Skip (David) Everling’s Reviews > Reamde > Status Update

Decent as a contemporary action thriller with a terrorist plot but ultimately disappointing. Rather mediocre and easy-reading for Stephenson, lacking the depth and thoughtful themes that helped set apart his early techno thrillers like Snowcrash or Diamond Age. The "techno" part of this techno-thriller is barely more than a gimmick, dropping away to an afterthought as the story devolves into long action sequences.

Slowly returning to the mostly unexplained T'rain plot. Have to say I don't think Stephenson has the best understanding of MMO games though. Mostly it's fine, but occasionally he drops in things that strike me as far too complex, either in the game's underlying technology or in online social organization (e.g. a 3000 strong army of players), relative to the contemporary setting (squaring off against WoW).

Part 2 starts a little more than halfway through

Very long continuous focus on Xiamen scenario and the characters there, jumping around their concurrent timelines spanning only 3 days in plot time. Hasn't returned to Richard or T'rain game themes since the lengthy action scenes began.

Built up slowly, but getting going now. Themes are emerging, not just character exposition and plot progression