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Nov 20, 2011

Ryan rated it:

It's important for writers to recognize their strengths. With Reamde, it's clear that Neal Stephenson has embraced his: the infodump.

Reamde operates in two gears: infodump and action, which makes for a potent combination. This fusion works because Stephenson has written a thriller. At first, I was surprised, but then I realized that "The Baroque Cycle" was also a thriller, just one set in an unusual period for the genre. Regardless, the infodump and the plot are what the th More...

15 comments like (46 people liked it)

Dec 11, 2011

Jenne rated it:

Me: la la la I'm sure this will be edifying and weird.

Book: Yes this will be a book about math and philosophy and like, historical dudes J/K actually I am like 14 Die Hards all squished together!

Me: SHut up, I have to stop reading this and actually make a living!

Book: no YOU shut up!!

Me: Seriously, they say people need to sleep occasionally.

Book: Bitch, I am NOT DONE. I will TELL YOU when you can sleep.

0 comments like (51 people liked it)

Jan 17, 2012

Dan is currently reading it

The fact that this book came out 2 days before I take a 12 hour flight to china is proof that god loves me and wants me to be happy.

0 comments like (21 people liked it)

Dec 05, 2011

Jenny rated it:

I know, I know. When Stephenson writes really smart, I get annoyed while I force myself to finish the book (Quicksilver). When he writes a (sometimes) action-packed crime novel full of terrorists and international espionage and virtual worlds (Reamde), I get stuck near page 100 or 200 and allow myself to be talked into pushing onward, and start regretting it around page 700, and feel annoyed when I finally finish.

Here's the thing. I like a fun crime novel. I read all the Stieg More...

19 comments like (23 people liked it)

Sep 03, 2011

Mark rated it:

[Note: longer review now in place.]

So: your starter for 10. Is it Reamde? Remade? Reamed? Read Me?

Just working out the title can be a complication in itself. But then that’s what you should expect with Neal Stephenson’s books. It’s a well known adage in the genre that if you read Neal Stephenson’s books, you’re there for a long journey.

And so it goes with this one: over 1000 pages of small text, over 2 inches/6cm thick. (I measured it!)

For what More...

5 comments like (25 people liked it)

Dec 09, 2011

Graham rated it:

I love Neil Stephenson (most of the time), and I loved this book - most of the time. When He's good he's brilliant, but when he's bad he's mind numbingly dull. This is probably his most commercial/mainstream book yet - It screams please make me into to a Hollywood action movie, or big budget miniseries. For my taste it screams this too loudly.

The best parts of the novel are about the Chinese hacking and Gold Farming scene, the REAMDE virus- all classic slick Stephenson. Once we are b More...

3 comments like (12 people liked it)

Nov 27, 2011

Kemper rated it:

Damn, but this book exhausted me. It wasn’t just having to hold up it’s 127 lbs. of bulk while trying to read that wore me out either.

Stephenson hasn’t made it easy on his fans since Cryptonomicon in 1999 with it and every book since being about 27,000 pages long while spanning the late 1600s in Europe to World War II to another world complete with it’s own languages and customs, and each book was also crammed with detailed information about topics like finance and code breaking. Wh More...

6 comments like (30 people liked it)

Feb 16, 2012

Melissa rated it:

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here

4 comments like (2 people liked it)

Nov 16, 2011

Moira rated it:

OK, look. I routinely go into small bookshops and badger clerks to recommend a giant, sprawling, poly-thematic novel, ideally one that takes place in multiple far-flung locales and features kick-ass women. Which is to say, I have read all of Neal Stephenson's novels, most of them two and three times over. I am a big fan, and just like any partisan, I am somewhat unsuited to anything aside from gushing or howling.

But honestly, I can't do either. REAMDE a good, long, and involving rea More...

7 comments like (8 people liked it)

Jan 16, 2012

Geoffrey rated it:

Let's start with the good stuff: Reamde is a really well-plotted book. The threads all cross and re-cross in entertaining (and only occasionally improbable) ways, and the ending is unusually tight (albiet a little action-movie) for a Neal Stephenson.

So Reamde should be a really good read.

But a person can only take so much really creepy "women secretly like to be tied up" subtext before it starts to distract from the text, mainly with a desire to put the text More...

1 comment like (3 people liked it)

Oct 16, 2011

Lori rated it:

O happy day, just started, don't want to do anything else except read it.

10/1 This isn't even sf, it's a return to Cryptonomicon and even the Baroque series in that it is historical fiction except it's taking place in the here and now. There's a long wind-up til the action comes, but that's just fine because the characters are intelligent and courageous, and yet like you and me in different circumstances. The set-up pays off and then the action begins, that I'd call political and g More...

3 comments like (9 people liked it)

Dec 05, 2011

Jeremy added it

Its been 4 VERY long novels since Neal Stephenson wrote anything set in our present age. And while the Baroque Cycle and Anatham are both wonderful works of speculative fiction, they forced Stephenson to minimize his dazzling abilities as both an astute observer and commentor on the present age, which is what his earliest novels are really so good at. Reamde is among the tightest, most well rounded books that Stephenson has ever written, in large part because this is a book about the times. I ca More...

1 comment like (1 person liked it)

Jan 31, 2012

Hank rated it:

Very clever and engaging premise, but very broad and sloppy execution. I'm a huge Stephenson fan, he's on my short list of best writers on the planet, so Reamde was huge disappointment to me.

The premise (and I don't think this is a spoiler) is the intrusion of a MMORPG (a massively multiplayer online role-playing game) on real life in unexpected (and potentially disastrous) ways -- not in a Tron-like player-gets-absorbed-into-the-game sense, but in a way that strikes me as so realist More...

4 comments like (3 people liked it)

Oct 22, 2011

Kim rated it:

I was so excited about this book, but it slowly slipped from a 5 at the beginning to a 3 by the end. This book was over the top...it read like Ian Fleming was alive and forced to write an action movie with Tom Clancy. A 6 hour long action movie. That over the top. Just as with any over-the-top action movie, you have to suspend disbelief to enjoy it, and it was certainly fun. Unfortunately, there was just too much schmaltz for the action alone to carry it. To be fair, I also had high expec More...

0 comments like (9 people liked it)

Oct 20, 2011

Arthur rated it:

There is only one author for me:

"What have you been doing, Uncle Richard?" ... "Waiting for cancer" would have been too honest an answer. "Fighting a bitter rear-guard action against clinical depression" would have given the impression that he was depressed today, which he wasn't. "Worrying about palette drift," Richard said.

0 comments like (2 people liked it)

Feb 13, 2012

Joseph rated it:

I see why this, Neal Stephenson's latest effort, is polarizing his fans and critics alike. It is both typical and atypical of his previous works, from Snow Crash to Quicksilver to Anathem, in that it tackles technology and big concepts and adds a dash (or more) of gunplay and exotic locales.

However, having read his other works, and appreciated them for what they are, I think Reamde is my favorite of Stephenson's efforts since Cryptonomicon. It's certainly easier to relate to, and more More...

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Feb 11, 2012

Artur rated it:

O que fazer a Neal Stephenson? Foi o autor de um dos romances de FC mais influentes de sempre, o divertido e intrigante Snow Crash. Legou-nos o technothriller Cryptonomicon, onde o avolumar de páginas já deixava suspeitar o que se ia passar a seguir: o infindo ciclo barroco. E agora larga-nos de chofre este pesadíssimo Reamde. Como é habitual neste escritor, este livro mistura um conjunto assombroso de ideias intrigantes, actuais e pertinentes que colidem nas suas páginas. Só Stephenson, daquele More...

0 comments like

Feb 08, 2012

Guy rated it:

About two hundred pages in (the book is over 1000 pages long) my wife asked me what it was about. I said, I wasn't sure yet. Trouble is, I'm not sure that Stephenson knew either. Of course, one of the joys of a book by Neal is that it is about many different things, all researched in minutious detail, and presented with intriguing insights and often quirky humour. But this one feels a little like it got away from him, and in the process what seemed to be his primary subject -- the various wa More...

0 comments like

Feb 07, 2012

Kenny rated it:

I was really looking forward to reading this... but then I started... an interesting premise gone horribly wrong. Nearly every character makes the wrong decisions with dire consequences. And it keeps getting deeper and deeper into the incredulous as the book moves on... I HAVE to paraphrase a couple of lines from movies, even if I am not a big movie fan, because they fit so well... as I was about halfway through the book, a line from the board room scene in 'Margin Call' came to me... when John More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Feb 03, 2012

Sean rated it:

In Reamde, Stephenson has written a really very amazing book. Unfortunately I'm not certain he finished that book, and he took it and mixed it with one other book of far, far lower quality.

There were times, during the reading of this book, that I stayed up far past my bedtime just to find out What Happened Next. But about 90% of the way through the book, I just... stopped really giving a shit, as things seemed to drag on, and on, and on.

The most interesting thing about the More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Jan 25, 2012

Justin rated it:

Let's face it: Neal straight up jumped the shark with The Diamond Age. Immediately after people began hailing him as a visionary (and rightfully so) for a pretty impressive run with DA and Snow Crash, Neal started developing some bad, self-indulgent habits with Cryptonomicon, and it doesn't seem like anybody around him has enough pull or inclination to speak truth to power. Still, the argument could be made that Stephenson's digressions, while superfluous, were still quite entertaining and worth More...

2 comments like (1 person liked it)

Jan 22, 2012

Gaston rated it:

I fucking love Neal Stephenson. Here is a link to a review of this book: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/25/books/...

Here is an excerpt from the review:

"Just about any novel’s plot can be made to sound ridiculous in summary, but the plot of “Reamde” is ridiculous no matter how sympathetically one summarizes. Here goes: Richard Forthrast, an erstwhile drug smuggler who funneled his earnings into founding a Fortune 500 video game company, takes under his wing a young woman More...

0 comments like

Jan 22, 2012

Eugene rated it:

Reamde is one of those 'cascade effect' novels. You know, the kind where explaining its plot to someone takes approximately as long as it would take to read the novel to them out loud. Writing this sort of thing is quite a stream-of-consciousness feat in itself. That kind of novel tends to pop up rarely but in very random genres, often unannounced, driven more by caffeine pills than introspection or deep rumination. So as far as the plot goes: it's exciting, fun to try keeping straight, and p More...

0 comments like

Jan 21, 2012

John rated it:

If Goodreads offered us a half point system, this book would get a three and a half star rating from me. I loved the story and the action parts of the book, so for those aspects the book gets a solid four stars. But Stephenson has a nagging habit of occasionally getting bogged down with gratuitous, descriptive rhetoric and for those parts of the book it gets barely a three star accordance. But as I said, I really enjoyed the story itself, primarily because it is contemporary.

The ba More...

0 comments like

Jan 18, 2012

Laura rated it:

Who knew that a 1,000-page doorstop could be a gripping, fast-paced thrill ride? Certainly not me. This book is hard to put down, which is unfortunate because it's so heavy.

Full disclosure: this is only the second Neal Stephenson book I've enjoyed (the first being Snow Crash) -- I picked up Quicksilver and couldn't get into it, but now I'm thinking it's time for another shot.

This is, amazingly, a story of MMORPGs and international terrorism. Having little experience with More...

2 comments like (1 person liked it)

Jan 18, 2012

Jim rated it:

The good: without exception, the principal characters in this one are extremely interesting and extremely likable, and they come with quite varied backgrounds. A Vietnam War dodger who is now a rich man due to the MMORPG world that he created. An adopted Eritrean daughter/niece who is both smart and as tough as nails. A couple of Russians with hearts of gold, one an enforcer and one a tech geek. A Chinese hacker. A Chinese girl thrust into the mix with no warning, but with the wherewithal to do More...

0 comments like

Jan 16, 2012

Tim rated it:

It’s always a good year when a Neal Stephenson novel appears. Three years ago he released Anathem, a book which created a believable alternate universe where philosophy coexisted with religion. Previoulsy, he’d amazed the world with his Baroque cycle of books, tracing the history of the enlightenment. I’ve been a fan of his since The Diamond Age, a book which kicked off the whole steam punk revolution.

Reamde is doorstopper of a book: it weighs in at more than 900 pages and focuses on More...

0 comments like (4 people liked it)

Jan 10, 2012

Michael rated it:

I love Neal Stephenson's novels. I've been reading his stuff since Zodiac. I've liked pretty much all of his books, and have loved quite a few. Snow Crash will forever be one of my all-time favorite books. Cryptonomicon is a masterpiece. Reamde isn't quite in that league, but it is very, very good. The book starts out at a family reunion, heads right into a massive World of Warcraft-like game and world. (Note: It is because of this book that I started playing WoW.) And then the entire focus of t More...

0 comments like

Jan 07, 2012

Gauss256 rated it:

I've really enjoyed Stephenson's other novels but heard enough about Reamde before reading it to not expect something in his usual mold. The reviews promised a great straightforward thriller and I would have been fine with that. In fact, I awaited with delicious anticipation the prospect of a great thriller by Neal Stephenson.

I was completely disappointed on all counts. Reamde is boring, way too long, the politics are distasteful, the characters are from stock B-grade templates, the More...

1 comment like

Jan 03, 2012

Julie rated it:

Upon recently reading my first Stephenson novel, Snow Crash, I was so struck by the originality and all-encompassing nature of it that I knew I had to read another by him as soon as possible. So when Reamde appeared on my audio book recommended list, I downloaded it immediately (narrator: Malcolm Hillgartner). My expectations were pretty high, and at the beginning I was a bit put off by the long passage describing a family reunion that centered around target practice with guns. But the main ch More...

0 comments like