Reamde
Neal Stephenson
Reamde
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.
3.8 out of 5 based on 5 reviews
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Omniscore:
|
| Classification |
Fiction |
| Genre |
General Fiction, Science Fiction & Fantasy |
| Format |
Hardcover |
| Pages |
912 |
| RRP |
£18.99 |
| Date of Publication |
September 2011 |
| ISBN |
978-1848874480 |
| Publisher |
Atlantic Books |
| |
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.
Read The Omnivore's roundup for ANATHEM.
Reviews
The Washington Post
Elizabeth Hand
"In less masterful hands, this pile-up of implausible coincidences, madcap romance, technological mayhem and nail-biting suspense might have been a train wreck, but Stephenson pulls it off. “Reamde” has one of the most satisfyingly over-the-top endings of anything I’ve read in years. For all its gun-toting mercenaries and venal hackers, there’s never any doubt who this novel’s bad guys really are."
15/09/2011
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The New York Times
Tom Bissell
"Make this clear: Reamde is always hugely entertaining, and Stephenson is always an amazing writer in the sense that he can go anywhere and describe anything. Yet he can be an oddly vulgar writer … There are times when you wonder if Reamde is the smartest dumb novel you have ever read or the dumbest smart novel."
23/09/2011
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The Sunday Times
Alison Flood
"Amid the confusion that follows, it doesn’t seem possible that Stephenson is going to pull off his story line, but somehow he does, and Reamde flows with almost manic storytelling verve. Fantastic stuff."
13/11/2011
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The Guardian
Laura Miller
"Many readers will do exactly that; despite its nearly 1,000-page length, this symphony of logistics is outrageously entertaining (especially if you've always wanted to know how to convert the back half of a motorhome into a roving prison cell). Reamde doesn't boast the mind-blowing quantum metaphysics of Stephenson's last novel, Anathem, or the historical breadth and penetration of his gargantuan trilogy, The Baroque Cycle, but it doesn't aspire to, either."
07/10/2011
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