I have been a fan of Neal Stephenson for a few years now. I guess it has been about three or four years since I stumbled across The Diamond Age and was hooked. Next I devoured his scifi classic Snow Crash, and continued on to other works (for my review of those two novels see this previous blog post). However I began to tire of the sheer length of his work. When I started reading The Diamond Age I almost gave up around page 50. A friend told me that I should read until page 100, and if I wasn’t into the plot by then I probably wouldn’t like Stephenson’s work. He was right, and the author does have a way of weaving a rather complex plot with interesting characters that can take a while to get off the ground. But starting with Quicksilver I ran into a situation where I found myself well past page 100 and still not into the story. Skipping the three book series that started with Quicksilver and tried again to dive back in with Anathem. I just couldn’t get into it, despite dedicating a lot of time to the book. It was with this history that I found myself facing yet another release by Stephenson. Could I handle Reamde, which clocks in at over 1000 pages? It wasn’t so much the length of the book that scared me, but that it would just be so slow that I wouldn’t be able to handle it.
I found Reamde much more accessible and engaging that Anathem. The book was set in a contemporary setting, more of an action/adventure novel than anything like science fiction. However, Neal Stephenson injected his usual band of interesting characters, multiple dovetailing plot lines, and deep dives into esoteric culture. I loved it.
The main character, an African refugee girl raised my middle-American parents in Iowa, working for her rich uncle’s gaming firm in Seattle, is typical Stephenson in her untypical nature. The author knows how to write a strong, young, female character and balances her part in the story well with her aging uncle, a former outlaw turned billionaire. The plot is equally unusual, and with the author’s writing style seems completely natural.
This is the longest book sitting on my Kindle right now, so if you can handle a long read I would recommend Reamde. It is always entertaining, often educational, and Neal Stephenson returning to what he does well.
