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)

another Stephenson winner

I was eagerly awaiting this story & zipped right through it as soon as it arrived. LOVED it- my favorite since Cryptonomicon.

The story is classic Stephenson, and the characters are just crazy. There are a bunch of folks you end up following around and of course their backstories are all just bonkers but awesome. I was in awe how he brought everyone together at the end for the big showdown. Yes, it's a 100 page gun battle. A totally crazy, somewhat hilarious, pure Stephenson ending. Go listen! I was so sad to have this end, eagerly awaiting his next story.

Highly Recommended

Neal Stephenson does a fantastic job of sharing new and different perspectives. This novel has introduced me to the complexed world of multi-player gaming, the devotion and mindset of terrorist cell members, the mental patterns of the uber successful as well as the more common perspective of tactical military professionals.

Stephenson's witty and dry humor approaches without warning.

The story extends in the moments where you feel that a resolution is close at hand, giving us more bang for our buck.

I'm very impressed with the attention paid to important but commonly ignored facts of life such as hunger, ammunition, bodily functions etc.

A joy to hear.

Too much

The story was quite interesting, a novel combination of subjects, with some funny and interesting insights. Story was well read too. However, I think the book would have been much better at half the length, there is too much irrelevant detail, it detracts from the pace of the story. When the story reaches a certain level of tension, you don't want to hear about things that don't matter.

Fun story

It's not nearly as memorable or as deep as other Stephenson books, but it's entertaining. The characters are fairly flat, but the story moves quick and the settings are interesting. It's worth a read.

Out of order

I'm only about a third of the way through, but there are several parts out of their proper order so far, making certain things terribly confusing. I'm fairly certain this is a problem with the recording rather than the actual writing.

Great characters make up for story problems

I enjoyed REAMDE and I found it entertaining for the most part. The narrator gives a perfect performance. The characters are especially captivating. This book is worth purchasing for the characters alone!

I particularly enjoyed the first half of the book. And, since it is a very long book, this amounted to a good many hours of solid enjoyment. The second half of the book, though more thrilling and faster paced, annoyed me for 2 reasons: #1) the story became rather unrealistic, and not in the sci-fi way for which Neal Stephensen is famous. It was just ridiculously unbelievable. I don't want to give any plot spoilers so I won't go into detail about what, specifically, was unconvincing and implausible about the plot. Also, there were several sub-plots that were never developed. Why introduce an interesting story element, hook the reader on it, but then fail to develop it any further or to offer the reader any resolution? Very frustrating! The only reason I kept listening was because Stephensen's characters were so real and captivating that I could not abandon them.

Annoying thing #2: Throughout the entire book, but especially in the second half, Stephensen writes at great length about guns. He describes the appearance, feel, sound and action of many, many types of guns (including assault rifles and machine guns) in minute detail. I find guns boring, ugly, and distasteful, so a good deal of this book was unpleasant for me. Instead of focusing on writing in such great detail about guns, Stephensen should have focused more on plot plausibility and on fully developing his story lines.

Fun at first dragged on a bit much towards the end

Would you listen to Reamde again? Why?

No, I never listen to books more than once.

Who was your favorite character and why?

Chongor, he was the most related character.

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

No, was my first I enjoyed it.

Was there a moment in the book that particularly moved you?

Not really, it was action all the way through.

Any additional comments?

Wasn't really into the whole Jihadest plot.

Interesting if highly confusing

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

Interesting Story Arc

What does Malcolm Hillgartner bring to the story that you wouldn’t experience if you just read the book?

He does an exceptional job at believable voices. From Male to Female and various ethnicities. Bang up job.

Any additional comments?

I would've like to hear more about the world of T'Rain, personally. The overall premise is confusing. The main Heroine is put in all sorts of strange predicaments that make absolutely no sense. The main antagonist of the book takes her for seemingly no reason, and keeps her alive for seemingly no reason. The only explanation is that she has some kind of natural ability to make people want to help her, but this is a book ground solely in reality, so that explanation is weak at best. That hampered my enjoyment of the book. Everytime they would switch from the T'Rain world to the real world, I'd constantly be thinking "This makes no sense".

Classic Stephenson Style.

Having grown up in the Pacific Northwest this story was fun to follow. I love Stephenson's writing style, and while this may not fall into the "sci-fi" category it is still awesome, and there is plenty of geekiness to fill in the gaps. It is a very culturally relevant book and goes to the extreme to include pop culture references such as; hipsters, massive multiplayer online gaming, Facebook, Skype, terrorism, extremist fundamentalist Christianity, etc. At first I was worried about the book not being relevant in a few years, but I do believe it will be a book for historians to look back at when researching our time.
If you enjoy Stephenson's writing style, give it a try. At first I didn't care for the narrator but after their were many characters introduced, I was quite impressed, as I don't think I know anyone that could read that much of a book and come up with such different voices, the subtle difference between the Hungarian and the Russians. I loved Jones' voice and the Godlike voices while playing the game. The sassy girls voices were amusing, and properly annoying at the right times. At the end of the book I was very happy with the narration.

Best since Cryptonomicon, and more approachable

Still full of Stephenson's wry style, and some shorter asides describing how geeks think (OK, no Cap'n Crunch scene, get over it). Story is an unlikely globetrotting adventure loosely centered around a game world (think Second Life crossed with World of Warcraft). Geek protagonists get involved with Russian Mafia, Chinese Hackers, Muslim Terrorists, and a variety of other characters and save the world. What could be simpler?

Reader is quite good.

Highly recommended.