Neal Stephenson has long been one of my  favorite authors, and Reamde is another awesome book by him.  I think I’ve written on him before, here and here, but Reamde has been on mind because the sequel came out.  But we do not have it so I cannot write on it.  Yet.  Anyways I reread this book in preparation for the sequel and loved it all over again.  This book is yet another hard one to explain from Stephenson because to quote him “genres are for other people.” He was quick to clarify he meant the people selling his books and not as some comment on his sense of self.  What he means by that and what I mean by quoting him is that its kind of hard to pin him down, because he doesn’t stick to one place and does whatever he wants.  And it works really well.

So Reamde is the story of; Dodge (Richard Forthrast) a billionaire game founder with a bit of a black sheep past, his niece Zula who works for said company, Sokolov who works as a fixer for the Russian Mob, and Marlin who is a hacker and infects Dodge’s game with some malware.  Rereading those non comprehensive character introductions I once again run into the problem of being unable to do justice to Stephenson’s books.  Anyways the book takes a couple hard turns that I do not want to ruin, hence not even mentioning that characters involved, and is generally amazing.  Some even go as far as to call it a techno thriller.

However you slice it this is an excellent book.  From some interesting bits on video game creating, coding, and other technological driven points to some hardcore gun scenes you can find something to love in this book.  I recommend it to anyone who has enjoyed either of the two books I recommended at the beginning or who has made the long march through his The Baroque Cycle which I will finish.  Someday.  Maybe.