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)

Suspense and Action

The Forthrasts are a diverse family hubbed in the heartland of America in the state of Iowa. They created war heroes, a draft dodger, an uber conservative recluse who moved to Idaho and a computer-geologist adoptee from the Horn of Africa. Their reunions are not the scene of friendly softball games so much as the group firing of the family armory of rifles, pistols, shotguns...redneck paradise.
The skills from this hobby will come in handy as they become embroiled in dealings with: Russian Organized criminals, Chinese Hackers using the Reamde virus to get rich in the Multi-person online game called T’rain, and Islamic extremists who want nothing better than a martyrdom opportunity on US soil.
As seems to be the genre for this author this is not so much a science fiction as it is a fiction with some science. The uses of the web, hackers, complex code used to make global impact are just some of the realms that are common to Stephenson’s works yet there is very little in this that is a ...stretch. Where this book really sings is in the paths of action as Zula, Kongor(?), Solokov, Olivia and an impressive supporting cast engage the Russians then the extremists in rapidly changing environments. I was really impressed.
I’m giving the audio version of this work five out of five. That’s because I liked the storyline, liked the delivery, saw no hand waving on technical things and the whole product kept my interest. Time will tell if it is a masterpiece but I think it is well worth listening to. Enjoy.

Great book.

Completely worth every minute of listening time. A great adventure with lots going on simultaneously in a good way.

Book club selection

Not my usual type of story but the book club picked it so I got it on Audible. Performance is very good and I will look for more by this reader. Parts of the story seemed very slow but provided pertinent backstory and information so I recommend persevering through them. All the separate story lines start to converge towards the end and the action gets tense before a satisfying ending. I enjoyed this story and highly recommend it.

Loses its way

Standard caveats about Stephenson -- he writes a lot like people think, which is to say, he kinda wanders all over the place to tell a story. I think he handles shifting timelines, perspectives, topics, and intermingles them seamlessly and satisfyingly. If you like his prose, you'll probably like this book. And, as Stephenson books go, this one's pretty accessible.

All that said, it starts so strongly -- the computer, societal and personal elements make it seem like you're reading a masterpiece. Alas, it devolves into a sort of banal adventure story, dropping many threads to pursue more conventional aims.

To be clear, if it were written by someone else, and was merely the adventure story alone, it'd be a good book and worth the time to read. Add in Stephenson's narrative skill and his ability to create unexpectedly real characters and it's a pretty darned good book by most standards.

It's just that . . . the 2nd half, give or take, doesn't live up to the first half. If you can live with that, it's enjoyable, but as Stephenson books go, it's a sundae with the best hot fudge ever on the top, and basic vanilla on the bottom.

love the tales Neal Stephenson brilliantly weaves.

it was great how more and more characters entered & evolved getting the reader to feel a familiarity with them..as,they wove together intricately and resolved in the end.

relly GuD

awesome, be my into this Author, Neil Stephenson BAD ASS ASS kicking characters, good cause NO whiners, I like it cause the characters do logical stuff, instead of whining and acting illogical, mega super AWESOME!!!!!

A little different than N.S.'s usual novels

Unlike most of his other novels, he doesn't create a world in this one but operates on the edges of plausibility of this one. As always it was a great but long story. I could have done without the cartoonish accents. Not at the level of Anathem but still a fun listen.

fast paced thriller

I came across a review of a Stephenson SciFi novel which was gushing. I'd never heard of him so looked at what he has published and realised its a huge list. After looking through the reviews I thought Reamde would be a good place to start and luckily, I was right.

A thoroughly entertaining action thriller with entertaining dialogue, intriguing plot, excellent writing and a great narrator. Its long for a novel - 35 hours - but I never felt like jumping ahead.

The reviewer that criticised the narrators accents I think is being unfair. So many diverse characters I think impossible to get them all right.

Reamde is great fun!

I'm a long time Neal Stephenson fan but I was disappointed by Anathem, his last book. This book, however, is great--a wild ride across several continents with a diverse group of characters doing a up-to-date version of the classic good versus evil battle. Stephenson shows us uses and abuses of technology and then takes us to a place where only physical strength and skill matter. The narrator does a great job handling a cast with lots of nationalities. Highly recommended.

Wow!

Slow start introducing characters turned into a non stop thriller! Not the kind of book one can stop listening to until the end once the action started.