Just finished Neal Stephenson's Reamde. (It's slated to come out 9/20.) Like, I just finished it about 3 minutes ago and I just read 981 pages in four days so I'm trying to clear my head.
I will try to summarize the plot, because the back of the book doesn't really do much besides say, "High stakes technological thriller!!" which is SORT OF true. It's about Richard Forthrast, who runs an online computer game that competes with World of Warcraft. It's about some Chinese hacker kids who invent a virus to steal money from people in the game. (I wish it had been more about them, actually.) It's about Richard's niece, Zula, whose boyfriend makes a terrible deal with some mobsters. And it's about a bunch of international terrorists whose secret hideout in China just happens to be in the same run-down building as the hackers. It's super typical Stephenson; there's computer stuff, there's shooting, there's traveling the world, there's about 500 pages of climax where I had to keep putting the book down or I would forget to breathe. (I had to flip to the last page to make sure my favorite character survived, and she did.) But then it's NOT typical Stephenson, at the same time; there are no 25 page digressions on obscure mathematical concepts or long flashbacks to how Newton invented the calculus. And weirdly, I found myself really missing those. This is like a Bourne movie or a Bond movie; it's all action and adventure and shooting. It's almost like he decided to redo Snow Crash for the 2010s but it's got even less "here is how technology works" than Snow Crash. As an interesting note: this is the first Stephenson I can think of that has lots of important female narrators. Eliza was important in the Baroque Cycle but not as important as Jack. America Shaftoe was more of an idea than a character in Cryptonomicon. Same with Y.T. in Snow Crash. Reamde features three different female protagonists, all of whom have tremendous agency, smarts, and personality. AND not a single one of whom is white. Stephenson still can't write a convincing romantic relationship but this was a huge improvement, women-wise.This is going to sound weird, but instead of 981 pages of excellent action-adventure I wish it had been 1,000 pages and included more weird technological digressions. I read Stephenson and I feel smarter afterwards, usually. Anathem is magical just because it spends so much time being about higher math concepts. I love the dense and weird history in Cryptonomicon and The Baroque Cycle. This is JUST an action-adventure story. Anyway, if you enjoy Stephenson this is great. And if you've never read his stuff this is probably his most approachable book in a long time -- the page count sounds intimidating but it reads really, really quickly and I found myself staying up until 1 or 2 to get to the next section.
Grade: A
originally posted 2011
I don't know where to begin. This is a fascinating, weird, amazing book that throws together a billion different ideas from Plato's ideal forms to Schrodinger's Cat and Occam's Razor and the way light particles can be everywhere at once until they are observed. It takes place on a distant planet where society has split into seculars and those who live in cloisters and study math and science. It's full of made up words but they're all so close to understandable that it's not hard to follow, although if you haven't studied physics or philosophy I imagine it's confusing. Stephenson builds worlds like no one's business, and the first half the book is mostly just that. It was so interesting and well-done that I would happily have read history books just about the Third Sack and the Harbingers and the Terrible Events. The second half of the book is about what happens when thing start to happen in the secular world. There's some action adventure and some hard scifi at the end. Now and then Stephenson gets so caught up describing things and how they work that I skimmed but in general it was so damn fascinating that I blasted through 800 pages in about four days. (It helps that I've been too sick to leave the house since Friday.) I think I like the Baroque Cycle better, but it's been so long I might have to re-read that and check to be sure.
Grade: A
Originally posted 2011
The end of this book was a journey, not a destination. Not every trilogy is made up of 3 books with approximately 900 pages each, and not every trilogy spans a hundred years and the entire globe, but this one did, and did so in a way that as I got to the end I wanted to go back to the beginning and check out how it had all started. Probably because I finally understood the beginning of the first book. (Next time I have a free year I will re-read them; otherwise I just don't have the time.)I won't attempt to explain almost 3,000 pages of plot (more, if you count the prequel/sequel Cryptonomicon). It takes place during the 1700s in England (partly), where natural philosopher Daniel Waterhouse has come back to England to try and mend his long rift with Isaac Newton, who is the head of the English Mint. That's about half the plot. The other half has to do with a vagabond named Jack, who travels the world by accident, and the woman he loves, Eliza, who starts out as a kidnapped harem girl and ends up a French duchess. Or... something. It's complicated. On the one hand, that's a good thing; much like Veronica Mars or the Simpsons, there are all kinds of background characters who show up and are fondly greeted by the reader (my own favorites are Jimmy and Danny, who are never dead, although you always sort of think they will be this time). On the other hand, people show up after years of absence, and all three of our protagonists have separate plots (mostly), so I often had no idea who had just wandered back into the story.The historical accuracy is astounding, except for the parts Stephenson made up, which blend seamlessly with the real parts. He is either the smartest man alive or very, very scary. I suspect Stephenson's style is polarizing to readers. 3/4 of the way through the last book I finally realized what was so odd about most of the story; it was being told without anything ever happening. He'd set up a scene, and then cut to a character telling another character about how the denoument had played out. The weirdest part is that it's not boring or irritating; I was so hypnotized by Stephenson that it never occured to me that it was a strange way to tell a story. It helps that he is often laugh-out-loud funny, although in a backhanded British sort of way. On the other hand, a lot of the story is devoted to how Eliza helped invent the stock market, which is baffling, or to Newton and Leibniz fighting over who invented the calculus, which ought to be baffling but still manages to be compelling.It's a you-get-it-or-you-don't thing, is what I'm saying.Grade: A if you like history and beautiful prose, D if you have a short attention span
originally posted in 2006
