Fall; or, Dodge in Hell

A Novel

By: Neal Stephenson

Narrated by: Malcolm Hillgartner

Length: 31 hrs and 48 mins

Publisher's summary

A New York Times Notable Book

The #1 New York Times bestselling author of Seveneves, Anathem, Reamde, and Cryptonomicon returns with a wildly inventive and entertaining science fiction thriller - Paradise Lost by way of Philip K. Dick - that unfolds in the near future, in parallel worlds.

In his youth, Richard “Dodge” Forthrast founded Corporation 9592, a gaming company that made him a multibillionaire. Now in his middle years, Dodge appreciates his comfortable, unencumbered life, managing his myriad business interests, and spending time with his beloved niece Zula and her young daughter, Sophia.

One beautiful autumn day, while he undergoes a routine medical procedure, something goes irrevocably wrong. Dodge is pronounced brain dead and put on life support, leaving his stunned family and close friends with difficult decisions. Long ago, when a much younger Dodge drew up his will, he directed that his body be given to a cryonics company now owned by enigmatic tech entrepreneur Elmo Shepherd. Legally bound to follow the directive despite their misgivings, Dodge’s family has his brain scanned and its data structures uploaded and stored in the cloud, until it can eventually be revived.

In the coming years, technology allows Dodge’s brain to be turned back on. It is an achievement that is nothing less than the disruption of death itself. An eternal afterlife - the Bitworld - is created, in which humans continue to exist as digital souls.

But this brave new immortal world is not the Utopia it might first seem...

Fall, or Dodge in Hell is pure, unadulterated fun: a grand drama of analog and digital, man and machine, angels and demons, gods and followers, the finite and the eternal. In this exhilarating epic, Neal Stephenson raises profound existential questions and touches on the revolutionary breakthroughs that are transforming our future. Combining the technological, philosophical, and spiritual in one grand myth, he delivers a mind-blowing speculative literary saga for the modern age.

©2019 Neal Stephenson (P)2019 Brilliance Publishing, Inc., all rights reserved

A listen for the sake of the listening

One does not approach the reading of a Neal Stephenson story with an an aim of getting to the end. The end comes all too quickly, even with the depth of Stephenson's stories. So too with Malcolm Hillgartner's performance. It was a joy just to listen, to be carried along by his mastery. Do not listen if you're in a hurry. This is a story and perfomance for which it pays to stay in, and savor, the moment.

Another Great Story

Neal Stephenson knocked another one out of the park. His ability to turn speculative IT science into an epic story of ascension to heaven, the retelling of the creation story, and epic battles sings to his talent as a writer.

I really look forward to his next great book.

Not his best work

I usually enjoy all of NS's books, but found I had to struggle to complete this one.

Well....

Well, that sure was a book that I just read.

While the individual parts were good, I don't really know how they fit together. The first few sections of the book set up a lot of interesting ideas, but none of them ever pay off. A lot of the book's prerelease promotion was about what happens fabricated news dominates a culture. I thought that part, and the aftermath part were interesting. But that those storylines were basically abandoned after getting the characters from REMDE into a place where Stephenson could tell this other story.

It really bummed me out,

One of Stephenson’s best

I had been worried about the last part of this book based on some of the other reviews. But I had nothing to worry about. The whole book is amazing. Throughout the book I continually mused if Stephenson’ sheer hubris to tackle what he did. I really was not confident he could pull it off. But. He did it. And with great style.

interesting but hard to follow

I read some of the other reviews before picking this one up. I didn't believe that the book would be as difficult to follow as the other readers suggested.
the first third of the book is interesting and easy to follow. what gets complicated is when the author decides to start adding new characters with obscure names at random and expecting the reader to follow what is going on.
II can honestly say that I wanted to like this book but I kept zoning out for the last 10 to 14 hours of it. I think the conclusion was supposed to be heartwarming, but I honestly was just glad that this book was over and I could move on to something else.

meh

the last 10 hours of the book seems like the author is trying to milk his story so he can make more money instead of just getting to the damn point. Stevenson is a very good offer, but he really should stick to what he's good at mainly science fiction and novel concepts. the end of this book is mostly a medieval magical fantasy quest to put a giant key into a giant hole. not very good. oh and, yes,Yes, very subtle, it's all a simulation.

Epic Story Into Another World

I have the same feeling reading this book as when I am in a museum looking at a genius painting that I don't fully appreciate. I know there is something amazing here which my mortal mind cannot fully grasp. I loved Reamde. Fall goes all in on an entirely different and interesting direction. I had to force myself to finish the last half after I lost track of the plot and it's layers of subtext. I felt like after coming so far through such an epic story I should just finish it.

That said, if an author with this much talent wants to try something so different that he loses some of us mortal readers, by all means, let him go for it. That is the type of experimentation from which true innovation is born.

Maybe I'll read it again and give it more attention than I typically do for casual relaxation.

The first 2/3rds is awesome.

The last 1/3 of this book is a boring slog. Someone should have edited this book down. The fantastic characters from Reamde just vanished into a boring an uninteresting fantasy world that wasn't satisfying to read. The first 2/3rds of this book were amazing, and if we had just seen the world from the perspective early on I think it could have been one of his best.

I love Neil, but this book had some dry stretches

had to struggle through some parts that got way too detailed and kind of boring with all the minutiae