adventure

I'm a big fan of Stephenson's style of doling out high adventure with such excellent attention to detail. the guy can write for miles without losing stride.

love the author but this one wasnt for me

I love this author but this one was a struggle to get through. the direction the story ultimately took was not what I was expecting when I picked this up. being used to his other stories, this one was not for me. but as usual he is great at setting the scene and fleshing out the characters. the first book I ever read of his was snowcrash. after that I was hooked on him, loved it! and when I was driving cross country, seven eves kept me company. so I guess it might be my fault, I was just expecting something a little more along those lines.

A treat

Neal Stephenson is a genius. I can't ken his math/computer driven world, but I respect them and do the best I can. I get tremendous pleasure from his brilliant, intricate storries, his marvelously drawn interesting people, and his (in-spite-of-himself) romantic bent and above all his wit. He loves to play with language and it's a joy to follow him wherever he chooses to lead us whether we understand it all or not. You never can tell - we just might learn something.

Good book, but it is NOT Robert Ludlum...

I originally selected this book because several reviews compared Mr. Stephenson's storytelling to that of Robert Ludlum. I did not find this to be the case. I did end up enjoying the book, but the author continually found twenty words to describe something that could have been said in just a few. I commute for my job and I try to purchase books that are fairly long recordings; this has been the longest so far. So I suppose I jinxed myself by picking a long book. In the end I enjoyed the book very much and the performance was excellent. But, due to the lengthy prose, I had to re-listen to chapters because I ended up falling asleep. So in short, it is a good book, but it is really just too long.

Stephenson takes a deep dive into 'thriller' genre

This is my favorite Stephenson novel since Cryptonomicon. The cast of characters is deep and the story is engaging. It's been a while since Stephenson set a story in modern times, and it is absolutely fulfilling to see his perspective and writing style unleashed on everything from video games to geek culture to growing up in a farming community.

Stephenson doesn't rush into anything, opting to savor each and every chance he has to build a character and describe a scenario. If you are looking for a thriller that opens up with heart-pounding action in the first 30 minutes you'd be better served elsewhere (Gilstrap, Child, or Ludlum, for example). If, however, you are looking for a wonderfully in-depth adventure filled with colorful characters and detailed descriptions, Reamde will do right by you.

Stephenson has a way of describing things that brings them to vivid life. His ability to turn a phrase is sheer beauty. The description of the voices in Richard Forthrast's head, for example, is gorgeous: "Richard's ex-girlfriends were long gone, but their voices followed him all the time, and spoke to him like muses or furies. It was like having seven super-egos arranged in a firing squad before a single, beleaguered id, making sure he didn't enjoy that last cigarette." It is the little touches of Stephenson's descriptions that give me such pleasure.

I found myself continually nodding in agreement or gaping in awe at his writing. I wish the video game he invents for this game were real, I'd play it. His description of his family, of the politics of being related and the challenges of coming together once a year for Thanksgiving are all immediately accessible and thoroughly enjoyable. And that's just the first chapter.

Stephenson is so adept at creating likable characters that you find yourself enjoying, if not rooting for, the bad guys as well. And Stephenson is not afraid to kill people off, just to keep the reader honest.

I thoroughly enjoyed Malcom Hillgartner's performance of the book, as well. This is my most favorite audio book reading to date (supplanting Wil Wheaton's reading of "Ready Player One"). Hillgartner slips from accent to accent with uncanny ease, traversing the globe without coming off as a pretender. And, maybe best of all, his women don't sound like high-pitched falsettos like so many of the action or thriller voice-over guys do. I liked his Zula, Qian Yuxia, and Olivia Halifax-Lin voices - and could tell them all apart by his subtle changes in accent.

Hillgartner's abilities made this book better. It is a wonderful listen, as long as you're not in a rush to get to *any* conclusions.

Typical Neal: Extremely detailed and capturing

If you could sum up Reamde in three words, what would they be?

Detailed
"Page turner"
viral

What did you like best about this story?

Like the detail of the online world he describes and how its is being used

Did you have an extreme reaction to this book? Did it make you laugh or cry?

Wanted to keep listening

Any additional comments?

Not specific for this book but in general:
Although it is a reality that there are a lot of extreme people in the world. Nowadays it looks like every 3rd action/fiction book has a component of (anti) terrorism in there. Here is was a part of the book but luckily it also contained other components and story lines.