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)

A master at work (two masters, actually!)

I've never listened to a book narrated by Malcolm Hillgartner, nor have I read a Neal Stephenson novel. That was MY mistake. This novel was a fantastic read, a page-turner that never really lagged despite its 1000-plus pages. And the audio book was just as fantastic, a true feat considering all of the various accents and long scenes of continuous action. I was never lost listening to this book -- instead, I got lost inside it. It actually made me wish my commute to work was longer, so I could keep listening. Highly recommended. I jumped between the audiobook and the ebook version, and always heard Mr. Hillgartner's voice in my head when I was reading the ebook.

A good read but a not what you think it is...

While it was a good book the outline was fairly deceptive. What I expected to be a book about Richard Forthrast and this virtual world he had created and a virus that was affecting the clients, that might delve into huge technological ideas, instead turned out to be the set-up for a very different story.

It was instead about someone else and a very spy/crime feeling drama instead of anything overly technical. The technical parts that did get discussed were so overly described that you would have to have not heard of the internet, and wanted to know specific intricate details that no one could be bothered with.

I say spy/crime feeling because I don't want to give away what actually occurs.

Other than that, all I can really warn you is the author spreads the story in around 6 different directions, will talk one part up until you're really interested and then swaps out to the dullest thread that hasn't received any attention. He then picks some small point about that thread, maybe what the person is wearing, and then discusses that ad nauseum until you're ready to fall asleep before picking up the drama around that thread again, building it to a critical point and then swapping away again.

The story was good, was entertaining, but didn't go where I'd hope it was going from the outline, and was packed with coincidences and convenient parts all over that drove me mad.

And I still have no idea how mountain cats climb ladders.

Good start

Then all a bit "gunsGunsGUNS." :-/ it's a shame as the action is the worst part of this book.

Long, enjoyable read. "Snow Crash" all grown up.

"Reamde" is more than 34 hours long and I still regretted reaching the end.

Malcolm Hillgartner delivers a masterful performance that kept me engaged throughout.

The opening chapter of REAMDE reads like something from John Irving or Richard Russo. It establishes the Richard Forthrast, online war game billionaire and former smuggler, in the context of his Iowa farming clan family which covers the American spectrum from "American Taliban" Freemen, living off the grid, through Vietnam vets working the farms to Zula, Richard's adopted Eritrean niece.

The home team here is American in all its flavours, but the game is played, both online and in real life, on a global stage, stretching through Canada, China, and the Philippines, with characters from the Russian, the UK (a half-chinese British spy, a Scottish fraudster and a black Welsh Jihadist), Hungary, and China.

The plot is complex but clear but its twists and turns are driven as much by the characters as it is by the underlying situation.

The themes are rich and rewarding: the links between the cyberworld and real life, the nature of money and power, the clash of cultures between the West and the rest, the power of friendship, the limitations of money and the value of honour in uncertain times.

Richard Forthrast is in his 50's. He's lived long enough to make parts of the cyberpunk fantasy imagined in Stephenson's "Snow Crash" (published in 1992, two years before the World Wide Web was born) into a reality and is now living with the consequences. The book is named after a computer virus that preys on people in the real world and makes them pay up in Cyberspace (shades of BItcoin here), starting a real world hunt for the hackers that spirals out into ever increasing mayhem.

The actions scenes are crisp and focused. The sense of place is strong. The people are believeable.

In the end I wondered if the on line game was really so important to it all. Then I slapped my forehead, gave the obligatory Simpson's "Duh!" and realised that that was perhaps Stephenson's main message: of all the kinds of reality that are out there, the one that matters most is the one where you do anything you have to to make those you love safe.

Ummm, okay then.

The ending felt pretty flat for a book of this length and depth. Please get Neal Stephenson an editor. He’s an amazing writer but somebody’s got a scale it back for this to be a story I would listen to again. I liked the characters and the plot lines but some of the detail was completely unnecessary. I do not understand the whole backstory about the bear. That never came to any real point. Some of the character development was way too intense. For example Olivia‘s character development was at least 30 minutes yet it really never developed into anything. She was just a side character throughout the entire story. And one chapter was eight hours long! That’s the length of many books on audible. I think the author is just way too self-indulgent. The narrator was good. He neither elevated the story nor took away from it which in my book is a positive. That way the author’s talents really come through. He was a “neutral“ narrator.

Great performance of a great story

The story is complex, which is what I often find enjoyable in a book. Keeping track of everyone and everything that is happening can be a challenge, so I recommend listening for the most part while your attention is solely on the book. The performance was great, voices for different characters helping to really bring their personalities to bear. I recommend for those that enjoy complex, and yet single volume, stories of adventure and action.

Another knockout from Neal Stephenson

I read Stephenson's earlier 1000page Cryptonomicon a number of years ago, and I enjoyed every single page.
Reamde is just as strong if not better.
The narrator is a true voice actor: he nails the accents for different characters from around the world. I'm only halfway through Reamde but have enjoyed nearly every minute.

Wow!

Would you recommend this audiobook to a friend? If so, why?

I cannot recommend this enough. I started it over the second I was done w/ the 1st run-through. An epic story, amazing characters, just a solid piece of entertainment. Some reviews say this is "lighter" than some of his other works, but that is only sort of true. I would say it is very accesable to a wider audience, but a smarter than average audience, to be sure.

I have fireds who are listening to Reamde as well & we talk about how they are dreading that it will be ending... I suggested the entire re-do or re-pllay. They had never even considered that w/ prior books, but are fully expecting to w/ this one.

What did you like best about this story?

Story, all over the map doesn't do the book justice. But if you've read N.S. before, you know what to expect.

Have you listened to any of Malcolm Hillgartner’s other performances before? How does this one compare?

No, but I was very happy w/ the narrator.

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

Laughed out loud, looked up locations on Google Earth & some other outside searches. Typical w/ N.S. reads.

Any additional comments?

Get this book, go on a road trip.

great story

great story and narration. you'll enjoy all the characters. hope they make it into a movie.

Good stuff!

I loved Cryptonomicon, so I decided to give this one a try. It didn't let me down. The story has fun settings and characters, and it got weird. Not boring. Check it out!