Review: REAMDE
Neal Stephenson‘s willingness to skip through time to tell his stories flaunts an authorial fearlessness. Snow Crash and The Diamond Age: or A Young Lady’s Illustrated Primer both envisioned possible futures, near and far, respectively. Anathem leapt even further into the future, in addition to occupying an entirely different dimension. Cryptonomicon explored a fictionalized history of the modern computer’s origin during the events of the World Wars; the multi-volume Baroque Cycle followed characters fictional and historical at the beginning of the 18th century. Zodiac, The Big U, and (portions of) Cryptonomicon all reside somewhere near our own time. The events of Reamde, a 2010 speculative fiction thriller centered around an abduction, occupy a very close future, a world in which T’Rain has replaced World of Warcraft as the dominant world-wide MMORPG (Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Game). The novel casts light on the lesser known facts about these games and their economies, illuminating the shadowy industry of “gold-farming.” Gold-farmers, almost entirely Chinese youth working in sweat shops, gather virtual goods and currency to sell to Westerners for real world cash. Most online gamers are familiar with the disruptions gold-farmers bring to the game, as well as the allure of obtaining in-game wealth for a fraction of the usual effort. However, in a book that seems written for Tom Clancy/Clive Cussler readers, explaining virtual economies threatens to derail the narrative. Can Neal Stephenson introduce a globe-spanning cast of dozens and maintain the excitement of a thriller, all while recounting a fictional history of an MMORPG that has the potential to unseat World of Warcraft from its throne?
Neal Stephenson’s writing always displays a sharp, dry wit. Reamde is no exception to this rule. Reamde won’t be mistaken for a comedy, but the moments of humor interspersed throughout the narrative help uplift otherwise hopeless situations. Combined with Stephenson’s knack for observation, this levity ensures a fast-paced and enjoyable read. The story travels from Seattle, WA to British Columbia to China, and the descriptions immediately ground the narrative in locations that feel lived in. However, the exegesis often feels like an abstract of the research Stephenson presumably did on location, instead of an exploration told from a character’s viewpoint; Neal Stephenson proves to be a smart and observant guy, so this isn’t necessarily a bad thing, just jarring. And for every instance where the thoughts don’t originate from their source, another scene’s rendering hits the mark, an excellent example being a lifetime soldier/mercenary’s analysis of a neighborhood’s structures in anticipation of urban combat. Few readers have this unique viewpoint, and the depth of Stephenson’s research shines in moments like these.
The novel follows the journey of Richard Forthrast, a draft-dodging, former drug-runner turned video game CEO, who operates a remote ski lodge near the US-Canada border, as he attempts to track down and rescue his adopted niece Zula, a geologist/programmer who inadvertently got dragged into danger. Along the way, the novel introduces an enormous cast of characters, including a Chinese hacker, a spunky Hakka tea saleswoman, a Hungarian hacker, an efficient mercenary with military experience from Spetsnaz, an American hacker, etc. Gun-toting Christian isolationists, MI6 and CIA operatives, and a pair of dueling fantasy authors round out the cast. The trouble starts when Ivanov, a menacing and possibly insane Russian mobster, kidnaps Zula, hoping to recover an immense fund of Russian mafia “retirement” money encrypted by a Chinese-originated computer virus. Events spiral out of control, until a strange turn of events replaces Ivanov with a quick-thinking al-Qaeda terrorist, Abdallah Jones. Zula ends up kidnappped twice! To say that this company of characters is unique would be an immense understatement. Almost all of these people are fully realized and believable. However, there are several missteps: introducing so many characters occasionally results in data dumps that interrupt the action; a twenty-one page biography dropped into the middle of a gunfight stands out as the most egregious offender. The assortment of characters feels cartoonish and larger-than-life. No one normal gets dragged into this spiraling catastrophe. Another complaint: the bizarre cliquishness of the protagonists, who all become seeming “BFFs” after a day or two of shared violent circumstances. And lastly, I couldn’t help but notice that language never interferes with this multinational troupe’s ability to speak with each other; could this be a remarkable coincidence, or attributable to the omnipresence of English?
Stephenson wrote Reamde as a thriller, and events churn along with the appropriate levels of tension, violence, and mystery. Until Reamde stops. The narrative, which for the majority of the novel captures the frightening dynamics of a kidnapper/hostage relationship, smashes headlong into a brick wall: a near two-hundred page gunfight across a remote mountainside, written in exacting (or excruciating) detail. While the opening half of Reamde refuses to let go of the reader, the second half devolves into maneuvering characters like chess pieces, so they can all arrive at the same location at the same time, making possible an O.K. Corral-style gunfight. The arrival of this many people, whether on foot; by bicycle, boat, or SUV; or by helicopter or plane; and so on, stretches the imagination. Individual scenes may develop plausibly, but a dozen remarkable coincidences stretch the imagination. Reamde frequently bogs down in lengthy expositions about the creation of the game world T’rain; these serve little purpose. Reamde’s younger readers have doubtless played online games for a good portion of their lives, and an explanation of a video game built around the mechanics of gold-farming and currency exchange provides no education. Other technological explorations, such as “war-driving,” wikis, and the uses of IP-address tracking, integrate smoothly with the action-oriented portions of the story. But the grim reality is that a thousand page novel, which nimbly steps across a dozen characters and several countries, finds itself stuck in a tedious gunfight, which can only have one obvious outcome: the bad guys die.
Reamde transitions gracefully from thread to thread, never losing sight of the novel’s destination, but the action stumbles in its final steps; as the encroaching sense of mortal danger and helplessness fades, the narrative becomes more occupied with arranging romantic pairings amongst the protagonists than concluding well. Without spoiling too much of the ending moments, all of the protagonists end up in a protracted gunfight with Islamic jihadists, some of whom have had real combat experience in battlegrounds like Pakistan and Afghanistan. That Stephenson could arrange for an organized and well-armed group of combatants to soundly lose to a jumbled handful of (mostly) civilians ably demonstrates his meticulous story-boarding abilities, but also proves to be Reamde’s undoing. Flimsy coincidences abound throughout the entire story, and the story spends more time arranging the next fluke than exploring troubling implications. At a Q-and-A session during the book’s publicity tour, Stephenson wondered about the moral ramifications of buying virtual property whose “farmers” might be imprisoned in third-world jails, working against their will; in other words, buying 100 units of in-game currency, which seems like a victimless crime, could be supporting real-world slavery, no laughing matter. But this fascinating moral dilemma never gets mentioned during Reamde’s stuttering plot. Instead, we can only wonder about a novel that might have better explored the unanticipated consequences of globe-spanning virtual economies. However, Neal Stephenson has again demonstrated his knack for careful research and plotting; while Reamde can’t compare to his greater works, this technology-based thriller still delivers as a vivid and meticulously planned page-turner, visiting myriad surprising destinations along the path to its climactic engagement.
Plot: 6
Characters: 8
Action: 7
Writing: 8
Overall (not an average): 7/10
Edition reviewed: Reamde
* Hardcover, 1056 pages
* Publisher: William Morrow (September 20, 2011)
* Language: English
* ISBN-10: 0061977969
* ISBN-13: 978-0061977961