Reamde by Neal Stephenson – Review

Reamde
by Neal Stephenson
Publisher: William Morrow
Publication Date: September 20, 2011
ISBN: 9780061977961
1056 Pages
Fiction: Thriller/Suspense

Publisher’s Description:

In 1972, Richard Forthrast, the black sheep of an Iowa farming clan, fled to the mountains of British Columbia to avoid the draft. A skilled hunting guide, he eventually amassed a fortune by smuggling marijuana across the border between Canada and Idaho. As the years passed, Richard went straight and returned to the States after the U.S. government granted amnesty to draft dodgers. He parlayed his wealth into an empire and developed a remote resort in which he lives. He also created T’Rain, a multibillion-dollar, massively multiplayer online role-playing game with millions of fans around the world.

But T’Rain’s success has also made it a target. Hackers have struck gold by unleashing REAMDE, a virus that encrypts all of a player’s electronic files and holds them for ransom. They have also unwittingly triggered a deadly war beyond the boundaries of the game’s virtual universe—and Richard is at ground zero.

Racing around the globe from the Pacific Northwest to China to the wilds of northern Idaho and points in between, Reamde is a swift-paced thriller that traverses worlds virtual and real. Filled with unexpected twists and turns in which unforgettable villains and unlikely heroes face off in a battle for survival, it is a brilliant refraction of the twenty-first century, from the global war on terror to social media, computer hackers to mobsters, entrepreneurs to religious fundamentalists.

My Opinion:

Reading Reamde was like watching an action movie – a really long action movie. It was full of explosions, shoot-outs, mafia conflicts, chases, kidnappings, terrorist bombings, and espionage. It was an intense read – about 850 of the 1050 pages contained fast-paced suspense. Even though there was a lot of violence, there was comparatively little gore, and only a few scenes had descriptions that I thought were overly graphic.

There is a lot of profanity in the book, but when you have a story peopled with the Russian Mafia, Islamic Terrorists, British spies and Chinese hackers; many of whom are trying to kill each other, it is not too big of a surprise that they swear a lot in the process.

If I had to make a direct comparison between this book and others, I would say that Reamde is like a cross between Ready Player One and The Godfather. The story involves an online game that practically everyone is playing (similar to Ready Player One), but in this story it is more peripheral. It does play a very important role though, both as the catalyst to the action, and as a force of bringing together these disparate forces who would otherwise have no reason to clash.

The inclusion of the Russian Mafia group in the story inevitably made me think of The Godfather, more for the similarities of the loyal and violent culture than anything else. Thankfully in Reamde the story is pure action and doesn’t veer off into icky sex scenes/descriptions as The Godfather story did. And I have to say that Reamde had an ending that was far less artistic than that of The Godfather. I found the ending of Reamde to be particularly cheesy and sentimental, but after so many hundreds of pages of action I didn’t mind that much.

Speaking of the length of the book, I was worried that it was going to hinder my appreciation of the story. However, after the first 150 pages the story took off like a speeding train and didn’t stop until the end. The initial background story and setup was dry in some parts, but completely necessary to the plot later in the book. For instance, I had no idea what gold farming was, and the explanation of how that worked was extremely helpful in understanding what was going on with the Chinese hackers.

It did take me a week and a half to read Reamde, but I was alternating between it and other books because 850+pages of constant action is a lot to take in all at once. I liked being able to give my brain a break by reading other things with more peaceful and serene content.

There were a lot of what I would consider to be unrealistic coincidences, close shaves, unusual alliances and near-miss encounters between the various characters. This is just one of the many reasons it reminded me of a movie – it was way more entertaining than it was realistic, but I was reading it to be entertained, so that was fine by me.

If you enjoy fast-paced books that read like action-flicks and don’t mind putting in a little effort to read a long story, then Reamde is the book for you.

Rating: 4/5

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