Neal Stephenson

When his own high-tech startup turns into a Fortune 500 computer gaming group, Richard Forthrast, the black sheep of an Iowa family who has amassed an illegal fortune, finds the line between fantasy and reality becoming blurred when a virtual war for dominance is triggered. 250,000 first printing.

Reamde

Edward Steel

Coleman McCormick

A total thrill from start to finish, with the classic Stephenson style. This one's a little different than some of his other work in that it's more of a straight-through "technothriller" and not speculative sci-fi. Its plot is a web of complex character interactions with plenty of globetrotting. Recommended.

Bouke van der Bijl

The writing is terrible but it's also highly enjoyable? I think Neal Stephenson's books are like the nerd dude version of the romantic books housewives buy at supermarkets.

Matthew Royal

Phew -- this one took me a while. I love Neal Stephenson's classics -- Diamond Age, Snow Crash -- but this book is nothing like those. It's more like a tech-literate adventure novel. Lots of flying around different countries, flying under the radar, and flying around in-game.

Landon Alder

Overall, I was blown away with how well researched this book was, and the plot was also very interesting. The main issue I have with it is that I feel it could have been a much better 450-500 page book than this 1000 page tome. There were multiple times were I contemplated not finishing it because it felt slow, but kept pushing on because I had already invested so much time. In the end, I’m happy I finished it, but it should have been much more condensed, with some of the sections shortened

“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.

A Novel

Becky A

I loved, loved, loved that this was a book full of awesome ladies (of color, no less), who were all extremely competent and smart and quick on their feet. (Also other character.) But, uh, romances are not Stephenson's strong point, like, at all. And actually I'm not sure his style lends itself that well to the semi-thriller tone of this book -- winding digressions of character backstory slow down vital moments (although there was a lot less of that as the tension ramped up in the last third). And man, there was a lot of *book* here. But it was, for the most part, very compelling and exciting.

Enjoyable, not as good as some of his other works, but still a fun jaunt 

Steve C

Janice Hopper

Stevenson kept lots of balls in the air very well and brought them all together for a Big Finish. Too bad things in real life don't dovetail quite so neatly. 

I listened to the audio version of this book and enjoyed it very much. I cared about the characters and worried over them a lot. Sure, there's a lot of detail here. But sometimes a big, complex plot is exactly what you need. 

Worked for me!

SHORTLISTED FOR THE 2012 BEST THRILLER OF THE YEAR- CWA IAN FLEMING STEEL DAGGER SHORTLISTED FOR THE 2012 WARWICK PRIZE FOR WRITING Across the globe, millions of computer screens flicker with the artfully coded world of T'Rain - an addictive internet role-playing game of fantasy and adventure. But backstreet hackers in China have just unleashed a contagious virus called Reamde, and as it rampages through the gaming world spreading from player to player - holding hard drives hostage in the process - the computer of one powerful and dangerous man is infected, causing the carefully mediated violence of the on-line world to spill over into reality. A fast-talking, internet-addicted mafia accountant is brutally silenced by his Russian employers, and Zula - a talented young T'Rain computer programmer - is abducted and bundled on to a private jet. As she is flown across the skies in the company of the terrified boyfriend she broke up with hours before, and a brilliant Hungarian hacker who may be her only hope, she finds herself sucked into a whirl of Chinese Secret Service agents and gun-toting American Survivalists; the Russian criminal underground and an al-Qaeda cell led by a charismatic Welshman; each a strand of a connected world that devastatingly converges in T'Rain. An inimitable and compelling thriller that careers from British Columbia to South-West China via Russia and the fantasy world of T'Rain, Reamde is an irresistible epic from the unique imagination of one of today's most individual writers.

Scott Vandehey

This was not what I expected from Stephenson, but it's quite good. In my experience, most of his books are science fiction exploring a particular topic: the internet, nanotechnology, cryptography, space travel, etc. This book, however, seems to be Stephenson wondering if he could write an airport thriller. It's a rollicking good story about how a video game developer comes to be entangled in the lives of a broad range of spies, criminals, and terrorists. If it was half the length and not as exquisitely crafted, it'd be a Tom Clancy or Michael Crichton book.

That said, despite the usual science fiction exploration of a topic, the usual Stephenson approach to character and story is evident. I was absorbed quickly, and couldn't wait to finish it. Highly recommended, but don't expect it to be like any of his other books.

Daryl Houston

I had high hopes for REAMDE but found it really disappointing and probably about twice as long as it ought to have been. I like long books but this one included so much minute detail about often catastrophic but generally uninteresting actions (gunfights movement through the environment), and I think a lot of it was really unnecessary. It felt like Stephenson overcomplicated the plot almost for the sake of complexity (or maybe for the sake of hitting some length milestone) and not because the story demanded it. Cut this down into a screenplay and I'd watch it in a heartbeat. Spending 10 days worth of reading on this lackluster prose and annoyingly detailed plot has left a bad taste in my mouth. I won't read more long Stephenson any time soon.

Tara King

As much as I want every Neal Stephenson book to be the best thing since the last Neal Stephenson book, I have to admit this one didn't live up. Alas. It was alright--fun and ridiculous as always, but just not as good. I guess the hot streak couldn't go on forever.

Rob Brogan

I listened to the Audible version of this book and it was fan-tas-tic! The narrator had a great voice and was quite flexible given the range of characters. In terms of the book itself:

Stephenson is Stephenson. I've now read 4 books by him and have loved them all. I describe his plots like huge boulders: they often start out very slow and it's hard to see all the way around as he introduces many characters and settings, but it steadily picks up the pace and has such momentum!

At one point in the middle of the book, it felt like he could have concluded it right there with the primary "conflict" of the story about to be resolved, and then he slingshots the story from there to an even more exciting arc of the story. 

If you haven't read this author before, I would recommend Anathem or Seveneves first. If you've read Cryptonomicon, I'd say this one is similar.

Juozas Salna

this is a fucking long book. it could be half its size without loosing anything.

Les Reynolds

I really enjoyed the way he tied together online gaming and real life. A very long book, but engaging throughout. A sweeping epic from Vancouver to Taiwan.

Aidan Dysart

Lovro Oreskovic

John Manoogian III

Jeff Borton

Pedro Figueiredo

From the extraordinary Neal Stephenson comes an epic adventure that spans entire worlds, both real and virtual. The black sheep of an Iowa farming clan, former draft dodger and successful marijuana smuggler Richard Forthrast amassed a small fortune over the years—and then increased it a thousandfold when he created T'Rain. A massive, multibillion-dollar, multiplayer online role-playing game, T'Rain now has millions of obsessed fans from the U.S. to China. But a small group of ingenious Asian hackers has just unleashed Reamde—a virus that encrypts all of a player's electronic files and holds them for ransom—which has unwittingly triggered a war that's creating chaos not only in the virtual universe but in the real one as well. Its repercussions will be felt all around the globe—setting in motion a devastating series of events involving Russian mobsters, computer geeks, secret agents, and Islamic terrorists—with Forthrast standing at ground zero and his loved ones caught in the crossfire.

Reamde

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